Love me some Gothic horror and god damned if I wasn’t satisfied. Gorgeous, had a bit of fun addressing some of the more problematic trappings of the genre in how it treats women.
Remade some of the amazing shots from the original film, maintained a fantastic creeping horror and dread, lots of truly disgusting practical effects, and some original and well realised additions.
Absolutely fab.
After watching What We Do in the Shadows, Orlok’s Transylvanian accent just reminded me of Nandor so much that it made every single one of his lines sound funny rather than threatening. It also sort of neutered the jump scares to the point where they were so expected that they almost seemed campy. I did enjoy it, and I’ve watched it twice already.
Also, by far the weirdest sex scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie, including Irreversible.
It is defs campy. Campy purple pros is essential to Gothic horror, it’s part of what I love haha.
"Nature, I call unto thee, increase thy thunders . . . And hasten me upon the wings of thy barbarous winds.
You just can’t get that shit anywhere else. I’m a big fan of the supererogatory phrase
The movie was entertaining enough, and I liked the director’s previous work. I watched the Extended version on the Blu-Ray and I liked his commentary as well. The guy who played Orlok was great, I think all the actors did a good job, great atmosphere. My issue is with the ending. The group goes to destroy Orlok’s crypt and only kills his henchman Herr Knock in his coffin. But that was all a distraction really. Orlok ends up dying because he simply lost track of the time while seducing and having sex with Lily-Rose Depp’s character. That’s it! He’s a vampire who will die if he’s up past daybreak and he simply is so horny that he forgets to leave before sun-up and dies as a result, along with Depp’s character. He wasn’t being chased by the vampire hunters or anything. Just forgets to keep track of the time. I thought that was anti-climactic.
He doesn’t lose track of time. They are spelled together. He looks to the rising sun and she pulls him back to her breast.
They explain that 4 times in the film. Once Orlok says they can’t resist each other and she will be his, once diagnosis? demon! doctor reads it in the big book, he mentions that to her when explaining he will keep her hubby at bay with a false hunt (and she has already figured out she must die which is why she asks to walk him to his door), and then at the end diagnosis demons explains it to the hubby after they watch her die.
That’s a fair point, but I still find it an interesting choice that an entity as powerful as Orlok who has been haunting her dreams for years is as susceptible to being beguiled and completely helpless to pull himself away as a mere mortal. More so actually, since a man could have the presence of mind to pull out mid-stroke and run if his life depended on it.
It’s literally magic. Her calling out resurrected him, from being “buried in darkness”. He isn’t like a vampire like idk lestat from Anne Rice’s novels, he is more like a force of nature, devourance, plague, death made by Satan from a fell sorcerer to go do evil shit.
It’s like fairy rules, he was killed before by a maiden’s sacrifice, a maiden called out and awoke him again, they are magically bound and her sacrifice puts him down again. Presumably until some new sensitive person awakens him.
He doesn’t have a choice in his desire for her.
This is why I love it so much. I’m from the Balkans, we birthed vampire lore. This movie took care to include so many elements of traditions and tales. I loved it so much.
I can’t get over how a big plot point is taking a ship from Hungary to Germany. I just absolutely can’t get over that It is a plot point introduced solely to make this not dracula, but copyright expired just call him dracula
I mean it’s obviously in England but they’re just calling it Germany. Nosferatu was always just a very legally dubious Dracula.
There was even a legal battle about it at the time. The fact that they intertwined it in the movie made it all the more true.
taking a ship from Hungary to Germany
???
I’m sorry but WHAT
You can sail up the Danube lol
Didn’t they say it was on the ocean though in the movie
People are dumb I guess. Unless it was during the time Hungary controlled Croatia during the 1400s
It’s set in 1838 which is kinda funny because I was like “don’t just assume it’s the same borders as your dumb paradox game” but actually, it is
I’m too ancient to play video games 😔
dracula also took a ship to england
oh heck yeah! it even has it’s own movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Voyage_of_the_Demeter
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (also known as Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter in some international markets)[7] is a 2023 American supernatural horror film directed by André Øvredal, and written by Bragi F. Schut Jr.[b] and Zak Olkewicz. It is an adaptation of “The Captain’s Log”, a chapter from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
I actually really liked that movie, it’s a fun slasher.
Yes because that’s the way to get to England, it is not the way you would travel to Germany.
who hasn’t sailed the plains of Europe in a magnificent land ship
Hexbearians outing themselves as uncultured swine. Truly nothing can compare to the smell of crushed thyme wafting up as you sail o’er the rolling hills of France.
If he was really determined to travel by ship for part of the journey the Danube river runs pretty far. It doesn’t run through Transylvania, though, so he would need to get to the river first.
But it’s a coastal city, and he comes there by ocean. It can’t be the danube which would make sense. He’d need to either travel through Russia and take a boat from the black sea ports or go down through the balkans and take a boat from there to Germany. Either way he has to cross all of the Mediterranean a bit of the Atlantic, and apparently sail through the north sea pointed vaguely in the direction of Germany based on the last bit of the journey being at high seas (Going the long way around great britain instead of through the channel?)?!
Or do we combine the two and he takes the danube to the black sea, and then the river boat also takes the long way around?!
I guess you could argue travel by sea is safer for a being who can’t be exposed to daylight
Probably right that it was a narrative oversight.
You’re absolutely right, it’s clearly on the ocean. The film is just dumb haha
I wouldn’t call it dumb. It’s because it’s just an adaption of a ship going to England but nameswapped to Germany. The story is still good. It’s just that my brain is bad
It’s just that my brain is bad
noticing things is actually brain being good tho
I could simply be a philistine when it comes to gothic horror, but I just really did not like the movie. It was pretty faithful to the original, but with tons of extra bloody and sexual violence/ grossness added on for no reason I could see, other than to be like “oh no how shocking”.
I know it’s meant to be disgusting, but it felt very mindlessly so. No symbolism or metaphor, and I certainly didn’t notice any plot relevance to any of it. Like a complete story was already written, then they went “let’s stick on some more gore and gross stuff for kicks” (which I guess is sort of literally what happened).
It was very cinematic. Technically impressive for sure. The bit I did really enjoy was the first arrival at Nosferatu’s digs and all the shadowy movement and atmosphere. It made him seem very demonic and inhuman, almost Hellsing Alucard-like.
Again, it may very likely just not be my kind of movie
You are a Philistine but that’s ok. Plot is just one element of storytelling, it is not the be all and end all.
Vampires, at least the Gothic tradition, have always been about depraved sexuality and the struggle in the conception of the repressed animal and the rational human as a model of a proper person. The disgusting stuff, it’s just vibes. Exploring the grotesque in a safe and fun context.
The world takes all sorts, I’d rather use a staple gun on my face than watch an action flick or see another manly man grapples with manly urges while having to moderate them to avoid driving away the feminine object of his protection story. Maybe gross blood and fucking with maggots just isn’t your thing haha.
Vampire fiction has always had a sexual element to it, the OG Dracula was very much about sexual repression in Victorian society. It’s probably one of the most consistently horny genres of fiction ever. Also Nosferatu is a blood sucking demon.
If it’s not your cup of tea that’s fine, but between it being about Dracula and the director having a reputation for not shying away from graphic or uncomfortable subject matter idk how anyone expected it NOT to have gore and sex.
Well I don’t know who the director is, nor would I have. I do realise gothic horror in general is often about sexual repression, but a lot of the film’s use of it just felt unnecessary.
Maybe the intended audience are more au fait with the director, then? I’unno
I didn’t really like it either. Not my thing I guess. It has a good look to it, but the movie itself was horribly boring to me.
Bloody sexual violence is good
same, i thought it was extremely mid
Watched it in theatre earlier this year. Beautiful, disgusting movie.
It’s so fucking good. The shadow hand manipulating the door was just like chills. Whoever designed that scene adores the genre.
I saw it twice, the cinematography is stunning.
i love all the robert eggers movies and you cant make me hate any one of them (even though i think the lighthouse is a little overrated)
I yelled to a room full of motherfuckers I don’t even know that I needed a shower, went home and took one after the first screening. I knew damn well that this Orlok was gonna be the biggest PoS version of him we’ve ever seen, but even then my expectations were a bit succeeded. Saw it opening night in the cinema, twice. Best xmas ever
They really worked him into this malignant stain on the world. I adored the dream logic of his scenes, and the way they made the animal transformation less goofy by making the rats/plague/wolves/count a sort of nebulous evil entity more than one single spooky dude.
i watched this with my gf a couple weeks back. neither of us got why she wanted to fuck the vampire or what was going on lol
It’s you! The person that modern films have characters constantly turn to the camera and explain their thoughts and emotions for :p
I jest, the end does play pretty fast but she has spent 3 days coming to terms with the fact that she’s going to die and either many others do too or not.
Basically she has a connection to the spirit realm, in the intro you see her call out to anything listening angel or demon. Well a demon answers, and they get freaky in spirit dream space. There’s a metaphor of female sexual development being considered a dirty thing that must be repressed, and she conceives of orlok as a punishment she deserves for the crime of being horny. But while he overs mindless carnal indulgence he cannot love, she loves her hubby and that love warded off orlok for a bit.
Orlok awoken must have his bride because demon reasons. So he sets out to profane their marriage and force her to accept him via murder. But orlok can’t resist her, so she uses her sexuality to trap him with her till morning and he goes pop.
There’s this angle of repressed sexuality summoned a demon, and by her claiming it she can put the demon down. However she also dies, rip.
She had latent psychic powers and was depressed as a child so she mentally reached out for help and Nosferatu responded. This is actually a thing in occultism (I’m told), when you try and reach out to the divine you have to first pass through the realm of evil and demons and intercept your call to corrupt you.
They weren’t literally fucking (in the beginning) but forming a psychic bond.
incel demon vampire literally just wanted to fuck the young stacey
Bro skipped leg day so hard, no wonder he has no rizz
