Nosferatu (2024)

Nos Quite Feratu

Nosferatu (2024)
Directed by Robert Eggers
UK/USA/Hungary 2024
Focus Features
UK Cinema Release Print.

Wow, okay then. Robert Eggers’ new remake of Nosferatu is actually a pretty good movie. Alas, it’s doesn’t quite fall far into the great category for me due to one specific creative decision but, yeah, it’s a wonderful study in ‘gothic horror’ in all senses and people who are drawn to that certain kind of atmosphere should find much to enjoy in it. Alas, it falls just a little short of the first of the many versions of Nosferatu, specifically the 1922 W. F. Murnau film Nosferatu - A Symphony Of Horror but, as a powerful and somewhat feral piece of modern cinema, I think it’s nothing short of spectacular.

Now I’ll mention this in my reviews of both the original and other remakes/influenced works later on at this blog (hopefully this year... I’ve been post-Christmas sales shopping so I can revisit some of the key works) but, a quick and dirty history of the story behind the original goes something like this. Murnau wanted to make an adaptation of Dracula and Bram Stoker’s widow was against it. So he went and adapted the story anyway, changing all of the names and locations and still, I suspect, basing a lot of it on Stoker’s stage adaptation of his own work. When the film was finished and released, Stoker’s widow sued and a court ordered that all prints of the film be destroyed. However, at least one print must have escaped this fate otherwise we wouldn’t still know of this celebrated film now and the various works influenced by it wouldn’t obviously exist either.

This new version stars Nicholas Hoult as Thomas, the Jonathan Harker substitute for the story. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Hoult, to be sure but, the kind of timidity in which he infuses most of the roles I’ve seen him in is certainly a good bit of casting because in the silent version he was a bit of a pasty, overacting milquetoast and so Hoult is able to do an incredible job here. Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny) plays his wife Ellen (the equivalent of Mina Harker in the book) and she is a very powerful force in the movie... although, is it me or is there a trend in actresses this last year or so to try and outdo Isabelle Adjani's performance in Zuawski's Possession (reviewed by me here)? However, she's almost, I would say, more powerful than Bill Skarsgård, who gives an absolutely amazing performance as Count Orlock, the Nosferatu of the title... I’ll come back to him though because, as good as he is, he’s also the problem here to some small degree.

Backing up these actors are Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and the always brilliant Willem Dafoe (playing a wonderfully enthusiastic version of the Van Helsing equivalent character). The film has a somewhat haunting atmosphere with some beautiful framing (check out the last shot of the film with Dafoe’s head highlighted in the mirror by the side of him) and some very pacey editing which, combined with the excellent sound design and a wonderful score by Robin Carolan, really gives a kind of adrenalin rush to the precedings, for sure.

I find Egger’s cinema a bit hit and miss but this is certainly my second favourite of his films (trailing slightly behind The VVitch, reviewed by me here). This is almost, as I said, a truly great movie but it doesn’t quite make it. Or rather, it is a great movie but it’s not the best adaptation in terms of visual interpretation and, okay, no holding it off any longer, this is where I get to what is, for me, the bloody, risen from the grave, elephant in the room...

The problem with doing a movie based on Nosferatu is... you really should keep the iconic look of the central monster. I mean, that original creature make-up has had a heavy influence on countless visual works based on vampire lore, just think of things like the TV mini-series of ‘Salem’s Lot (reviewed by me here) or the fairly recent film The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (reviewed by me here). The bald head and the double pronged, exaggerated incisors coming down from the top of the mouth but much closer together than in a traditional vampire story make the Nosferatu vampire instantly recognisable. However, although Skarsgård absolutely nails the ferocity and power of the creature here, the filmmakers have chosen to give him a big moustache, a bit more hair on his bonce and completely taken away the double prongs protuding from below his upper lip.

In short, they’ve completely changed the look. Now, I know the look they’ve gone for here is way closer to the original Dracula as described by Bram Stoker in his original novel (so that’s possibly a mitigating factor here because it’s rare anyone even comes close) but it’s a huge loss to this particular film, I reckon.

Now, the film-makers have done their best to hide their creature behind shadow for about three quarters of the movie and kept him, more or less, in silhouette throughout and, to be fair to them, that obscured vision of the creature does at least invoke the original creature design in memory. Alas, it only helps to increase the disappointment when you get a clear look at the creature later and realise that they’ve reimagined him... what a shame.

So, yeah, that’s heavily influenced my verdict of the new Nosferatu movie, truth be told. It’s fantastically well acted, brings the Sturm und Drang of the cinematic and literary sources and is a genuinely entertaining piece of cinema... shame about that creature design though. It doesn’t quite make it.

Annual Quizwoz Answers

 

 

 

 

 

Annual Cryptic
Movie Quiz
2022 Answers

Thanks to all who had a go at this year's movie quiz... I hope you found it fun. The winner is, for the second year running, Steve Braham in Australia, so wel done to him.

The answers are pictured above in the grid and this is how you break them down to solve them.

1. Game of an Egyptian God as a North American warrior.
So Game, an Egyptian God could be Ra and a North American warrior could be called a Brave.
So put those three together and you get... Gamera The Brave.

2. Revisiting where the last shot was fired from half a dozen six shooters.
Revisiting is a Return. Half a dozen times six is 36 shots fired from 36 chambers so we get the Shaw Brothers classic... Return To The 36th Chamber.

3. Opposite of a southern lady.
A Northern man so... The Northman.

4. Ian is the king of the Elephants.
The King of the Elephants in literature was Babar (so change the spelling slightly) and then put it next to Ian and you get... Barbarian.

5. A week of non-stop sexual intercourse with a girlfriend named after a month.
A week is seven days, a girl named after a month could be May, so you get... Seven Days In May.

6. Sexy texting where 10 becomes 100.
A sexy text these days is known as a Sext, apparently. Treat the X as the Roman numeral for 10 and then swap it out with the Roman numeral for 100, which is C, to leave you with the Italian horror movie... The Sect.

7. Bound from dusk ‘til dawn.
Bound could be tied, dusk ‘til dawn could be considered night so... Night Tide.

8. Multiple negative sentiments for a droid in Star Wars.
Multiple negative sentiments would be the plural of No... so Nos. For... a droid in Star Wars... R2. So Nos for R2 aka... Nosferatu.

9. Lying and jeering in her final resting place.
Final resting place would be a tomb, of someone who will lie and jeer... you’re left with the AIP Edgar Allan Poe classic, Tomb Of Ligeia.

10. This Scottish Loch is certainly not happy?
So that would be Loch Ness... but it’s sad so... The Sadness.

11. This good man is under financial obligation to another.
One famous ‘good man’ would be Benny Goodman. So Benny. Someone under financial obligation to somebody else is a debtor. So you are left with Benny Debtor... aka... Benedetta.

12. By a body of water, singing that “You got women, you got women on your mind...”
Body of water is a lake. Guy who sang that famous lyric was Mungo Jerry so... Lake Mungo.

13. Taking a dive from those Autumnal heights.
Taking a dive and the American term for Autumn will both help you arrive at the same, single word answer... Fall.

14. Own up to acting in a lustful manner to the 6th letter of the alphabet.
Owning up is to confess something. The sixth letter of the alphabet is F. Acting in a lustful manner to someone could make you a Letch so... Confess Fletch.

Also... give yourself a bonus point if you knew the backdrop behind this year’s grid was from the great Christmas zombie musical Anna And The Apocalypse.

 Hope all those who played along enjoyed it.

Dracula Untold

Taste The Vlad Of Dracula

Dracula Untold
USA/Japan
Directed by Gary Shore 
Universal Blu Ray Zone 2

Warning: I guess this is technically somewhat spoilery.

Okay so, after seeing the recent version of The Mummy (reviewed here) I was reminded that the new Universal Dark Universe* monster movies were originally to have begun with this one, Dracula Untold. However, I don’t think this one did very well at the box office and so, even though it would fit like a glove, hand in hand with the new version of The Mummy, Universal have stated that this is not part of that new cycle.

Now, this is a film I totally ignored at the cinema (like a fair few people, as it turns out) because the trailer looked truly dismal and more about Vlad The Impaler, the real life figure whom Bram Stoker’s Dracula was said to be inspired by, rather than actually treating him in his more common version of a contemporary, womanising vampire. And, strangely enough, that’s actually a fairly accurate portrayal of what this film is about, although the main character, played here by Luke Evans, does take possession of various vampiric and demonic powers fairly promptly in the course of the story. However, I’d noticed that, just lately, this film has been getting some good word of mouth from people on Twitter and so, when my local Computer Exchange had a Blu Ray of the movie going for only £3... I figured I’d give it a look.

Well... you have to give the cast and crew some brownie points for trying.

The acting is all pretty good from Luke Evan’s Vlad to his lover played by Sarah Gadon and, of course, Dominic Cooper as Mehmed. We even have Charles Dance on hand as a sort of ‘almost but not quite’ Nosferatu style, old vampire geezah who strikes a bargain with Vlad when he is in desperate trouble. Added to this is the really quite nice cinematography and for anything else negative you might want to lay at the feet of the movie makers here, you have to give it credit for being really nice to look at, at the very least.

However, while it’s certainly a ‘far from terrible’ movie, it’s hardly a great one and I personally believe that its chief problem is that the script and dialogue is just not that great and the fairly dull structure of the film is really not doing it any favours... especially when it comes to the sensibilities of a modern audience. To say it’s singular in its storytelling would be pretty accurate and the structure is like something out of an old Universal or Republic serial... just without the variance in locations and inventiveness which was often on hand in the best of those.

So the story structure is... Vlad comes back from his wars and discovers the source of the power he will use later in the film. Vlad is threatened with something horrible and, when he attempts to comply, his strong moral centre (seriously... this is Vlad The Impaler?) means he refuses and brings the full wrath of his enemies on him. So he strikes a deal for ‘supernatural vampire powers’ and fights the armies, moves his people somewhere else, fights the armies all over again... then loses both his motivating spirit and becomes a full fledged vampire... so he creates a vampire army to finish the war off once and for all. And.. that’s more or less it.

The film has some pretty major flaws other than the trite dialogue and singular structure, however. I mean the writers are on a losing battle trying to make Vlad Tepes somehow a bit of a family man who all his army and close friends love... without denying the fact that he went around impaling his enemies in truly horrible ways. Um... yeah, it doesn’t quite work does it? Especially when he continues to do that rubbish later in the film and everyone is still all... “Alright geezah! How’s it going? We all missed you.” Luke Evans, who is a pretty good actor (see him in Professor Marston And The Wonder Women as soon as possible, reviewed here), does his best with the material but it’s a seriously conflicted kind of script to be honest.

Another stupid thing is that, while I would never have predicted that the film was going to go off and do something interesting at some point, there’s a whole thing where the head vampire played by Charlie Dance strikes a bargain with Vlad. With great vampire power comes great vampire responsibility and Dance wants to lose his vampire powers forever and pas them onto somebody else (an outcome which is clearly contradicted in the final scene of the movie, by the way). So Vlad has the useful, army crushing vampire powers for only three days unless he gives into his unnatural thirst and drinks blood before then... in which case he’s cursed forever and is bound to walk the countryside only at night because sunlight is lethal to him (something else which is totally contradicted by the last scene, by the way). So I guess it’s a case of Vlad-u-added Tax in terms of his unearthly powers. And, since you know this is a Dracula origin story... you know he’s going to have to drink blood at some point before the end so, well, it’s not going to be that surprising is it?

Oh yeah... and about those vamped up, ramped up powers. After discovering that if he runs through the forest fast enough he can become a swarm of bats (there might be some unintentional humour in this scene... just saying), he starts doing it a lot more and that’s how he defeats thousands of men in an army single handedly... by becoming bats and, presumably, batting them to death. The fight scenes are not that great or clear, to be honest. Oh, and there’s a scene where he faces off against the villain of the piece, who worked out he’s a vampire (the bat swarming must have given it away) and somehow deduced he’s got a somewhat powerful allergy to silver. So, you know, he fights him in a tent standing in loads of silver coins and thus weakening Vlad in the final battle to, presumably, build up tension in the audience in case they think he somehow can’t win. Which is ridiculous because, you know, he’s Dracula now. And, yes, there is a bit where the villain throws silver coins at our hero in much the same way as somebody might throw sand in the face of an opponent. There might have been vague, smiling disbelief at the silliness of it all at this point... from this member of the audience, anyway.

Now, all the above taken into account, it really isn’t a terrible movie... just not a good one. The film features an epilogue scene set in the modern day featuring our vampish hero encountering Mina Harker for the first time and the presence of Charles Dance as a voyeuristic background figure... thus setting it up to possibly be the first past of that Dark Universe sequence. Now, all things being equal, I really wouldn’t mind if Luke Evans returns as Dracula in one of the new Universal Monster movies because, as completely ludicrous as this film gets in some places... it’s fine as a basis for a character which could be better written. So, yeah, bit of a wasted opportunity here but we’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I end this review by saying that, unless you have a lot more than just a casual investment in the Dracula character and his history, then Dracula Untold is probably not going to ring your bell very much. If you’re into historical horror, there might be some bright spots for you but, for the most part... I was certainly Vlad when it was all over.

*It looks like the Dark Universe franchise at Universal has, since the time the first draft of this review was written, stalled somewhat... possibly for good. I hope it comes back to our screens soon though.

'Salem's Lot

Barlow Sugar

'Salem's Lot
1979 USA
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Warner Brothers DVD Region 2

There’s an image which has stuck in my memory over the years but it rarely haunts my dreams the way it did as a child. A big double window made of various panes, looking out into the night through this window and the fog rolls in. Out of the fog, a small boy floats towards the window, his eyes black rimmed and glowing. He starts to tap/scratch on the window... he needs entrance and, of course, everybody knows a vampire has to be invited in.

This scene is something I saw in either 1979 or 1981, if you believe the UK TV release date from the IMDB (which I don’t as it happens, pretty sure it aired both in 1979 and 1981 over here). It’s one of many images which made a distinct impression in my mind when I was just 11 years old (or 13 depending on whether you believe etc), as I watched, over two consecutive nights I think it was, the two episode mini series ‘Salem’s Lot. I already liked (and had bad dreams from) various horror movies as a growing lad (most notably with the series of Quatermass remakes by Hammer) and I was doubly curious because it also had David Soul in it, who had just finished his very successful four year run as one half of what the BBC television announcer would weekly proclaim as, “those rough, tough but likable cops” Starsky and Hutch. Soul played Ken Hutchinson, the weedy one, but it was still kind of interesting to see how he would be acting in something else.

What can I say? Not only is he pretty brilliant in this (and I don’t even want to think about the TV mini-series remake of Casablanca he was in where he played Bogart’s role, thanks very much) but ‘Salem’s Lot is actually a quite brave and interesting piece of US horror television, following in the footsteps, perhaps, of the two extremely successful TV movies The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler and the one season TV show they spawned, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. 

It’s been a long while. 34 years (or 32, depending on, yeah you know that bit already) and I have to say, it’s really stood the test of time. I do think that this is the stand-out career highlight for director Tobe Hooper, director of the original version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and, allegedly, pseudo-director of... erm... Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist. There are things that people of a younger generation might find hard going about this one these days... it had a pace all it’s own and most kiddies these days might not be able to sit still for that... but for people of my generation who were terrified and in love with the show, as I was, well it really isn’t all that dated compared to the original broadcast years ago.

The first episode starts off with a scene which takes place two years after the main narrative of the show and we meet David Soul as Ben and Lance Kerwin as Mark, still running from the events you are about to watch. A little bit of business with a vial of Holy Water which glows blue and then we’re into the jigsaw-like typography of the main credits, as composer Harry Sukman’s unbelievable score quotes the Dies Irae for a little bit before propelling us at high speed through a main title piece which is so startling and memorable that I’m surprised it hasn’t been released as a soundtrack before now. It was, in fact, released as a limited edition, 2 disc CD soundtrack a mere two weeks ago and I expect it will sell out soon (mine arrived a couple of days ago and it's been well played already) but the score is astounding in its moody atmosphere and that title music, I suspect, may have even been inspiration for Danny Elfman’s opening titles for Beeteljuice (and may also have been “inspired” itself by Bernard Herrmann’s Skeleton Duel music from The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad). That’s just my own flight of fancy speculation, of course... but I do believe it. 

Then we get in to the main story as writer Ben returns to his home town of ‘Salem’s Lot in Maine (where the writer of the original novel, Stephen King, sets most of his books and, indeed, lives), once known as Jerusalem’s Lot but shortened over the centuries. He comes to write the story of a house that terrified him as a child. A house where... bad things happen and, by a strange coincidence, where bad things are happening again. And this is where King pays tribute to (or just plain steals and splices in) the original Bram Stoker version of Dracula. With James Mason’s Mr. Straker acting as a Renfield substitute to “Mr. Barlow”, who is a vampire modelled after the Max Schreck performed creature in F. W. Murnau’s original Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror (hmmm... Nosferatu... sure I’ve heard that name before somewhere). The local estate agent has secured Mr. Straker and Mr. Barlow a nice antiques shop and, of course, the house that Ben has returned to write about.

And things get predictable but comfortable from this point, as Ben and his friends try to find out what is going on while the vampire slowly starts pulling the town apart. It’s not, in any way, rushed... but it still feels pacey at some points. I believe it was also very influential (I can think of at least one moment in John Carpenter’s The Fog which was done here first, although it's more likely that the specific scene I'm thinking of was first seen by Carpenter in the movie version of The Trollenberg Terror aka The Crawling Eye) and it firmly supports the foundations of the vampire myth in the 20th century while still having a certain amount of fun with it.

It also has some really nice shock and scare moments which were very well documented and talked through over the course of the next few days after its original airing in various school playgrounds around the country. The moment, for example, when a young boy is driven back from the wind, walks towards camera and then a black silhouette pops up from the bottom of the screen in front of him which is guaranteed to make most viewers who are engrossed in this jump out of their skin. Especially when it’s accompanied by a particularly close relative of the 1950s, B-movie monster, musical stinger, courtesy of Mr. Sukman’s thrill ride of a score. A similarly startling but, at this point expected, sit-up-in-the-coffin-and-take-a-bite moment also sticks in the memory. It’s all really great stuff and filled with carefully timed moments such as this, coupled with great acting from the entire cast, but especially all those I’ve mentioned so far and with a big shout out to young Bonnie Bedelia (known more for her role as Bruce Willis’ wife in the first two Die Hard movies) and the always watchable legend who is, one of the greatest overlooked actors in the history of the cinema... Elisha Cook Jr.

There is one irritating thing, though. It’s a glaring continuity error with a set of packing instructions which are stuck to the front of the crate which holds the coffin and body of Mr. Barlow. They seem to appear and reappear at will. You can forget about matching shots in this sequence of the show... but it is fun to play “spot the packing instructions” I have to admit.

Now, something which I would like help with from the memory of the NUTS4R2 reader collective is this. The character Mark has a penchant for horror pop culture. Various model kits and posters/stills of the iconic Universal monsters fill his disproportionately large bedroom (how do characters get that kind of money in the jobs they are in). In the story he is seen fixing part of the old Auroura model kit of the Frankenstein monster. Now I remember a scene where, once it was fixed, he pressed a button on the model several times and its eyes lit up and it made a buzzing sound. It doesn’t, however, seem to appear on this version of the show. Did I remember this right or have I remembered a scene from another movie or TV show from around the same time and grafted it onto my memory of ‘Salem’s Lot as the decades take their toll on my tired brain. I’d be really grateful if somebody could leave a comment or get in touch through twitter and put my mind at rest on that one.

And so that’s about it for this write up. I loved this as a kid and I still do now. This and Christine were the first two Stephen King books I read in my early teens (I read Christine first). I remember when I read ‘Salem’s Lot that the book followed it a good deal but then branched away and did its own thing... that is to say, the TV show changed it around and the writer, director and producers made some decisions about how best things would play out on popular TV is my guess. But it’s a pretty entertaining horror show and very much talked about by people, especially children, at the time. Definitely one to grab hold of and have a look if you’ve not seen it before and are in love with the horror genre. I understand there has been both a sequel and a remake to this in the ensuing years, but I haven’t seen either of those yet. I plan on fixing that sometime soon but, in the meantime, I will say that I can’t imagine any remake or alternate adaptation of this which could be anywhere near as engaging and entertaining as the original... nor have such a kick-ass score as this one. Definitely watch this 1979 version if you’ve got the time.