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.

The First Omen

Carlita Sway

The First Omen
Directed by Arkasha Stevenson
USA/Italy/UK/Canada/Serbia 2024
20th Century Fox
UK Theatrical Cut

Warning: Spoilers from 6am on the 6th day of the 6th month.

I don’t know. Like a London Transport bus, you wait ages for a decent nuncentric exploitation/horror movie to play at your local cinema and then two come along at once. The First Omen is a prequel that, I’m pretty sure nobody was crying out for but, what took me by surprise is that it almost gives the slightly superior Immaculate from last month (reviewed here) a run for its money and, while not nearly as good as the original movie The Omen (reviewed along with the sequels and reboot here), it’s still pretty great and is certainly, as far as I’m concerned, far better than any of those sequels and the unneccessary remake, for sure.

Okay, the film starts weirdly as the 20th century Studios logo comes up (except we all know it’s really 20th Century Fox, right?) but it’s the extended version of their fanfare, composed in 1953 by Alfred Newman to indicate that a picture is in the Cinemascope aspect ratio. However, this film is released in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio so, yeah, that popped me out of things right away... I hate it when the music is used incorrectly like that.

However, after that slight misstep, we are introduced to Father Brennan, the character who we know must survive to be in the original film, The Omen. And we understand this is him for a couple of great visual reasons. First up, they’ve made Ralph Ineson, the actor playing the role, look very much like Patrick Troughton (who played the part in the original movie). This one is set in 1971, the same year as the prologue to that movie and a few years before the main action of the original starts so, yeah, they do this quite well. But even before you catch a proper glimpse of the actor, they’re looking down at him from a POV of high up from a church, reminding you of just what happens to that character in The Omen and visually echoing/foreshadowing that sequence in the original where he gets impaled by the metal rod falling from the church steeple.

And, regarding this scene, you certainly know you’re in Omen territory right away because, a precariously hoisted piece of religious art is being clumsily raised up the rickety scaffold of the church and, like the premise of Lemony Snicket’s series of unfortunate events, you know that various, unexpected ‘accidents’ will be dangled in front of you just before they happen and, this is no exception. He goes into the church to talk to a throw away character played by Charles Dance and, you just know that something bad is going to happen when they both go and stand outside, just under where the builders are working.

And then we begin the main action properly... and we’re very much in similar territory to Immaculate in that it involves a young American coming to Rome to become a nun. She is played, quite brilliantly, by Nell Tiger Free, welcomed to the country by a cardinal played by Bill Nighy and is befriended by her new, ‘hedonistic before she takes her vows’ room mate Luz, played by Maria Caballero. Add to this cast the wonderful Sonia Braga (so good in Aquarius, reviewed here) and we have a movie which sings along doing all the right things.

Now, it’s not perfect... there are some clunky things about it. For instance, there’s a red herring of a character called Carlita (played by... well I don’t know... okay IMDB, explain to me what the two actresses listed as Carlita Picture Double means please?) and, while this character certainly features the familiar mark of the beast in a great hiding place, it seemed pretty obvious to me from the start (and quite badly telegraphed, literally by the formulaic visual shorthand that modern American movies tend to fall back on) just who the real mother of Damian from the original trilogy would turn out to be.

The other clunky thing about the movie is the whole extended ending of the film, which I suspect might well have been revised after the original cut. A fake feeling ‘rescue scene’ is added with a typical modern movie ‘have your cake and eat it’ epilogue. And while it’s necessary to see that, ‘oh yeah, Father Brennan did survive after all’ moment (because you can’t lead into the original films without him, once his presence here is established), the film also manages to set up the possibility of a sequel to this one independent from the original trilogy. Which, I have to admit, I quite like the idea of because, well, I really didn’t expect this movie to be so good.

Oh, and about the final line of the movie... it’s really ‘cringe’ as the kids would say. You remember the truly appalling bit at the end of that last, Fantastic 4 movie (reviewed here), where the kids are coming up with a name and realise there are four of them and they are quite fantastic (yeah, I wince even as I type)... well, given the events that preceded this sequence and the fact that the birth of a certain antichrist is accompanied by the score leaning full-on into a souped up arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s original opening titles to The Omen... did we really need a final bit of business where Father Brennan says to someone, something along the lines of... “They’ve even given him a name. Damien.” Yeah, really... would never have twigged that one, mate!

But despite these stupid sequences, the movie is absolutely riveting and, yeah, let’s talk about that score for a minute... and that sound design. Mark Korven’s score for the movie is absolutely brilliant, just what the film needs and certainly has a foothold in the 1971 setting of the story... and when he finally brings Jerry Goldsmith’s iconic melody... that works pretty well like it goes hand in hand with what else is going on with the music. And the sound design is really impressive too, with some nice ‘sound standing in for other sounds’ kinds of moments, a little similar to the music replaces scream scene I talked about in my review of Immaculate. Alas, as far as the score goes, there’s no proper CD release once again (the only Omen film not to have one, to date... I have the other five) and some wiley company needs to rectify that sorry state of affairs soon because I would love to give this one a listen.

So, yeah, The First Omen is really well made, has some great acting performances (spoiler... Nell Tiger Free’s breaking waters sequence rivals Claire Sweeney’s birth scene in Immaculate), brings the horror and is just genuinely, despite the clunky bits, a pretty cool film. And now I know what someone on Twitter meant when they said there’s a full on Isabelle Adjani Possession moment in this (reviewed by me here). This one’s an immediate Blu Ray pick up for me when it gets released and, yeah, I think most fans of the original series of movies (it kinda ignores the uncalled for reboot) should embrace this one. 

The VVitch

2V Or Not 2V

The VVitch
2016 UK/USA/Canada/Brazil
Directed by Robert Eggers
UK cinema release print.

“There’s a creepy VVitch, in your neighbour’s wood.
Who you gonna call? Goat Busters.”
Traditional New England Folk Song

I’ve been looking forward to seeing The VVitch, subtitled A New England Folk Tale, for a while now, not knowing quite what to expect from it. I’d have to say that, what it delivered, while maybe not as over the top as the trailer at first seems to promise, is actually quite a nice little genre movie. However, before I go on to elaborate on this, I have to say that I was not seeing this film in the most ideal circumstances... bizarrely.

I saw The VVitch in my local cinema on the first night of its official UK run which, frankly, you would maybe be forgiven for assuming, as did I, that this would be the absolutely best place to see said film. Not so. Well, certainly if I’d have been in the cinema alone, it might have done the trick. Unfortunately, this film has got to have had one of the worst audience reactions I’ve ever been witness to. In terms of horror movies I’ve seen in cinemas, I’d had three audiences which stuck in my mind up to this point. The first was the original cinema run of the zombie spoof Return Of The Living Dead back in the 1980s, where the full house audience were collectively screaming and laughing throughout the movie in all the right places... a magical experience. The Blair Witch Project provoked a reaction in the audience of general disappointment, at least on one of the screenings I went to, although I really loved that movie also. The first Paranormal Activity film was the third one that sticks in my mind. It’s a great film, although, not that scary but I‘ll never forget the audience and the lady who ran from the front of the screen, screaming loudly as she dashed for the rear exit.

Well I can add The VVitch to memorable audience reactions in a screening. I was kinda enjoying the movie for what it was but, after about fifteen walkouts from the mid-point of the movie onwards, I began to notice that the audience were getting so badly behaved they were even talking back to the screen and clapping mockingly in certain sections. They started off at bored and ran the gamut through to generally ridiculing everything on screen as it happened... about the only moment which seemed to stun them was a small scene involving a crow which, I have to say, I didn’t actually myself find scary but which managed to shut them up for a minute or so. At the end of the movie and from the feedback I was hearing all around me, I think if they’d have been armed with something they were able to throw at the screen then I suspect they would have been pelting it for all it was worth.

Now, as I said, I quite enjoyed the movie but this didn’t make for the most ideal cinema experience in the world, to be honest. I was trying to figure out afterwards what set off a mass of nearly two hundred people (the film was pretty well attended) to act this way and I can only assume it’s the lack of shock/jump scares that customers have come to expect from modern horror movies combined with a certain intensity surrounding the lack of anything scary really happening a lot of the time that maybe caused the unrest. I’m not qualified in a psychological capacity to be able to fathom what caused this collective outrage, to be honest, but that’s my theory. For whatever the reason... it wasn’t pretty.

The film itself concerns a family of six: Kate Dickie (I’ve always had a soft spot for Kate) as the mother, Ralph Ineson as the father, the oldest daughter Thomasin, played by Anya Taylor-Joy (pretty much the main protagonist, given that it’s very much an ensemble piece), the next eldest brother Caleb, played by Harvey Scrimshaw, a very young brother and sister and a baby boy. Set in New England of 1630, the family are banished from their community due to, as far as I could make out, being too fervent in the practice of their Christian religion. So they take their leave and build their own small farm far from the people who have thrown them out, next to a wood. Of course, it’s a wood housing a witch, or so they believe.

One day, Thomasin is in the field next to the wood when the newborn suddenly vanishes, almost before her eyes. This is the first hint of a supernatural phenomenon in the film and it’s an important one, backed up by the appearance of a more tangible presence in the wood about halfway through the movie. This is because, later in the film, when we are witness to exactly the same kind of paranoid accusations in microcosm that bring to mind Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (not a favourite of mine, it has to be said), the audience does at least have some idea that there is, indeed, something uncanny going on. This isn’t a film about  hysteria... this is a bonafide horror film and those two sequences I mentioned are the main clues to begin with, along with certain visual signifiers which are strengthened by this knowledge.

For instance, the brilliant way in which the camera’s eye focuses on certain animals in the movie is disquieting. It’s as if the director is saying to us... look here, these are supernaturally possessed creatures and that’s what’s going on here. These are witches’ familiars, which feature in lots of tales of this ilk, and the camera brings the same kind of unmoving and sharp focussed intensity in the study of these creatures as it does when focussing unflinchingly on the various actors in this movie. So the goat which is featured so heavily on posters and in the trailers, known as ‘Black Philip’, is an obvious indicator of satanism afoot but it’s the rabbit which keeps turning up and fixing the camera with a stare which really works so effectively in some of the earlier scenes.

The acting by the cast mentioned above is first rate... and that even includes the two younger siblings Mercy and Jonas played by Ellie Granger and Lucas Dawson. In fact, there’s a point in the movie when you wonder if you should really be hating these two or whether they are just victims of their circumstances like everyone else in the movie. When things start to go pear shaped at the end, the director leaves it to your imagination as to what exactly is their final fate.

Now, it has to be said that the content of the film as written is not, really, in any way scary, to be honest. For the majority of the time it’s more like a study of the breakdown of a family unit which just happens to involve a strong supernatural element in its genetic make up. What makes it scary in certain places... or at least unsettling... is that composer Mark Koven’s score is absolutely astonishingly good. Two of my all time favourite pieces of music are by composer György Ligeti (both were used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, at least in part, as a matter of fact), Lux Aeterna and his Requiem for Soprano and Mezzo-soprano, Two Mixed Choirs and Orchestra (which I was lucky enough to catch in concert once). Koven’s score conjures up exactly that kind of atmosphere for The VVitch, perfectly unsettling the audience with a kind of presence of creeping dread which can then be ratcheted up to 11 when the choir comes on more strongly at certain points. Absolutely wonderful and the first thing I did when I came home on the Friday evening after I saw it was to place an order for the CD recording. I can’t wait to hear this one away from the movie... it’s going to get a heck of a lot of spins this year and might even end up being my number one pick of scores for 2016. Time will tell, I guess.

The end of the movie is pretty near perfect as well. Now the bizarrely behaved audience I saw this with seemed to be really complaining about the ending of this one right after it finished but, honestly, I can’t think why. I don’t want to give anything away here but the ending made perfect sense to me and it finishes at exactly the same point that I would have cut to the first credit. Perfect ending, which I obviously won't reveal here, with just the right amount of supernatural wonder combined with the celebration of falling from grace that I would have wanted from a story set up like this. No complaints from me here but plenty, as I already said, from the audience.

So there you have it. The VVitch is a pretty nice little genre piece which deserves to find its audience... an audience who obviously weren’t in attedance at the 9pm screening on the first Friday at the Enfield Cineworld. I can only assume these strange souls were unprepared for the atmosphere of intensity throughout the movie and reacted to it by ridiculing it out of their own lack of understanding of the kind of material that is rarely examined in the way that this movie does it. If you’re expecting a jump scare kind of movie then there are plenty of other, lesser horror films out there at the moment that can give you that... if you want something a little more sedately paced and honest in its intentions, however, then maybe you should go check out the Va Va Voom of the Va Va VVitch. I'm glad I did.