Robert Eggers's Nosferatu remake

As I've muttered elsewhere, a side benefit of seeing the kinda choppy/strange Bikeriders this weekend is that the trailer for Nosferatu ran in front of it, as it's only running that way (officially) for this weekend. Unsurprisingly looked pretty great! So, might as well kick off a thread for it...

This might prove to have wide popular appeal, but I don't see how anyone anyone can improve on Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

I really loved The Witch and The Lighthouse, they are two of my all-time favorite films, but The Northman was a big disappointment to me, it was too comic-book bombastic.

This sounds like a good fit for him and maybe it will be great, but I'm now suspicious of the direction he's turning in

And here we go with the trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b59rxDB_JRg

i'm not hostile to sequels or remakes so the idea of it "improving upon" the other incarnations doesn't really factor in for me at all. this is probably gonna look and atmospherically feel so badass imo, perfect meeting of director and material/mise-en-scène

i loved the northman tho, impossible for me to resist hallucinatory dicks-out viking hamlet

i read a long new york profile of eggers that suggested the northman suffered from a lot of studio interference, not that i could necessarily see it in the final product. but it made me admire eggers' method all the more

yeah I know some here were sour on NOrthman but that shit was my wheelhouse.

looking forward to this and tricking mom into seeing this on Christmas

"It's about a savior who has arrived to release us all from our lives of misery."

"That sounds nice!"

also no one makes vampire movies anymore. i’ve been starving (for blood)

was actually surprised at the number of mainstream Dracula-affiliated films last year, regardless of the quality of them

i guess there was renfield (terrible) and last voyage of the demeter (boring, except for the dope winged and desiccated dracula design)

those were the two I was thinking of.

Abigail was middling vampire fare. Better than Renfield, anyway.

I loved Abigail

I want to see Abigail and Last Voyage of the Demeter, but I'm not sure about this movie given that we already have Nosferatu, Herzog's Nosferatu, and Shadow of the Vampire, all of which rule. Plus, I'm kind of lukewarm on Eggers in general: loved The VVitch, skipped The Lighthouse because I don't like Robert Pattinson, and thought The Northman was...not great. Right now this looks to me like, what if Coppola's Dracula was neither funny nor fun?

Your last point definitely comes to mind; this film feels a little more in conversation with that than the other Nosferatus.

The Murnau film is one of my forever favorites so I’m intrigued. Especially after poring over this trailer shot by shot. Dome cool stuff in there ( Harker surrounded by nuns(?), an ornate stone coffin…)
There’s the classic “Nosferatu in the castle hallway” shot but this time he’s got two wolves (!!) at his side. And another cool, quick shot of the vampire biting someone aboard the ship. Coppola feel is certainly there but I think this may be a fun take.

*Some cool shots

We don't see Orlok's dome clearly enough, unfortunately

Da-dome!

I like a lot about The Northman, especially the cinematography and the complex way that many of the scenes were filmed.

There are some classic vampire films, including Louis Feuillade's classic silent film serial Les Vampires (1915–16), which was remade into the comedy-drama Irma Vep by Olivier Assayas starring Maggie Cheung in 1996, and then into a great miniseries by him starring Alicia Vikander in 2022.

Also, Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932) was an astonishing film

Hate ro be a pedant but there were no vampires in the Feuillade.

i feel like the things that didnt work for me about The Lighthouse (all vibes, no story) could be strengths in a Nosferatu remake, optimistic about this

Hate ro be a pedant but there were no vampires in the Feuillade.

― completely suited to the horny decadence (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, June 25, 2024 3:05 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Fine degrees of pedantry: Les Vampires are a gang of criminals, but they use vampire imagery to further scare the public.

For my part I wait to see if Eggers includes anything like the night Hutter arrives at Orlok's place (Orlok was totally hitting on him!).

Slightly disappointed that this is still basically Dracula, I always felt Orlok deserved his own stories.

Orlok and the Chamber of Secrets wait hold on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nulvWqYUM8k

lets fucking go :D

Also, Guillermo Del Toro wrapped shooting on his "Frankenstein." And Leigh Whannell has a "Wolf Man" coming out next year. The Dark Universe(tm) is alive!!!!

hell yes to all of that

trailer is pretty ambiguous, but I'm down to give it a shot

I emailed a radio 'year-end movie roundup' program about why The Northman didn't succeed despite its impeccable direction, and the critic opined that the weird/toxic dude energy of the film was maybe not reflecting the cultural moment of its release date

The trailer is giving very straight (non-epistolary) adaptation of the novel vibes. Also a few echoes of Coppola's.

Funny timing in that regard.

Murnau’s Nosferatu movie was also an unofficial adaptation of the novel iirc (so much so that Stoker’s wife sued!)

In related happy news, Alamo's 1979 screening series for September/October means I'll get a chance to see Herzog's version on a big screen in a couple of Saturdays.

The Dark Universe(tm) is alive!!!!

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, October 1, 2024 12:41 AM (seventeen hours ago)

I thought you were joking but I can only see the new Wolfman listed as a part of that. Frankenstein seems to be made for Netflix.

This whole dark universe thing sounds bad and I don't think the crossovers worked that well in the black and white era of Universal. Didn't Del Toro leave previous attempts to do things like this?

This whole dark universe thing sounds bad and I don't think the crossovers worked that well in the black and white era of Universal.

Well, of course it would be much better if we had a modern-day Abbott and Costello to "meet" these new monsters.

Harold & Kumar meet Frankenstein, Key & Peele meet Dracula, Tim & Eric meet Wolfman

Why not cgi Abbott & Costello?

20 years ago a Keenan & Kel Meet Dracula movie would have ruled.

Eric Andre meets the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Eric Andre *as* the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Eric Andre fucks the Creature from the Black Lagoon

…

RANCH IT UP

It's long.

hearing good things about this from people who are easily pleased

hearing good things about this from people who are easily pleased

There's a critic who seems to be personally a good dude, and who has been through some hardships in life which make me want to go easy on him, but he writes like he likes everything he reviews so much that frankly I think he should change his first name from Matt to Mark.

i'm all for not bothering to criticize things i don't care about nowadays, this is a bit of a drunky blip, but maybe your responsibilities as a professional critic are different?

It's 2 hours and 12 minutes, no? That doesn't sound too bad. An hour longer than Murnau, sure, but half an hour shorter than "Wicked"! And about the same length as Coppola's Dracula.

It's about vampires.

What is vampirism if not the constant struggle with the prospect of eternity?

i feel much the same about genre movies in 2024

It borrows generously from The Exorcist and Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'll give Eggers credit for re-imagining the vampyr's appearance.

I'm trying to think of the last movie I saw where my takeaway was "too short!"

Caligula

I wish Funny Pages was a lot longer

The original Nosferatu borrows heavily from Stoker just as fact - imo that element should be treated as baked-in, since Nosferatu started it’s life as a very artful
Dracula ripoff

The original Nosferatu borrows heavily from Stoker just as fact - imo that element should be treated as baked-in, since Nosferatu started it’s life as a very artful Dracula ripoff

Alfred's talking specifically about the Coppola movie Bram Stoker's Dracula, which would make this of interest to me — I own BSD on Blu-Ray and love it — if I thought Eggers had a fraction of Coppola's visual imagination or his sense of humor. But where Coppola used silent-film-era special effects techniques because he takes joy in the craft of filmmaking, Eggers does everything with one eye on the judging panel: "Look how hard I'm working!" It's the same self-conscious strenuousness that underpinned Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint pieces, where he used to have to rappel up the side of the Guggenheim to scratch out a few lines on a piece of paper he'd stapled to the wall, or whatever. The effort was the point, not the quality of the result.

i feel like Eggers is at least a technical craft guy, i enjoy the level of affect in his movies, tho imo the sound design beats the visuals. i just think there's nothing to get into beyond that, they're empty, but so is Coppola mostly?

I can tell you, Dafoe, who once played the actor playing Nosferatu, owns this thing with his hamminess.

So this movie's fine, Eggers' best. I was taking the piss out of it b/c he's entered Radiohead/Christopher Nolan bro-land where the dullest cineastes, always dudes, look forward to him.

Are you all getting special fancy film critic previews of this or something? I thought this didn’t come out until x-mas.

Hey I saw The Brutalist last night, anything is possible.

the dullest cineastes, always dudes, look forward to him

*remembers starting thread* hey wait

That's definitely not the fans I've seen

Yes, a screener link many xxxposts

i love eggers

*remembers starting thread* hey wait

― Ned Raggett,

ha, I didn't even notice!

ivy, this one's full to bursting with Eggersisms.

I'm trying to think of the last movie I saw where my takeaway was "too short!"

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 4, 2024 5:10 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I've been getting into 1950s b-cinema lately - mad scientists, juvenile delinquency, hot rods, etc. - and one of the most joyful things about it is sometimes the movies are like 70 minutes long.

I watched Pumpkinhead last night. 85 minutes and done. Perfect. (Glorious film too, obviously.)

people are so fucking tedious about runtimes

i like long movies, i like short movies

a slasher should probably be 90 minutes, this is part of its nature

a opulent stylized vampire movie, especially one that's basically dracula, can totally be 2-plus hours

also to continue belaboring an earlier point, the most ardent fans of the vvitch and the lighthouse that i've met? women

people are so fucking tedious about runtimes

i like long movies, i like short movies

― ivy., Thursday, December 5, 2024

nah, it's just and necessary to bitch about them. COVID seems to have killed editors and editing. When an exception comes along I feel it. A Real Pain clocked in at 89 minutes and I wept with gratitude.

I could easily watch 10 more hours of The Turin Horse and The Beast, however.

i really am not experiencing this inundation of long movies

also i deliberately go into movies not knowing how long they are. often the movie will tell me if it's too long or not (conclave *felt* like 80 minutes, it's two hours)

also i deliberately go into movies not knowing how long they are.

You are not paying attention to the right critics

https://i.ibb.co/JQ61BFY/E5-BO8u-VEAAg-DN0.jpg

Agree about Conclave.

Often which screening link I open first will depend on which is shorter -- if I don't have strong "I can't wait!" vibes about the director, cast, title, etc.

I think the difference is I watch many of these things at home; maybe the last 40 minutes of Anora would've been endurable in a theater instead of on my sofa (I watched Conclave in a theater).

Anyway, Nosferatu was good! Eggers' best. Rats have rarely looked this terrifying.

i only watch new movies in theaters!!!! i recommend it

re: the tangent about movie length, one of my coworker's friends was at a screening of a new Indian movie yesterday afternoon and one guy in the conversation was asking how long it was, which inevitably was three hours. I joked that India has not figured out how to make shorter movies, which I knew would set off my other coworker to air out his pet peeve: "They'd be a half hour shorter if they just cut out all the song and dance parts!"

Agh, but you live in NYC, ivy. Sometimes the only way to watch certain international films is through link.

movies are some of the only times I get to be 'alone' these days so sometimes I like a longer movie for that reason, heh.

I like knowing how long a movie is, not just for practical reasons, but because I pay attention to pace and rhythm and stuff as much as any other technical aspect. A really well made film, pretty much by definition, shouldn't feel particularly long *or* short, it should just feel right. I'm really impressed by movies with no fat, or tons of fat that nonetheless flow efficiently or keep my attention. Mise-en-scène meets mise en place.

I do really like to know how long a book is before I start it, though, especially in the age of ebooks. The number of times I'm just chugging away at something before I realize the book is, like, 800 pages long, or nearing what feels like the end with supposedly 33% percent left before I realize that 30% or so is notes.

COVID seems to have killed editors and editing.

Tell me about it. I had a career before COVID.

But I digress. I'm very much looking forward to immersing in this Eggy Nosferatu.

I saw Conclave at a morning matinee with a theater full of octonagarian women and it was like seeing Wicked in a theater full of theater nerds it was awesome

I mean, after I saw the trailer I told my mom -- who just turned 80 last week -- that this was so very her. (Hasn't had a chance to see it yet but I have zero doubt I'll hear a LOT about it when she does.)

We really have got to get my mom and yours together with a glass of wine each.

Well, this was...pretty confused.

I saw it tonight and really liked it -- better script, performances, and art direction than the Herzog version (which I also like). Extra points for the vampire looking putrescent rather than glamorous.

This made me appreciate Coppola's Dracula even more. He has such a deep bag of tricks, nearly every sequence gives you something new. Eggers has three or four ideas, and after the first twenty minutes--maybe after the first two minutes--he's used them all.

It felt like roughly half the runtime consisted of some character moving slowly, breathing loudly, and looking stricken, with creepy music blaring underneath. Another big chunk is taken up with dream sequences, all ending in a jump scare and a cut to the dreaming character starting awake. I think Ellen goes into a trance about seventeen times.

Extra points for the vampire looking putrescent rather than glamorous.

I saw the opposite opinion to this on BlueSky and it really stuck with me. Vampires should either be properly frightening or sexy. To have one who is just repellent is missing the point of vampires.

I've promised my friend I'll go and see this with her, so I guess I'll see where I land on this thorny question.

I Found him sexy-frightening imo.

The best kind of sexy. Or frightening.

This is good news.

Going to see Eggers movies with my son seems to have become a thing for us, off to see this one next Friday despite my kvetching

Eggers' version recycles the basic characters and scenes from the Herzog film, which were already a small subset of the characters and scenes in Dracula, so its interest to many viewers will lie in the ways he shifts or deepens very familiar situations.

Coppola's and many other versions rely on the corny non-Stoker idea of the Mina Harker / Ellen Hutter character being Dracula's reincarnated lover; Eggers does something darker and more faithful to the sexual politics of 1838 and in the process makes Ellen a more challenging character.

That the film's apparently a hit is impressive

Yeah I'll be seeing this on one of my days off back in London before Xmas.

Not sure what to expect really but prob be with a trip to the cinema and a succulent Chinese meal afterwards.

I think of all his movies this is the one that makes it clearest that Eggers’ interest in the occult is quite earnest

I enjoyed the occult angle very much as well as Depp's performance. The stuff with the gypsies and in the castle came closest to projecting the same sense of dread as the Murnau but it kind of petered out for me after this. Gorgeous film, though.

I liked this too, but boy I could not get onboard with Nosferatu’s mustache. He looked like a cranky police chief.

I thought he looked like a West Village gay man from the '70s.

otm that too

this was absolutely fucking awesome

perfectly paced, languorous

I disagree re: the pacing, more plodding than languorous for me. The whole sequence of Hoult leaving the village and traveling to the castle was mesmerizing though, peak cinema

idk i kinda felt like the whole movie occurred at the speed of a fog slowly unveiling things. thought it was right for the movie and right for me!!!!

also i found the whole thing very metal

I liked this a lot. It was comfortably familiar and bracingly new at the same time.

I can certainly relate to anyone who finds it draggy, but the pacing worked for me too. As a story Nosferatu is not exactly thick with incident, there's a reason Murnau called it "A Symphony of Horror". Its best approached as an extended mood piece & image book. A tight 88-minute version of this would have felt pointless imo.

Alfred you got me thinking about a bleak midwinter rewatch of The Turin Horse now, feels like the perfect chaser to this

And so I have feratued. I did like it but I'm not fully on board with the 'no you see THIS is the Ellen/Orlok connection this time,' if only because it seemed to be trying a lot of things at once that ended up muddling her agency. Still, even if it's not Coppola's take I'm actually glad it's very intentionally not TRYING to be him visually or shot-wise.

Found it kinda boring, tbh! I have liked Eggers' other films, but am not familiar with previous Nosferatu films (and haven't seen the Coppola Dracula since 1992) and just couldn't connect with the story. Some great visuals and production design, tho.

I saw this on Christmas and my main takeaways are:
* Herzog's version still my favorite on account of gorgeous Popol Vuh soundtrack and real rats plus Isabelle Adjani and her beauuuuutiful face and costumes
* I liked that the wampyr was large and imposing vs sniveling and vaguely pathetic like the Murnau/Herzog rat tooth wampyrs
* agree w Ivy that it was v metal
* I enjoyed the whole thing in spite of knowing exactly what was going to happen on account of the various stylistic choices Eggers made
* my Romanian friend laughed when I told her the people of the Carpathian mountains were not portrayed in a flattering light :)
* I found the music forgettable

Overall I did not doze off at all and always enjoy a lil wampyr action

I enjoyed watching this. I like DeFoe playing these kooky pseudoscientist types. The visual effects when the count’s body is breaking/bleeding apart at the end… that was fucked up

Popol Vuh music >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the 2024 score

The total thing LOOKS good. But everything Eggers brings to the story struck me as overelaboration of the 1922 version. (And at one point I started thinking of this as a hardcore remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show--by the end Orlok/Frank has had his way with both Thomas/Brad and Ellen/Janet.) And the usual complaints about remaking good rather than bad movies pertain. If Eggers is interested in historic filmmaking techniques and technologies, there are many stories that weren't treated right the first time around.

I intend to watch the Herzog version for completeness, but really how many versions of Bram Stoker's tale have there been (e.g., 2023's The Voyage of the Demeter)?

thought this was rubbish and very boring too

I generally enjoyed this, and think it actually benefitted from its similarity to the most iconic past tellings (Stoker, Murnau, Browning, Herzog, Coppola), which maybe helped prop up this particularly uncompromising telling. I respected how bleak, and grim and deliberate and joyless and, sure, boring it was; I saw a lot of people checking their phones, and a couple walked out relatively close to the end. The score made no impression, but as per the usual the set design, costumes and locations were perfect. And I can only imagine what the cheekbone budget was.

I thought Orlok looked like like a festering Will Oldham, tbh.

I don't understand the boring complaints. Nothing outstayed it's welcome. There was consistent pace.

This is my first Nosferatu so maybe that's it? But even if I knew the twists and turns beforehand, the tone, the questions, the performances! I don't know what else one wants from the movies?

^^semicolon missing.

I really liked how disgusting it was. A glamorous vampire is no vampire at all.

Tell that to Louis Jordan.

haha I meant "Jourdan".

Saw this yesterday, hungover from NYE in a very warm cinema (seriously, they had the heating cranked up to what felt like 30c). So while I enjoyed it, there was an additional sense of dread and claustrophobia going on which might have clouded my judgement.

You'd be hard pushed to argue with the overall atmospherics in this one. Absolute mastery, with some wonderful sections (I especially like Orlok's huge shadowy hand passing over the town - incredible).

But I also find it hard to argue with a lot of the criticisms here. Like the original book, for every thrilling moment there's an equally tedious or repetitive section which, were we not so precious about being so faithful to the preceding texts, could have been changed or switched up.

The Dracula tale has always felt incredibly front-loaded to me - I'm far more interested in Transylvanian escapades than sickly people lying around having fits and blood transfusions. I love hearing about the Count's indisiousness in keeping Harker/Thomas from leaving, and the dawning realisation of exactly the trouble he's in. For my money, Eggers skipped over this part fairly quickly in a "Yeah you get the idea, you know this part" way - but that's the thing, it's the BEST PART, and once we get back to England/Germany, the energy of the thing starts to bag and sag.

So with this, at least the third iteration of a knock off of the Dracula novel, so really and copy of a copy, I was hoping that Eggers would be staunch enough to stray a little further from the original text so as to liven it up and make it feel a little less repetitious.

Like someone said upthread, there were just one too many close ups of people heavy-breathing and having fits and visions and fever dreams and violent mood swings, and it wasn't anything we haven't already seen in othrr movies. Depp bodied these moments well, but they were happening constantly and after a while I was keen to press the "I get it, I've seen the Exorcist" button

Similarly, much as he was terrifying on first encounter, Orlok became less and less impressive each time he returned. I know Nosfera-tash is absolutely a thing in the book, but he reminded me of Tom Hardy in Bronson, weirdly muscular, like a portrayal of an American general in an anime movie. I don't know how I feel about a Count who looks like a wrestler really. To me, Dracula should either be tall, proud and regal, or sombre, ugly and diminutive. I don't mind them going for something new, but it took me out of it.

Overall it felt a bit muddled. And for all the slow-moving atmospherics, certain plot points were often explained in glossed-over exposition, with many of the supporting characters barely breaking out of their ornamental roles.

All told, I reckon I could watch this again, especially as I plan to watch the original and the Herzog versions for comparison's sake. As a mood piece, it definitely succeeds, and there are scenes I would love to revisit - I would love a whole film set in Transylvania, and I would have loved to see Eggers tackle Powers Of Darkness rather than revive this story yet again

This is all otm^^

I look forward to watching it again, too.
Journey to Transylvania, gypsies and everything up to the nuns was A+++ / loony Knock a fave / love all the dark magic, grimoire and magic circle stuff

Also agree with pretty much everything DL said. This did drag a fair bit for me - even though Id a coffee on hand in the cinema by the midpoint I was having trouble staying awake. SO MUCH talking in dimly lit rooms about science v the occult. Maybe too much familiarity with this story too. Im glad its doing well in the box office all the same but I thought this could have been much better.

Maybe too much familiarity with this story too.

Much as I love Eggers' work over all, and think The VVitch is one of the finest horror films of the century so far, he increasingly falls foul to "music video"-style filmmaking. It's not quite as egregious here as it was with the Northman, which I remember as being like an extended movie trailer, but it does happen on occasion in this film and it's something I'm not a fan of. The VVitch definitely didn't do this.

Tell you what though, as someone who's jumpy around dogs and barking, those wolves chasing Thomas through the castle FUCKING TERRIFYING MATE

lol tbh there were maybe two scenes in this one where I got, I dunno, Smashing Pumpkins video vibes.

I haven't seen The Northman yet, for no good reason, since I like Eggers. The Witch is the best of the three I've seen so far, with The Lighthouse and this one being more indulgent. But it's an indulgence I appreciate at least (looking at you, Ari Aster. Or not.)

I can imagine someone loving The Northman.

I landed in the B+ range for Nosferatu. When I got back from Spain early last week and was asked what I liked, I responded “I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb!”

(I especially like Orlok's huge shadowy hand passing over the town - incredible).

I've definitely seen this shot in a movie before. Was it in the Herzog Nosferatu even?

There was something like it in Murnau's Faust I think?

I'll admit it reminded me of certain parts from the Castlevania Western anime (which fans of the Eggers' film might actually enjoy)

if I recall correctly, there is definitely a shadowy hand shot in the Coppola. And also the Simpsons, probably referencing the Coppola.

I was pretty underwhelmed by it, it was certainly nice looking and crafted with care but it certainly doesn't surpass (or really even add anything) to the other much more famous adaptations aside from

I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb!

Which has already entered my personal lexicon...even though as much as pains me to say this cuz I do love him, that role might have worked better with someone other than Dafoe in it.

Also: for a psycho-sexual drama...I thought there would be more sex and psycho?

Murnau's film (and Herzog's as well) really hinges on the idea of the plague and who has the plague and who is sick and who isn't and who is the cause of it, which might have been more interesting given our shared recent history for Eggers to to do something with.

again this is the most metal one

lotta ppl pointing out tedious exposition that i didn't really notice. possession dream sequences are practically the food i eat and i thought they were all really beautifully executed here. psychosexual drama is mostly lurking in the backwaters of this thing because everyone is repressed or trying really hard to be repressed, and only ellen has this connection to the outer darkness beyond it because she has seen how much of a mask the repression is, meant to disguise what occurs in the shadows of the self, the unspoken things, and this includes what i think is a very thorny textual implication in this adaptation, which is that orlock raped ellen when she was younger. all of this only doubled the gothic enshadowed vibe of the images, a poisoned longing that is self-annihilating and against reason and sinks whatever room it enters into total delirium. still really enraptured with this, think it brings plenty to the table that no other adaptation of dracula does, idk! i kept thinking to myself "i can't believe i'm watching another adaptation of dracula and i'm totally hitched to the turns of this story that i already know so well!!!!"

if you're all tired of watching dracula i get it. but. dracula!!!

ivy otm

one could make a case that Dracula as a story was already getting played out by the time of the 1931 Lugosi film. That movie was basically a rehash of the 1924 stage play, which had simplified and cleaned up the gnarlier aspects of the novel and was such a big hit that it became the template for almost all subsequent vampire stories. Hammer, Herzog, Coppola et al. had their own strong visual styles and actors, but a Dracula movie is a Dracula movie, the story itself doesn't change much. Eggers' version is no exception but I like how dark he goes, how much farther he pushes the repression/attraction dynamic and how directly he associates sexual shame with death and decay. It's creepy!

The script is too on-the-nose in places ("I am an appetite," "I am blasphemy," "You are my shame," yeah thx we get it) and maybe that would be more distracting on a second viewing. Right now though this is easily a top five vampire movie for me.

Saw this today. Enjoyed it well enough. It does suffer a tiny bit from being an homage but idk I wasn't expecting a reinvention of the story or Nosferatu's childhood trauma origin story.

At times, despite how amazing it all looked, the story felt like I was watching Van Helsing or basically any horror blockbuster type movie, but that's a fairly big despite, as it was a beautiful film.

On a less serious note, really wanted Willem Dafoe to say "and that's the end of that chapter" at the end. Or to be sitting by a fire reading a book which he then closed. And burned.

really respect ivy's take on this one, and I know I came off a bit like a hater upthread, but I'm likely nitpicking because: The VVitch is one of my favourite movies in recentish memory, and also I was feeling very hot and nauseous throughout the film.

I should also say that I didn't fully appreciate The VVitch until I rewatched it. And I've seen it, like, four times now and there are small details that I catch on to each time.

Nosferatu, despite being langorous or ploddy depending on how you see it (and I believe any ploddiness is an inherent fault of the original text, not of the film maker), is a dense watch. There is a LOT going on, and a LOT of dialogue and a lot of ideas being examined.
Not sure I was able to latch onto everything this first time round, and I will be rewatching.
I might like to compare it to Lowery's The Green Knight in some ways - also a slowish film dense with atmosphere and thematics which asks you to work with it on its own terms and never really spoonfeeds you with answers

ivy otm, and I would like to point out I was otm upthread

everyone is repressed or trying really hard to be repressed, and only ellen has this connection to the outer darkness beyond it because she has seen how much of a mask the repression is

I mean, I'm not saying this wasn't in the film but this was not especially explicit to me when I watched it, I dunno. Thomas and his friend goofing around about acting like a ram in an early scene made out that they were pretty open about their sexual conquests, albeit in a crude way. I didn't really see where else sexual repression really got examined.

Loved the Isaac Newton line, but it felt incongruous in the context of a film that's otherwise free of light humour. They could have done more with Dafoe's character - perhaps playing up his eccentricities or making him more of a comic foil to Ineson* might have been a little too on the nose, but this one line in a sea of very serious dialogue stood out as coming from a different film

*who really I wouldn't have recognised were it not for his voice!

That line feels like Eggers watching Bram Stoker's Dracula for the nth time and thinking, "How do I write my own Anthony Hopkins line?"

I might like to compare it to Lowery's The Green Knight in some ways - also a slowish film dense with atmosphere and thematics which asks you to work with it on its own terms and never really spoonfeeds you with answers

Hmm, a very interesting comparison (speaking as a big fan of said film).

I liked

All the cats (one memorably cute kitten in the Murnau)
The tash (def a homage to the Jess Franco/ Christopher Lee Count Dracula of 1970 imho)
https://www.picturepalacemovieposters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/christopher_lee_dracula_UKquad1.jpg

I didn't think there was too much sexual repression in this one either. Very early on it starts with her almost dragging Thomas back to bed, begging him for another newlywed round, but he has to leave and go to work. And then his brother is basically pumping out kids. Did they ever explicitly explain the connection between her and Orlok?

listen, folks... all heterosexuals are repressed

Did they ever explicitly explain the connection between her and Orlok?

Not in a "my name is Basil Exposition" way but yeah, it was clear.

Those cats were excellent actors, I will say. They stole a few scenes for me

listen, folks... all heterosexuals are repressed

― ivy.,

otm

If Dafoe had delivered that as a line, I'd give the film an immediate five stars

Update: I have now finally seen the Murnau Nosferatu

this letter in the murnau nosferatu is always very funny to me, orlok signs it with a skull & crossbones AND a snake!

https://sp-ao.shortpixel.ai/client/to_auto,q_lossless,ret_img,w_1106/https://horrorfilmhistory.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Nosferatu6.jpg

Don't really think there's any meaningful subtext in this film. Eggers has settled into making blockbusters that look good, barely anyone in the film had even a shred of character and it would be surprising if they had.

agreed

this movie looks amazing but it does not operate like a blockbuster in basically any way, bizarre, but i have accepted i saw a different movie than most ppl in this thread

it p much is a direct match for one of the seven basic film plots.

Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, Dopey, Sleepy and Orloky

it's dracula!!!!

is dracula one of the seven basic film plots

Meantime, mustaches etc. (I assume we all know about the mustache by now.)

https://variety.com/2025/artisans/news/bill-skarsgard-nosferatu-transformation-makeup-mustache-count-orlok-1236249285/

I liked this without loving it or ever feeling particularly involved in the story. It was fun to watch, especially if like me you have a weakness for the gothy. (I agree that it was very metal in look and vibe.) I thought the cast was pretty strong, was most impressed with Depp because I haven't seen her in much and didn't know what to expect. That's a demanding role and she handled all of its shifts well. It's deliberately paced, but I wasn't among the bored, I was happy to let it take its misty atmospheric time. otoh I do agree that Eggers doesn't really have anything much to say about this material, but apart from The VVitch I'm not sure any of his movies have a lot to say, they're more like experiences than theses.

And I'm totally cool with that.

And here's why that's okay

The Isaac Newton line was pithy but also try harder screenwriter, Newton was up to his eyeballs in the occult... alchemy, predicting the apocalypse by finding secret codes in the bible, the assumed supremacy of lost ancient wisdom. He would have been 100% onboard with the Professor and his caper!

Yeah that line felt a bit anachronistic. Did Germans in the 1830s attribute Newton as he who self-conciously heralded in the Enlightenment? Maybe, seems doubtful???

But on that note, really did like the Enlightenment vs. PRIMAL-THINGS thread of this film. The gypsies, mad-doctor, orthodox nuns and high-priestess Mrs. Hunter being the only ones who saw things for what they are. There's always something truthful in art when it challenges the hegemony of science. I take Egger's as sincere when he says there's something in all those "backwards customs"

I guess it’s not fair to say it has nothing to say, there is the interesting addition of the backstory with Ellen. Kinda Buffyish!

is dracula one of the seven basic film plots

I think the fact it's Nosferatu and a very respectful homage to a story already told serves as a kind of prison for the characters. It's a very plotty film, even as genre film goes. I enjoyed it on that basis but don't think it has the time or space to really do a lot within that very restrictive frame.

If the dial of plot is turned up the dial of character goes down, generally. In the case of this film, it was so visually stunning that it was still very enjoyable for me, but there were definitely some parts, particularly near the end, where people are just going to do a thing like in any mainstream film, like time to kill the bad guy.

I didn't really want to compare it to the Herzog film as I genuinely enjoyed it but idk, the best scene in that is three minutes with music and no dialogue featuring a man waltzing with a sheep.

On the other hand I can imagine seeing this aged 12 and thinking "cool" - in many ways this is now the good thing about Eggers.

I guess also I disagree it was plodding, to me the accelerator was p much down throughout.

Fwiw I don't really care if a major Hollywood film like this makes me think deeply about the issues it raises and in fact if anything it's prob a welcome thing that done don't yet still are nicely made, especially in a more classic tale like this one.

Just felt it was worth pointing out this wasn't that, imo.

that some don't*

Apparently it took Skarsgard 6 hours in makeup and prosthetics for him to not really be shown in the film that much

He was in it a fair bit? Like it wasn't so much the power of suggestion. I thought the costume looked p good in a way, he was sort of physically domineering but that gave him the feel of a sort of warlord type evil count, to me.

There were maybe one to two split-seconds where the voice almost made me laugh.

Heh, I meant that most of the time he's extremely obscured by shadow, or shown off-camera. I didn't realise he had hair until maybe the last scenes

Ah weird, I felt like he was shown fairly full-on more than I'd have expected for a film like this. But didn't maybe notice the combover until later on.

At the start I was expecting like a slow reveal but he was sort of just hai there in the castle, albeit it was sort of dark.

Ah weird, I felt like he was shown fairly full-on more than I'd have expected for a film like this.

not referring to his undead penis here either

huh... maybe my screening was quite dark (I thought some scenes were daringly dark, almost a shame really as I'd have liked to have seen the decor a bit better). He looked sort-of blurry and half-there in the Castle scenes, and then later there seemed to be some strong chiaroscuro that also made him seem semi-corporeal. I liked how it was done, don't get me wrong, just that sometimes all I could see would be like a one-eyed talking moustache

The cinema I was at was slightly oblong, weirdly, so I was close enough to the screen.

in general i'll always disagree with the suggestion that there's nothing to think about in a piece of art

"turn off your brain" is one of the most offensive things you can say to me, along with "I don't like Campari."

Fair point, nothing to think about is probably a bit harsh.

no one, especially Eggers, goes around making a Dracula film without something to think about, I'd say. A lot of the VVitch's themes and interpretations didn't reveal themselves to me on first viewing; now they seem almost brutally obvious. But that might just be how my brain works on first/second pass with these things. First go round, I'm more just along for the ride.

It was really interesting to watch the Murnau film for the first time yesterday and think about how this remake was spun out of that film, and yeah, I agree that there's a big hat tip to Coppolla here too

There’s plenty to think about in Dracula — the text is overloaded, semiotically, and the cultural influence of the story is staggering. So a director doesn’t have to bring some blazing new perspective to it to find substance in the material. Eggers treats it with a fair amount of respect (possibly more than necessary) and lets its psychosexual dynamics take their course.

I do think it’s an interesting choice to use Murnau as direct source material rather than Stoker (or Tod Browning), although it would be maybe more interesting if Herzog hadn’t already done it. But my impression was not that he was exactly “in conversation” with the story or interrogating or subverting it — he was telling it, as immersively as possible. Not a criticism, he tells it well. Its lack of overt reconsideration or recontextualization is pleasantly old school.

use Murnau as direct source material rather than Stoker

I found it interesting that the credits actually read that it was based on *both* Nosferatu (written by Henrik Galeen) *and* Dracula by Bram Stoker.

going to see this again this weekend, some excellent thoughts will be stimulated no doubt. whether i will share them with you swine remains to be seen

In an echo of 90s horror movies, Guillermo Del Toro has a Frankenstein film due out too now

I watched this video where Eggers talks about parts of the very obscure eastern European folk tale/horror movies he incorporated and I got the feeling he really wanted to remake one of those but Nosferatu was more commercial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCZ1_obeTc

Wow, this person is not how I imagined Eggers looking like.

What DID you imagine etc

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/Max_Schreck_as_Count_Orlok_in_Nosferatu_%E2%80%93_Eine_Symphonie_des_Grauens_%281922%29.jpg/220px-Max_Schreck_as_Count_Orlok_in_Nosferatu_%E2%80%93_Eine_Symphonie_des_Grauens_%281922%29.jpg

This was a perfectly fine movie, might get into quibbles at some point. Some of you have obviously never watched any long slow films if you think this is either

Best shots were all ripped from Murnau, wasn't as visually ravishing as I thought it could be, "give her some more ether" made me and my son laugh out loud

It's been ages since I read them, but parts of the film also reminded me strongly of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, even down to bits of the mise-en-scene. As I say, it's been a long time since I read it, but am I right here?

It's not long but it is languid, though so stylish it implies a certain propulsion without really going forward. That's a compliment. It's very fugue state.

Am I misremembering, or does the phrase "too much blood" get used more than once? Certainly the word "providence" iirc pops up a dozen times.

I found it interesting that the credits actually read that it was based on *both* Nosferatu (written by Henrik Galeen) *and* Dracula by Bram Stoker.

That cracked me up a little because of the whole history of the Stoker estate suing over Nosferatu’s barely disguised pilfering. But now that Stoker is public domain, they can freely acknowledge it.

One thing I’ve wondered is if the one really novel element here — Ellen’s backstory — was influenced by the earlier vampire book Carmilla, which also begins with a childhood encounter.

honestly one of my gripes might be it isn't languid enough, it felt quite unchill and noisy and wd've benefited from a little more dreaminess at times

Am I misremembering, or does the phrase "too much blood" get used more than once? Certainly the word "providence" iirc pops up a dozen times.

Yeah, more than once. "Providence" throughout. Not sure what the significance is of that word.

It was only on watching Murnau's version that I realised Knock, the Renfield analogue, is also Thomas's estate agent boss

wish i hadn't read whoever said Orlok looks like Will Oldham cos that's all i could see

https://i.imgur.com/sgd44F3.jpg

He really DOES see a darkness

xp, yes it's "busy" in parts and sometimes I found it a bit hard to follow with all the wooshing about. no i don't think Nosferatu was especially slow moving, but i can think of a few films that feel both slow and busy at the same time, like an anxiety dream - Oppenheimer springs to mind.

This cold has moved down to my lungs, sounding a bit Orlak-y today

Ibid you set down yourrr conveniences and rest orrr yourrr affliction may worrrsssennnn. :)

Just came back from a 2nd viewing. Liked it much more. The damned thing is definitely immersive.

I’d the Herzog version even a horror film? Granted I haven’t seen it in decades but my recollection is Kinski just sitting around shooting the shit with supporting characters.

“Is the”

yr recollection is not strictly correct

Orlok's tortured inhalations are a wonderfully ugly touch. He's dead, he doesn't do much breathing, so filling his lungs for speech requires extra effort.

Kinski is whiny *and* horny in the Herzog. I prefer Orloks who only talk real estate then clam up.

xpost But he does still wear a big coat! For the vibes, I guess.

I enjoyed the fuck out of this. but now I'm walking around the house doing the slow Orlok voice trying to say mundane things like "thee last fowr ahvvvvvv mai sooooooooooochal is fooooooooooooower thuhreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee juaannnnnn siiiiiiix"

Its lack of overt reconsideration or recontextualization is pleasantly old school

Totally agree. A lot of what I feel when I watch films like this is that I want there to be thirty other directors in different genres doing stuff as well.

btw i'm a fan of Nicholas Hoult so it's not his fault but that "running towards the camera" shot near the end was baaaad

Lol otm in retrospect, but there was enough magic in the moment to pass over it

I enjoyed the fuck out of this. but now I'm walking around the house doing the slow Orlok voice trying to say mundane things like "thee last fowr ahvvvvvv mai sooooooooooochal is fooooooooooooower thuhreeeeeeeeeeeeeeee juaannnnnn siiiiiiix"

as said by Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln voice.

xxpost Haha I was also wondering what happened to his limp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdzHAKPV7dk

Hard not to watch bits like this and consider this version with some disdain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lut99xjEl8o

LOL

As someone who only recently watched he'd GGGR, I appreciated that video

not entirely ready for this rabbithole (much year-start admin to do this weekend, havent yet watched the eggers) nevertheless stoked to discover that:
(a) oscar wilde and bram stoker were buds (and more?) who latterly somewhat fell out and
(b) stoker's character dracula is in actual real genuine historical fact somehow based on wilde (who he loved / hated / whatever)

ilx poll:
A: this explains everything
B: this explains nothing

A

it’s one of my favorite details about Stoker!

that glengarry glenorlock clip makes me think they could have pivoted halfway through and offered him the part of clay davis

Per this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAQ-y7uftEo

...we're getting an extended cut on Bluray, no surprise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUI6xYTbw0s

Although she showed strength and courage, I think "calling the shots" seems way off, I think she is still a victim, cornered into nothing but bleak options.

Nice to see one of Stableford's first translations referenced
http://www.philsp.com/stableford/translations/angels_of_perversity.htm

I'm still a bit confused about why she and Dafoe were so confident Orlok would arrive so late and forget about morning? Was beating him with weapons really a worse tactic? His magic is too powerful?

Rewatched tonight in an indie cinema packed with film studies students, and it was quite a difference from the boiling, more sparse NYD viewing.

Being not hungover really helped, and on second parse I was able to comprehend a bit more of the meaning behind some of the more oblique stretches of dialogue.

Agree with Robert that there's no obvious clue as to how they keep him out for longer than intended. Stole his watch? Or maybe it's just that he can't resist her and she kept making him come back for more.

The only thing I didn't really understand was how they knew where Orlok kept the soil he laid in. Was it just a good guess?

The book decreed the only winning play so they believed the book
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
xp

Maybe I'm slow but I'm considering that maybe she actually was calling the shots the whole time and genuinely wanted everyone around her dead, including the children.

there is a bit of an ambiguous vibe throughout about whether it's Orlok or she who is pulling the strings, and perhaps even whether Orlok is real or just a manifestation of her inner desires.

The plot of the film could be summarised as "Your high school sweetheart just got out of jail and has started PM-ing you"

Lol

I interpret it as: Orlok’s only purpose was to thirst for Ellen and he’d plague the world until that desire was fulfilled. I didn’t read it as Orlok being tricked, he got what he wanted and he drained Ellen. After their fated union was achieved he got no purpose left.

Or yeah maybe he was so horny that he lost track of time.

lol that's how I read it. like, he was given the choice of surviving or getting lucky, shrugged, and went back to her.

the book of vampires foretold that that was the way to kill him! also early sources on romanian folklore describe nosferatu as both a blood-sucker and an incubus particularly drawn to newlyweds

The only thing I didn't really understand was how they knew where Orlok kept the soil he laid in. Was it just a good guess?

They found it at Nosferatu's new home, Schloss Grünewald, which Hutter had gone to Transylvania to sell him. Not the best job of coffin hiding.

Got it on eBay iirc

One thing I learned from Nosferatu-related reading around all of this is that the idea of vampires being killed by sunlight seems to have been invented for the 1922 film. It's become so embedded in the lore that I always thought it was from the novel.

There seems to be further back precedents for being weakened by sunlight or less powerful

Never seen any version of Nosferatu before, but I thought Defoe really carried the film for me. He got the best lines and just loved his voice and delivery. Couldn't really get into it before he appeared.

I'll try and watch the Murnau at the weekend.

And yeah the cats were great!

His next one is going to be about a Werewolf. He's just collecting all the Halloween outfits at this point

Bizarrely enough the last two films I have watched were this and Twin Peaks (FWWM)...two women's trauma in fantastical settings.

Laura Palmer's family life and sadness were way more centered, guess that's what's missing from this...but I'm guessing the source material is going for something else.

xp I heard that his next project is called "The Knight" and while that sounds cool, it would be even cooler for him to make an original film that isn't called "The (Noun)"

heard he's doing a reboot of The Hangover, sorry

no shade on ppl who liked it but this really wasnt very good

i will read yr thoughts in the morning, maybe someone will have a perspective that changes my mind 😔

I'm not of the right age to have known this, but my daughter pointed out that Ellen & Orlok have the same connection as Lilo & Stitch -- "I'm so lonely, please send me a friend," etc.

She loved it overall, but added this: "Oh, I remembered my primary gripe with this version over all the others: retconning in a backstory reason why ellen/lucy/mina has this mystical connection to orlok/dracula, which explains why he wants to travel to this particular place and seek out this particular woman. In every other version he just wants to move somewhere with a higher population because he’s desiccated the country he lives in, and the real estate broker’s wife just happens to be the first seduceable lady he encounters. I really hate shoehorning in Chosen One narratives and I always liked that Mina & Lucy were average victorian women, so like, dracula wasn’t defeated by a mystical connection, he was mostly just defeated by modernity and education"

your daughter is otm

This one is more than a retcon in that regard, isn't it? Orlok picks the city *because* they are modern and educated and therefore don't believe in vampires, unlike those pesky villagers.

speaking of unwanted/unnecessary remakes:

Robert Eggers is set to write and direct a sequel to the 1986 fantasy Labyrinth.

According to Deadline, the Nosferatu director has just closed a deal to follow up the Jim Henson-directed film for Tristar Pictures. The original starred Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie...

dance the magic dance!

Dance, magic pants

ok i think i will have to rewatch on TV at my leisure to find the film ppl are loving upthread, maybe i shdn't have watched all the other nosferatus plus the universal drac, the hammer drac, coppola's BS drac *and* reread the book as prep for this lol what an idiot. spoilers follow probably

i: it isn't remotely draggy wtf
ii: the music was nothing, a lot of the set design was very AI does gothic
iii: dafoe is fun, counter alfred he steals the pic by hamming it way DOWN tho,elmost everyone else is one-note overwrought
iv: i didnt think much of skarsgard's voice reading or the scene of TH's first meeting with him
v: depp's version of ellen (as basically GOLLUM with -- her desire for the precious sets the plot running, also she destroys the precious, she is constantly flips between two minds, shape of head/mouth -- is i think inspired
vi: "I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards!" <-- eggers evidently takes this line, as did coppola's BS Drac (i think it comes across bad and smug, like "those funny past-times authors and film-makers, swo much going on in this story that they didn't know about, we moderns know!" )
vii: obviously this somewhat up-ends the rival line: "paracelsus? actually correct about everything!" -- but i am probably a bit too stuck on the idea you shouldn't condescend to the past when yr own work is so unaware of its own tensions
viii: i guess what im saying here is "yes there's subtext here but eggers hasn't spotted it, bcz no one except me thinks abt the energies of form any more" (this is why i probably shouldn't have reread the novel for the first time in like 30 years, it sets up a central form vs story conundrum which ppl are still wrestling with) (tho they mostly solve it by just dropping out bits of the stoker original, which is kind of fair enough bcz the original is NOT well formed and has too many main characters for a reason probably better solved by other means in rewrite and edit) (also as dog latin says the novel is very frontloaded in terms of story energy: castle and demeter are grebt, but the battle of london is overlong and clumsily repetitive -- they keep returning to the same places! -- and the climax is rushed and flimsy, which is why every movie remake feels it has to supply a different one) (fun sidenote: stoker's widow who sued to get the murnau versiion cancelled and destroyed was florence balcombe, the girl that bram stole from oscar wilde in the first place, wilde who is sometimes said to be stoker's inspiration for drac)
ix: weird little wriggle about necessary womanly deference to the 1830s aristocracy from this young lord who loses wife and kids, just dropped in late without anticipation, never expanded ion any direction (mrs hutter's justified gollum-not-smeagol riposte here wd be "im doing all the submitting to my lordly betters that i can fit in, fuckbreath!") (again this is an idea eggers has that he immediately forgets, is why im making an anachronistic joke abt it)
x: coppola's Drac BS has about 100 "cinematic ideas" which wd be fun to explore and expand (explores and expands none of them); this has maybe half a dozen (some of them p good tbh) but again forgets them as soon as it's dropped them in
xi: how do they know the plan that works will work, ppl are asking? and this plotline too just leans hard on the earlier versions for the logic of it, herzog's (or better say kinski's) most of all: orlok is p much pure hunger, but for more than one thing -- he has to drink blood to continue of course of course; plus despite being very old he is also massively HORNY… plus he is infinitely lonely. he stays till sunrise bcz it's nice to cuddle afterwards, come on ppl you don't need to read paracelus to know this
xii: tbf kinski delivers all these three just with his wetly rodenty face in that final herzog sequence, the thirst, the horny, the yearning (and popol duh, kinski's best co-performers, colour this in). i love max shreck but he is basicallt the vampire puppet from a punch & judy shoiw (complimentary)
xiii: the knock backplot is well filled out: of course he summoned orlok via satanism! but while i always look forward to simon mcburney he is thrown away here (and the asylum work in these various films are always the weakest stretches, copolla's excellent cage-helmets notwithstanding: read some effing foucault ppl)
xiv: the cat (greta) jumping on the bed at the start evidently surprises hoult and depp into non-actor normal voice improvisation for a line or three = greta steals the picture

formal carelessness on my part here lol, x shd come before ix

Would have been cool if Eggers just reused the Popul Vuh.

As this film has receded in my mind (buried under the 6 or 8 movies I've seen since), it feels fine but inconsequential. A sturdy enough addition to the Dracula canon, but not one of its high points.

watched all the other nosferatus plus the universal drac, the hammer drac, coppola's BS drac *and* reread the book

thank you for your service, mark s

👍🏽

Rewatched at home the other night. My viewings at the cinema were darker and quieter than I had thought, it seems. The sound design is great in this and the Transylvania through castle scenes had a proper sense of dread. Wonderful looking, too. Still, the last appearance of the wolves was the most terrifying thing in this for me. Still not convinced by overly talky Franken-Orlok.

(this is why i probably shouldn't have reread the novel for the first time in like 30 years, it sets up a central form vs story conundrum which ppl are still wrestling with) (tho they mostly solve it by just dropping out bits of the stoker original, which is kind of fair enough bcz the original is NOT well formed and has too many main characters for a reason probably better solved by other means in rewrite and edit) (also as dog latin says the novel is very frontloaded in terms of story energy: castle and demeter are grebt, but the battle of london is overlong and clumsily repetitive -- they keep returning to the same places! -- and the climax is rushed and flimsy, which is why every movie remake feels it has to supply a different one)

all this is otm, the pace of the book starts dragging badly with Lucy's interminable death

the strength of the first third, which is still powerful, is enhanced a lot by Stoker's dossier format, jamming together real-time documents from different narrators and making the reader fill in the gaps ... once the fearless vampire hunters are assembled and Mina has collated their notes in triplicate and they start having meetings of the Anti-Dracula Committee, the story gets buried in paperwork and the suspense disappears

the movies find simpler ways to tell the story, usually as a traditional Gothic period piece .... the Nosferatu versions gain compression by combining a lot of characters but miss out on the weirdness of Stoker's polyandry obsession

this is what i mean by form vs story: stoker needs the “notes in triplicate” dossier format throughout* bcz it's key to his subtext re who mina is: which is that in 1890s terms she’s a super-modern and resourceful capable young lady viz a SECRETARY — up till c.the 1880s secretaries were almost all men — who keeps the team together and informed. she is adept with shorthand! typewriter! phonograph transcription (edison sold the phonograph as office equipment, he disliked that it was diverted towards music, which he had no time for)! and plus keeps track of railway timetables!

she also has dracula on SPEED-DIAL via drac’s telepathy as accessed via van h’s mesmerism: both of which (in the 1890s popular mind) were felt to be adjacent to telegraphy and telephony! (the fashion for ghostly table-tapping kicked off by the fox sisters in the 1840s sprang up directly in the wake of the establishment of the tap-tapping of morse code; as late as the 19teens edison was still muskily promising that very soon we would be able to telephone the DEAD…)

josh upthread calls it a retcon when eggers-drac says he's moving to visburg to escape all the peasant superstition: but is it? it’s not in the original text, true (or any of the other films that i recall), but it’s the affective heart of stoker's subtext, of who mina is, and thus what england is, a world away from the carpathians stitched together by this very capable, highly intelligent, tech-savvy young lady (coppola gestures at the cultural dimension of this a little, but focuses on hats and fashion not the office-worker element); drac is hungry for mina anyway (she’s cute and hot!) but also sees her (via mesmeric telepathy) as the perfect representative of this existing wide-open space of possibility, disconnected from the old ways and hence totally vulnerable as he sees it…

… but NO says stoker, her efficient avant-garde secretarial modernity is the key to his defeat**

*he needs it but then very much fails to solve the problems of pacing it brings with it
**i’m being a little challopsy here but only a little, i think giving mina this indispensable role was distinctly more daring in itself than we can really see it as today, paperwork notwithstanding (all books are paperwork after all)

all true and the book really goes off the rails when Stoker stops letting Mina be Mina (traveling alone to Budapest, of all places, to rescue and marry Jonathan) and instead surrounds her with five ultra-protective males who nonetheless can't figure things out without her help

Stylish, I guess, but I definitely prefer Coppola, The Witch also. I've never seen Herzog, Murnau and Browning long ago.

(Haven't seen Dreyer, either.)

watched this last night & enjoyed it. cards on the table though, i’ve never seem a version of this story that I *didnt* like and i absolutely love Eggers as a filmmaker, i like his finicky precise attention to tiny detail

Lily Rose Depp was excellent - her physical performance was excellent, and even in her normal moments just giving that air of unearthliness, her close-up work is so so good

Dafoe was terrific, his extra-ness was perfect for the tone of the movie & the character

the Orlok voice was a crazy choice. Like it’s SO kooky that it took me out of the movie at times.
But I love Orkok’s decrepitude, that scene where he’s all maggotty on the ship was awesome. And there was a bit of like a Rasputin thing going on with this iteration that i kind of liked
AND omg that final shot of him in the sunlight was so so good, the makeup on that was crazy

i loved the way the movie shifts from scenes that are all greys and blacks into scenes of color

that first scene of Ellen by the shore with ships in the distance & misty washed out whites and greys like a watercolor with the crosses on the dunes as they walked was gorgeous

(had kinda hoped maybe he’d throw in an armadillo somewhere as a browning nod lol but oh well jk)

i’m gonna go read about the production stuff now

despite being a massiver hater i also liked those colour-shifts! i saw a big gala screening of a kevin browlow restoration of murnau's nosferatu years ago with a live orchestra* and everything, and they did that thing which was common in silent movies which ppl afterwards forgot about, which was to project different stretches of the film through coloured filters (like blue for night scenes and yellow for i don't remember and pink ditto ditto) and the eggers version is also doing this, which is pleasing

*for a carl davis score conducted live by carl davis is what i remember it as tho the internet is not helping me out here -- was it maybe the 1998 james bernard score instead? (bernard wrote the music for several hammer horrors)

oh and i liked the casting of Dafoe also as a nice little wraparound nod to Shadow of a Vampire (another one that i loved!)

Shadow of *the Vampire

one other thought

i think given how Nosferatu/Dracula is such an archetype now, in that fairytale way… I think it’s ok that Eggers made a really beautiful version of this story, AND i think it’s okay that not much new was done to it.

If anyone is allowed that leeway, for me, it’s him.

I don’t know if this movie would entice people new to this story, but for me it was just a good reaffirmation that as-is it is still a great story that I have not grown tired of in the retelling

Like a retelling of a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, or Beowulf, or King Arthur — like if you can just get the story beats down and nail the details, the story asserts itself through those details and reminds you why it has been told so many times

For me it’s reassuring in a way. Like yeah, Nosferatu still whips. Tell me that story again. I’ll watch the hell out of it.

Otm

Dafoe with his startling facial expressions and his long pipe is as genuinely hilarious as has been reported, he cracked me up a few times. Fantastic actor. Really loved this movie.

Dafoe felt a bit like he'd been teleported in from the set of Dracula: Dead and Loving It, but why not.

He's become what Christopher Walken once was: you can't get a Willem Dafoe type, you have to hire Willem Dafoe.

the Orlok voice was a crazy choice. Like it’s SO kooky that it took me out of the movie at times.

I could understand it as a choice you might make when workshopping the character. He's dead, so breath doesn't move naturally through his body, which means speech doesn't come naturally to him, so he has to make the conscious effort to push his lungs in and out and make a voice happen, which all takes a lot of bagpipe-type effort and wheezing and phlegmy sounds and whatever, but I do feel like when he started actually delivering dialogue in this manner, someone should've said "this is a bit annoying and is slowing everything down tremendously, it was a nice idea but we need to ditch it."

I did not love this film. I think maybe I do not love Robert Eggers so much except for The Witch and maybe parts of The Lighthouse.