TRASH IN MY EYE No. 61 of 2024 (No. 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux
Nosferatu (2024)
Running time: 133 minutes (2 hours, 13 minutes)
MPA – R for bloody violent content, graphic nudity and some sexual content
DIRECTOR: Robert Eggers
WRITER: Robert Eggers (inspired by the film, Nosferatu, and the novel by Bram Stoker)
PRODUCERS: Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, Robert Eggers, John Graham, and Jeff Robinov
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jarin Blaschke (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Louise Ford
COMPOSER: Robin Carolan
HORROR/THRILLER
Starring: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgard, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, and Simon McBurney
SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW:
Nosferatu is entertaining – in places, but quite a bit of it is also over-the-top and overdone. Honestly, I'd be reluctant to recommend it to people who don't go to movie theaters too often because they could find better films upon which to spend their infrequent cinema visits
Nepo-baby thespian, Lily-Rose Depp, gives an excellent performance, emphasizing facial expressions and physical feats, but Bill Skarsgard as the Nosferatu, manages only to create a vampire that is as boring as he is scary and ugly
Also, if you remember Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula, you will find this film shockingly similar to it
Nosferatu is a 2024 American vampire horror film from writer-director Robert Eggers It is a remake of the 1922 German silent film, Nosferatu. Like that German film, the modern Nosferatu also takes inspiration from the 1897 novel Dracula, written by author Bram Stoker. The new Nosferatu focuses on a young woman and the terrifying vampire that is infatuated with her.
Nosferatu introduces Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp). Since she was a child, Ellen has had a connection to the spiritual and mystical realms. When she was a girl, she called out to a spirit, and that caused her to have a vision of a disfigured and corpse-like creature attack her. This in turns leads to Ellen having a violent seizure.
In 1838, Ellie is now an adult and is newly wed to a husband, the young estate agent, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult). The couple is living in Wisborg, Germany where Thomas works for “Knock & Associates.” His employer, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), offers Thomas a generous commission, but to get it, Thomas must embark on a six-day journey to the small country of Transylvania.
There, Thomas will meet the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard), who wants to buy property in Wisborg, which he plans to make his new home. However, there is a conspiracy behind this business venture between Knock and Orlok, and Ellen, who is once again besieged by dark, monster-filled dreams, is the prize. Now, Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Defoe), a controversial scientist and expert on the occult and mysticism, may be the only one who can figure out what everyone else seems to ignore. And that is the fact that Orlok is a monstrous vampire – a Nosferatu!
First, some history: director F.W. Murnau's 1922 German silent film, Nosferatu, was an unauthorized film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula (1897). Stoker's heirs sued and the film was ordered destroyed, but several prints survived this purge. So the modern Nosferatu is both a remake of the 1922 film and an adaptation of Stoker's novel. I also find quite a bit of this new Nosferatu to be a literally and spiritually rehash of director Francis Ford Coppola's visionary, Oscar-winning film, Bram Stokers Dracula (1992).
Moving on: Lily-Rose Depp delivers a stunning performance as Ellen, one that is both emotionally charged and also physically impressive, thanks to the scenes in which she portrays having blood-curdling seizures, apparently without the help of computer-generated imagery. Depp makes by far the best out of director Robert Eggers' screenplay, which I find to be shallow and also imaginative only in the superficial way that directors borrow from other directors' films in a bid to seem clever before their sycophants and devotees.
That is exemplified by Bill Skarsgard's Count Orlok. He is both frightening and tedious. Skarsgard is buried under a mound of makeup and likely computer-rendering that makes him look like a homeless and destitute version of the infamous Russian mystic and political Svengali, Grigori Rasputin. The new Count Orlok is a scary mountain of monster-man, but he has no personality, And girl, he grunts his garbled dialogue real good. Ultimately, Skarsgard turn as Count Orlok is no better than one of actor Robert Englund's latter turns as “Freddy Krueger” in one of the many sequels to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Eggers really does not give the rest of his characters great dramatic material. Nicholas Hoult's Thomas Hutter is an embarrassing crybaby, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Friedrich Harding is a stubborn moron. Willem Defoe's Von Franz is smart and stupid in alternating waves that suggest that suggests he was created by some AI algorithm. Emma Corrin's Anna Harding (Friedrich's wife) seems very smart and capable, so the male writer's screenplay kills her off way too early.
Yeah, I have a lot of complaints about this new Nosferatu, mainly because it is one of those maddening films that has many brilliant elements that are beset by many tedious, hilarious, and ridiculous elements. This is not “style over substance,” but it is style strangling the shit out of substance. I heartily recommend Nosferatu to fans of vampire films and to adventurous movie lovers, but I would be reluctant to recommend it to people who are not as into movies as I am. Something like Nosferatu would make them roll their eyes.
6 of 10
B
★★★ out of 4 stars
Friday, December 27, 2024
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