Movie Reviews: Nosferatwo More

In the past two years, two remakes (or perhaps reimaginings) of F. W. Murnau's class Nosferatu have been made. I reviewed Murnau's version and Werner Herzog's 1970s remake. I found out about the first remake thanks to Hypnogoria Podcast #280. Here's reviews of the 2020s remakes...

Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror (2023) directed by David Lee Fisher

This movie follows the same plot as Murnau's original, with Hutter (Emrhys Cooper) being sent to Transylvania to get the paperwork in order with Count Orlok (Doug Jones) to buy the abandoned building across from Hutter's Wisborn home. The movie retains the characters, plot beats, and even most of the backgrounds. The movie digitally copies sets from the 1922 version and places the actors onto them via green-screen. Some scenes are added or expanded to include more information and characterizations.

The visual style is a bit odd. It reminded me of Sin City, with the fake-looking backgrounds as if the characters did not really inhabit the world being presented. This use, which could have amped up the surreality of the story, only looks cheap. Just as I would get used to it, a scene would look poorly done, throwing me back into mild disrespect. Sure, the original movie's effects are antiquated but they still give an odd aura to the proceedings that works with the performances and the overall style, part of German Expressionism. 

Also, this new version has almost no scenes with more than two to four characters in them, which becomes very obvious in the tavern scene before Hutter goes to Orlok's castle. It's another instance where the film seems extremely low budget. Jones is good as Orlok but Cooper as Hutter can't quite strike the right balance with his character. His crazy employer Knock (Eddie Allen) is so over the top he feels like he's supposed to be in a different version of the film, not this one. 

The added scenes and dialogue don't help a lot either. Too much stuff is explained rather than shown, or a character explains what he or she just did. The filmmakers spend a lot on the unfulfilled nature of Hutter's marriage to Ellen (Sarah Carter), who has a mystical link to what is going on. That link is unexplained in the 1922 version but here everything is laid out for the viewer, making it less spooky and threatening. Hutter's dubious choices come off as really dumb, especially when he sleeps with the tavern maid. He comes around to the sincerity of the first film by the end, when it is too late for their marriage. The scripting could have been stronger. Also, Cooper and Carter don't have the chemistry needed and do not give convincing performances (though she is better than he is).

This movie does not have a lot to recommend it. Doug Jones is good in the Orlok role and his makeup is excellent. The marital tension is interesting but not well developed enough. The style is so eclectic, a viewer needs to be very sympathetic to buy into it. I ran out of sympathy (I didn't really like Sin City either, though that was more about the content than the style).

Not recommended.

Nosferatu (2024) written and directed by Robert Eggers

This movie also follows the same plot as Murnau's original, with Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) being sent to Transylvania to get the paperwork in order with Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) to buy an abandoned building in Wisborn. Eggers' previous films show a lot of attention to detail along with interesting, period dialogue that feels authentic to the time of the film's action. He generally gets great performances from his cast. 

The movie diverges in the introduction, showing Hutter's wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) having a seizure while communicating with a disembodied voice that's not speaking English. The scene sets the tone for the horror to come. Ellen has a much deeper and longer connection to Orlok in this film. She's also found some relief from that connection in meeting and marrying Hutter. She has more control over herself and nightmares are less. When he says he has to leave town for his career and their happiness, she does not want him to go. He insists, putting her in the care of their friend Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who is married with two daughters and another child on the way. Ellen has her usual trouble at the friends' place while Hutter is tormented by Orlok. Hutter's pre-castle visit to an inn is dominated by a gypsy group outside the inn, with its strange performances and odd behavior. He has a dream (or did it really happen?) of the locals offering a naked woman to a vampire's grave, though they dig up the coffin and impale the corpse. When asking Orlok about it, the count dismisses it as superstitious nonsense, though confirming in a way that it did happen. 

When the action returns to Wisborn, the plague breaks out and Knock is blamed, though Ellen and Hutter blame Orlok. Orlok threatens to kill all of Ellen's beloved if she does not consent to be with him in the next three days. Three days of agony and death ensue. On the third day, Hutter is finally able to convince some guys to go to Orlok's abandoned building to destroy the vampire while Ellen invites Orlok to their home so she can trick him into staying until after "cock crows."

The movie is very stylized in a different way from the original's German Expressionism. Eggers delves into the grittiness of early 1800s Germany, with a lot of bleakness and hardship. Night scenes often look black and white, a nod to the original. Eggers is also a lot more graphic, with some very bloody moments and more nudity and sex than in other Nosferatus. Skarsgard is great vocally as the vampire. Visually, he is mostly in shadows and hard to see till the end of the film. He's ugly but doesn't have the stark appearance of Shreck or other Orlok performances. His mustache is an odd choice that makes him less believable. 

Eggers is good at crafting an uncomfortable tone but the movie does not horrify enough. The relationship between Ellen and Orlok is underdeveloped and not quite convincing, even though it is central to the plot for this film. Eggers throws in some blood and mayhem to compensate. Those scenes feel more like add-ons than necessary to the story. I anitcipated a lot of the deaths in Wisborn before they came so they were less traumatizing. Overall, the movie was not satisfying enough for me.

Barely recommended.

So, if I had to rewatch one of these, I guess I'd go with Eggers, though I would rather re-watch the earlier movies.

Movie Review: The Northman (2022)

The Northman (2022) co-written and directed by Robert Eggers

In an early medieval Viking kingdom, King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) returns from plundering to his wife Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) and their son Amleth (Oscar Novak). The celebration goes well, in typical Viking fashion. The next day, Aurvandil takes his son to prepare him for his future as a leader through a mystic underground ceremony. As they leave, Aurvandil is attacked by his brother Fjolnir (Claes Bang), who kills him, takes his wife, and tries to kill the boy. The child flees to the sea where he rows himself out, chanting that he will avenge his father, free his mother, and kill his uncle. The story jumps ahead to an adult Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) who is a low level Viking warrior for another clan. They go on several raids. He's eventually captured and taken to Iceland and put into service as a slave...on his uncle's sheep farm! Uncle Fjolnir lost the family kingdom and fled with Gundrun. Amleth has a chance to enact his revenge but he must do it in the Viking way.

The movie captures the cultural life of Vikings from the tenth century. They strive for historically accurate costumes, customs, and buildings while incorporating Viking mythology and their fatalistic morality. The blend works surprisingly well, though director Eggers has had plenty of practice in his other films (like The VVitch and The Lighthouse) transporting viewers to very different times and places. This movie rips off the plot to Shakespeare's Hamlet but is much more brutal and fatalistic. The characters talk about their fates and how they can't avoid them. Amleth is so tied to killing his uncle at a burning lake (he had a vision) that he cannot draw his sword on Fjolnir before the appointed time--it won't even come out of the scabbard! There's plenty of other blood-soaked mayhem as the story proceeds. The attention to detail is shared by the production and the actors, who give very believable performances. Watching the film feels like jumping into the Viking world. I found it very fascinating even though the characters were not quite as sympathetic as I would have liked. The movie is both impressively grounded and amazingly surreal. I liked this better than The Lighthouse but I still think The VVitch is my favorite film by Eggers so far.

Recommended.

 

Movie Review: The Lighthouse (2019)

The Lighthouse (2019) co-written and directed by Robert Eggers

An old salt of a seaman (Willem Dafoe) and a young wanderer (Robert Pattinson) are left for a month to tend a lighthouse on a remote island. The old salt vacillates between a domineering Ahab and a sympathetic father figure. The young wanderer is a bit frustrated and withdrawn. Both have their secrets and the audience initially sympathizes with the young man, especially when weird things start happening. Seagulls provide the young man with problems; the old salt warns him not to harm a seabird or else disaster may strike. In a moment of anger, the young man kills a gull. A storm blows in just before they are to be picked up and returned to civilization. By this point, the young man's sanity is slipping and he has a hard time telling what's real and what's wrong. He is clearly going mad; it's unclear whether the old salt is also going mad or has been mad the whole time or is something else entirely.

The film is shot in black and white with a 1:1.19 aspect ratio, making the image almost square. The lighting is very evocative, pulling out details in their faces and eyes and making light sources flare eerily. The look is visual impressive and distinct. The score is fairly low-key except for certain moments; other sounds, like an omnipresent fog horn, give the movie a lot of atmosphere. The dialogue is also unique, with language mimicking Herman Melville and other 1800s New England patter. Dafoe is especially good at delivering long speeches in the old language and he looks the part of a salty old seaman.

The descent into madness starts gradually and picks up as the movie progresses. Both characters start losing track of reality, making it difficult (though not always impossible) for viewers to know what is real and what is imagined/dreamed/hallucinated. It's as if the filmmakers want the viewers to share the characters' experience of going mad. For me, it went on too long--I lost my sympathy for both characters and was hoping for the movie to end ten minutes before it did. As a depiction of going mad, it does the job a little too well.

Eggers is the same writer/director of The Witch, which has a similar attention to period detail and dialogue, along with a distinct visual style. In The Lighthouse, everything is turned up to eleven. If you liked The Witch, this is even more so. If you thought The Witch was overdoing it, this is even more overdone.

Not recommended--I did rewatch The Witch once, but I am not going to rewatch this.

Movie Review: The Witch (2015)

The Witch (2015) written and directed by Robert Eggers

William and his family (wife Katherine, teenage daughter Thomasin, a few years younger son Caleb, six-year old twins Mercy and Jonas, and a new-born baby) are kicked out of their 17th century New England Puritan village. The mayor implies that they have gone against the local civic and church laws; William protests that he has only preached the true faith of the gospels. The village has none of it, accusing him of prideful conceit. William is glad to leave. Everyone else in the family seems a bit reluctant.

The family makes a new farm near a sinister woodland. Thomasin takes the baby out near the woods and plays a game of peek-a-boo with him. She opens her eyes one time and the baby is gone! A quick search of the area reveals nothing, though viewers see a woman with the baby who takes the child to her hovel and does unspeakable things.

Meanwhile, the family has settled on the idea that a wolf took the baby. The mother is very distressed. She constantly prays. She also lashes out at Thomasin. While Thomasin is washing clothes at the brook, the twins come and accuse her of being a witch. She plays along in a nasty way, mostly to frighten the twins. Caleb is there and doesn't understand why she says those horrible things. Thomasin has had a hard time adjusting to life in isolation. The situation spirals further out of control from there as lies, misunderstandings, and deceptions wreck havoc with the family.

The movie is tonally very much like The Wicker Man (the one from the 1970s, I mean). It takes paganism very seriously and doesn't soften up anything. William's family goes through a psychological collapse that is made all the more harrowing because of the supernatural forces at work against them. The family's faith is little to no help for them--no divine intervention comes to save them and their focus on their own sinfulness brings about mistrust and violence, not reconciliation and redemption. Maybe the mayor was right after all?

The depiction of 17th century New England is meticulous. The sets and costumes look authentic. The dialogue sounds like the times--lots of archaic words and sentence structure. The speech is still easy to understand since the actors deliver it in a natural way. The performances are uniformly great. The movie is very convincing.

It is also very brutal. The movie is subtitled "A New-England Folktale," not in a Disneyfied sense but like the Grimms Fairy Tales that are a lot bleaker and more violent. This particular tale has a very unhappy ending, making it a tough watch all around. I found the very ending a bit disappointing but I understand what the filmmakers were going for. While I see fine qualities in the film and find it very engaging, I am not sure who I would recommend it to. If you are a fan of the original Wicker Man, this movie will be right for you.

Naturally, the good folks at A Good Story is Hard to Find have the courage to watch this movie and have given their comments here.