Clickonline writes: "By side-stepping the elements which bring drama to most vampire movies (ie – the TERRIBLE SECRET!) Jarmusch is just able to get on with the fun stuff – mainly the incredibly perfect casting of the ethereal Tilda Swinton and a terrifically jaded and frustrated performance by Tom Hiddleston."
Samantha Garrison from Film Takeout writes:
"There have been a handful of chick flicks made by some of my favorite directors, and I think it’s important to take a look at them on their own merits, as well as, of course, delving into the horror of it all. This week, we’re taking a quick look at four films by four of our most well-regarded directors: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, and Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More."
Vampires have been done to death, at least as far as their exploits at the cinema are concerned. But just when you think that movies like Vampire Academy and the Twilight franchise have driven a stake through the myth of the modern succubus, along comes a film like writer/director Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive. Hauntingly atmospheric, darkly funny and gothically romantic, it's a modern take on the age-old vampire archetype — or rather, it takes on age-old vampire archetypes living in the modern world — with a sharp wit and an even sharper set of fangs.
In an age when vampires have been robbed of their dignity by teeny-bopper romance, a savior for the bloodsuckers has arrived in an unlikely source. Director Jim Jarmusch is best known for his black and white deadpan art comedies starring the likes of Tom Waits and Bill Murray, but every now and then the proto-hipster with bright white hair dips his toes into genre filmmaking and completely reinvents it as his own. This time the man has made a vampire movie with Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, and reclaimed the Goth staple for adult audiences.
