Nosferatu

I watched:

Nosferatu (2024),

by Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse).

This is a remake of the 1922 Nosferatu, which in turn is a ripoff of Dracula. That's why the major story beats are more or less identical to Dracula.

Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), newly married to Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is sent by his boss, the sinister estate agent Knock to Romania to finalize the purchase of an estate. He visits Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), our titular vampire, and has a very bad time. Meanwhile, Ellen who is staying with friends, suffers worse and worse seizures and walks in her sleep. Turns out she has a sinister connection to Orlok, and just like in Dracula, he is coming for her. Thomas has to fight to save his wife together with Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson) and scientist turned alchemist, Professor von Franz (Willem Dafoe).

First off, Nosferatu looks incredible. Every shot, every scene is a Gothic painting come to life. A grim fairy-tale full of horror and suffering. I sound melodramatic, I know, but this movie genuinely looks amazing. So amazing in fact that it almost becomes distracting. I suppose the sound is good, but I actually can't recall it, that is how mesmerizing this movie is. Count Orlok's caste is in fact Castle Hunedoara, where the real Vlad Dracul spent some time.

The actors are likewise fantastic, especially Hoult and Depp, who in case you didn't guess is the daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. Both portray terror and despair incredibly well, and the scenes where Ellen has her hideous seizures were not shot with a body double, Depp really did them herself. Strong stuff. It is worth noting that there is a bit of overacting in this movie, and I wonder if it is a homage to the original, since early movies were incredibly over acted.

The titular character deserves a separate mention. Count Orlok is played by Bill Skarsgård, the same man who also played Pennywise the clown. He again goes above and beyond to be terrifying, succeeding so well that several cast members wanted nothing to do with him while in makeup. A makeup that took 4-6 hours for 6 artists to apply. He also worked with an opera trainer to lower his voice an octave, which Gary Oldman also did for Bram Stokers' Dracula.

One can't watch a remake without comparing it to the original, so lets do that. A hard comparison though since Nosferatu 1922 is a silent movie shot in black and white, while Nosferatu 2024 is in color. Pale colors, this is an Eggers movie after all, but color nonetheless. Eggers has added a few scenes while omitting others, but nothing that harms the movie in any way. The most noticeable change is Orlok himself. In the 22 version Orlok is a thin, emaciated and rodent like figure, very creepy, sinister and unsettling, whereas the 24 Orlok is massive, intimidating and brutal. The 24 version is also somewhat decayed and rotten, and sports a large drooping mustache. Eggers wanted him to look like a eastern European aristocrat which is something the 22 version does not do. Skarsgård stands 6'3 normally and in makeup he was a towering 7+ feet, making him even more menacing. Orlok also seems to have difficulty breathing, which is so labored and rattling that Darth Vader sounds healthy in comparison. This detail puzzled me until I realized that as a vampire he doesn't normally breathe and so he has to force air into his decayed lungs in order to talk. Awesome detail.

My biggest gripe with Nosferatu 24 is the pacing and storytelling, which sadly is a bit choppy. Several scenes feel like they forgot them and forced them into the only spot they could go. I of course have no idea of what Eggers wanted, he might have wanted to make the experience more jarring and thus more unsettling, but several times I got annoyed at the flow being interrupted by a new scene popping up. I'll give a small example. At one point the movie cuts to von Franz opening an occult book at a random page, flipping forward a few pages and immediately finding the key to defeating Orlok, complete with illustration. Then the scene ends and cuts to something else. Jarring!

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, absolutely. The visuals alone make it worth watching and it holds so much more. Nosferatu 2024 is the least sexy vampire movie I have ever seen, and I like it. If you have any interest in vampires or Gothic media, then do watch Nosferatu 2024.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

The First Vampire of Cinema

On March 4^th 1922, F.W. Murnau released Nosferatu, and now it is one hundred years old. So, I decided to re-watch it.

I originally saw it in the 90's, and had a somewhat favorable opinion of it. I thought it was okay, and with that in mind I sat down and gave it a good watch. What do I think of it now? It is still okay.

Fair warning, this movie is now over 100 years old so damn the spoilers. I can actually link the entire movie below, so if you want to you can watch is first and read this later.

First off, it is a silent movie. All the dialogue is text cards and all the sound is a soundtrack. In this case it is a bombastic and upbeat German classical music soundtrack. Secondly, all the body language is very over done. This is just how it was, take it or leave it. Thirdly, it is essentially a rip off of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Murnau changed some things around as he did not have permission from Stoker's estate to make Dracula into a movie. Thus it takes place in Germany and Transylvania, not England and Transylvania. The main character is Hutter not Harker. Mina is called Ellen and instead of Professor van Helsing, there are Professors Bulwer and Sievers. Neither of the learned men do anything worthwhile in any case. The biggest change in character is that Renfield is missing and instead we get Knock who is Hutter's boss, but he is the one who goes mad and is locked up in an asylum ranting about the Master. Also, Knock is one of the most sinister looking dudes I have ever seen.

Finally we have the vampire. Elegant and sophisticated Dracula is changed to the creepy, rodent like Count Orlok. Orlok is tall and painfully thin. His ears are long and pointed, his nose long and crooked and his fangs are not incisors, they are located in the middle of his mouth. Imagine long rat teeth but needle sharp instead of square. He is one creepy dude.

Overall, the plot is the same as Dracula. Hutter goes to the Count's castle for a real estate deal and ultimately has to escape. By the way, Orlok, unlike Dracula has no sexy wives floating about, there is no one but the vampire himself. In the mean time, Orlok sails away and arrives in Hutter's home town Wisbourg, where he bought a house. There the final confrontation takes place (sort of), instead of a chase back to Transylvania. The end.

Overall, Nosferatu is a good movie, but it is unbalanced by some scenes that should have been longer and some scenes that make little sense to move the plot forward. We follow Hutter as he enjoys the sunlight at Castle Orlok and writes a letter to his wife, Ellen. Long scenes follow Ellen as she pines for her husband and suffers mentally through some kind of psychic connection with him. This does little to move the plot along. There are also scenes that I assume are meant to show the vampire's supernatural powers so they are shot in high speed, but sadly it just looks silly now. Finally the score is incredibly uneven. There are scenes, especially in the beginning when everything is happy and positive where the almost pompous music makes sense, but when Orlok has butchered an entire ships crew and the so called “Death Ship” floats into town, the same music sounds ridiculous.

Finally Orlok himself is a study in contrast. At times he is actually comedic, and at times he is one of, if not the creepiest vampire in film history. It's just that you don't know which Orlok you are getting from scene to scene. Overall he is cadaverous, stiff like he is suffering from rigor mortis and completely animalistic. There is nothing charming or seductive about him. He is a walking corpse hunting for blood. Your blood.

So do I recommend this movie? Every serious horror fan owes it to themselves to see this movie. Casual horror fans might want to skip it, but I urge you to try. I'll link it below.

 

 

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great and safe week! 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCT1YUtNOA8&ab_channel=BestClassics