Robert Eggers' Nosferatu

[abake]

That worries me actually. If they’re sticking to the classic design they would have nothing to hide. Not showing him off makes me think they’re going to jack up the look with a unnecessary redesign. Pennywise was a good one, the Crow was horrible so Bill doesn’t have a perfect track record on these remake redesigns so far.

I'm ok with a little redesign. Kinsky's take wasn't a direct copy and was very effective. So far I haven't been disappointed with Eggers' choices in production design, so I'm confident.

 

[matrix69]

There's a tiny "blink and you'll miss it" clip of Orlock's eyes.

From the few glimpses we do get of the new monster design, it looks to be very much inspired from Albin Grau's concept art for the original 1922 movie... Hunchback with a beaky nose, white eyes and strands of hair on the head.

 

[YoNoSe]

I just hope he got all his ******* fetish out in The Lighhouse. I can't even rewatch if I'm afraid it I open the bluray case I'll get facialed.

 

[lordnastrond]

I just hope he got all his ******* fetish out in The Lighhouse. I can't even rewatch if I'm afraid it I open the bluray case I'll get facialed.

There will 100% be some psycho-sexual scenes, which is okay considering that Nosferatu and Vampire fiction in general has some disturbing sexual connotations.
In the original folklore there is a common theme of dead/vampire victims "visiting" their sleeping spouses for their "marital rights" [often seen as a folkloric explanation for sleep paralysis and night emissions] amongst other mythic/folkloric sexual connotations and that is well before Polidori, Sheridan La Fanu, Stoker etc started emphasizing the sexual connotations of vampires in Fin de Siècle Gothic fiction.

Which is a long winded way of saying expect some nasty undead jism to be shot at the screen in an artistic manner.

 

[Wor-Gar]

For art sake

 

[YoNoSe]

I guess I should've known.
Sometimes a lighthouse is just a lighthouse.
But usually it's a penis.

 

[Rotfish]

Anyone else see this?

I knew I'd buy it in 4K within the first hour. Easily the most brutal and unflinching take on the story, but also the most digestible and fast-paced IMO.

The beats are quite similar to the other versions, but remember that this story has been told at least five times. The best one can ask is that this distinguishes itself in execution and highlights a different aspect of the tale. And boy, does it. There's a Nosferatu/Dracula for every sensibility and this one is (possible spoiler?)

Spoiler

particularly monstrous, so naturally it's my favorite.

 

[HyperDrive]

Just got back from watching it. Really enjoyed it.

 

[xipotec]

Anyone else see this?

I knew I'd buy it in 4K within the first hour. Easily the most brutal and unflinching take on the story, but also the most digestible and fast-paced IMO.

The beats are quite similar to the other versions, but remember that this story has been told at least five times. The best one can ask is that this distinguishes itself in execution and highlights a different aspect of the tale. And boy, does it. There's a Nosferatu/Dracula for every sensibility and this one is (possible spoiler?)

Spoiler

particularly monstrous, so naturally it's my favorite.

So should we start putting funds aside for the figure?

 

[Rotfish]

So should we start putting funds aside for the figure?

That's exactly where my review was going

 

[HyperDrive]

Never happening but I’d probably get licensed ‘24 Ellen and Nosferatu figures. I wish Nosferatu looked more like the 1922 version tho

 

[The Buffinator]

Never happening but I’d probably get licensed ‘24 Ellen and Nosferatu figures. I wish Nosferatu looked more like the 1922 version tho

Ellen? I thought she retired.

 

[Luisenigma1]

Finally either a thread was now made or it was hidden. Going to watch it tomorrow so no spoilers, but I definitely have been hyped to see this film.

 

[Luisenigma1]

There's a tiny "blink and you'll miss it" clip of Orlock's eyes.

From the few glimpses we do get of the new monster design, it looks to be very much inspired from Albin Grau's concept art for the original 1922 movie... Hunchback with a beaky nose, white eyes and strands of hair on the head.

View attachment 729380View attachment 729378View attachment 729379

Basically like the Mezco figure

 

[histrionics]

Anyone else see this?

I knew I'd buy it in 4K within the first hour. Easily the most brutal and unflinching take on the story, but also the most digestible and fast-paced IMO.

The beats are quite similar to the other versions, but remember that this story has been told at least five times. The best one can ask is that this distinguishes itself in execution and highlights a different aspect of the tale. And boy, does it. There's a Nosferatu/Dracula for every sensibility and this one is (possible spoiler?)

Spoiler

particularly monstrous, so naturally it's my favorite.

Yeah, I saw it Christmas afternoon. I kept revisiting this page wondering why there was almost not talk or reviews so far.

I though it was a pretty fantastic piece of filmmaking, but I sort of expected that going in. It's was just a lot more fantastic than I expected! I don't scare easily, but this one really had me. The mood and overall sense of dread was established quickly, jump scares followed, and the rest was a deep dark wild ride dive into the extremes of horror - folk horror, regional horror, period piece horror, psychological horror, body horror, demonic possession horror. That's right, this was a pure horror film, not pretending to be anything otherwise! This film was beautiful and horrific, dazzling while also being deeply unsettling, and ultimately absolutely FEROCIOUS! Maybe a little too much for an unsuspecting audience, but that's what good horror should do : at my screening the audience was losing their s--t, very unsettled, and I saw one couple finally walk out during a particularly daring scene.

Eggers' track record is quite strong and he's generally solidified his name as a new master of horror/genre films, no longer an outsider submitting to niche audiences, this is his breakthrough to major cinemas and a wider global reach. You can see how hard the studio is marketing this, but it's an awfully daring piece of filmmaking to push on an unsuspecting public/audience.

I think Eggers' Nosferatu will be a horror film lots of people will be rewatching regularly in the years ahead (not unlike how so many rewatch Coppola's Dracula and consider it the definitive adaptation). Nosferatu will hold a place amongst Dracula films and I think it will help a lot of new audiences understand what the value of the original 1922 Nosferatu was to the adaptation of the source material novel; Nosferatu was inspired by Dracula and borrows heavily from it - let's be honest, ripped it off - but took it in a very different direction from the novel. Eggers embraced that divergence and drove that narrative to horrifying extremes. He understood the assignment and succeeded!

The film is not without some problems - like most any film these days that submits itself to audience approval and amateur critique - but I can let a lot of the faults go in favour of appreciating just what the film accomplished. Sometimes you watch a film and think, "I wish I had made something like this...", but also know "... no, I could never make something as good as this." That's how I felt and that's why I offer up respect to what Eggers and his crew were able to do here. Got to give props to Lilly-Rose Depp for a bold, fearless, ferocious performance, and to Simon McBurney, as Knock, who chewed up his scenes and really went for the Shakespearean jugular with his character performance. I fear a lot of people will forget or ignore just how great McBurney was in his method simply because he was a lesser supporting character, and all the attention is on Depp and Skarsgård, but McBurney was holding down the fort, anchoring a crucial place in the narrative and setting/foreshadowing the tone that the rest of the cast had to follow.

On a final note, not a spoiler, but there's already plenty of talk and criticism of how differently Orlok is depicted. I had some trouble with it too, but I think being generally and deeply troubled is part of the experience of this film. Orlok isn't Dracula as an undead supernatural romantic vampire, he's a living breathing man simple rendered wretched as a consequence of a dark evil pact with the Devil. A vampire of circumstance, old and expired like rotten meat, connected to and living off the earth of his land. He is the plague, the carrier of filth and the definition of the word Nosferatu, "The Unclean One". All of that has a significant impact on Orlok's tactile look because there's still a beastly horrid man inside that decay. We're supposed to possibly "feel" Orlok, as if he's real rather than ghostly supernatural or ephemeral, maybe even smell him, in a way that the Dracula never did for us. I think Eggers' Orlok is very an amalgam of many screen Draculas, but also an extension to other literary and folkloric vampires, both imagined and unimagined. Think a little bit of Nosferatu, mixed with Vlad Tepes, and Boris Karloff's Wurdalak from Black Sabbath. The latter, Wurdalak, really resonated strongly here.

Hey, did anyone else get the Nosferatu popcorn sarcophagus tin? It's the perfect size for fitting 12" figures. That's just between us, 1:6 collectors, and our particular fetish. LOL! I got six of the tins!

 

[JAWS]

Well I’ll be the first Debbie downer

I did not care for it. I liked the 1st half hour and then it became a goofy mess IMO

There was no real central character after Thomas and after the first half hour he was not the focus. But that’s ok neither is Jonathan Harper.

I get this is an ensemble cast

Problem is Nobody was given a real character to invest in and thus I didn’t care

The overacting at times got to me

William Defoe went full The Lighthouse at one point.
The possession sex scene or whatever it was made me laugh.

ending, while similar to the original, was dumb. The original and this one prove Nosferatu is the dumbest vampire ever

Just didn’t work for me

 

[JAWS]

I will say I could see my opinion changing with a 2nd viewing. I hope.

 

[jye4ever]

Ellen? I thought she retired.

View attachment 746756

Is that the new Nosferatu?

Vampire Pinocchio?