0:14

Nosferatu the undead. He

0:17

who drinks the blood of his

0:19

victims and turns them as well

0:22

into phantoms of the night. He

0:25

is as a shadow and has

0:27

no reflection. At

0:29

night he penetrates through walls and doors.

0:33

In shape of a bed he warfs into

0:35

the chambers of the sleeping. In

0:38

shape of a black wolf he hunts down

0:41

those who flee. Abandon

0:43

all hope, he

0:45

who he does approach. makes

0:56

men's bodies to quake and their

0:58

teeth to chatter in their heads. Hosted

1:01

by Jacob. This creature

1:04

is a force more

1:06

powerful than evil. Arnie.

1:08

I love the darkness and

1:10

the shadows. There can

1:13

be alone with my thoughts. And

1:15

Stuart. We are scientists

1:18

engaged in the creation

1:20

of memory. This

1:23

episode will contain detailed plot spoilers

1:25

and strong language. At

1:27

midnight, all sorts of

1:29

evil spirits are set loose. We

1:33

hope you enjoy the show. Tell

1:35

me what you can from the beginning. I'm

1:38

ready. Today

1:48

we're discussing Nosferatu. Starring

1:50

The Crows, Bill Skarsgård,

1:53

The Garfield Movies, Nicholas

1:55

Holt, Craven the Hunters,

1:57

Aaron Taylor Johnson, Hozers,

2:00

Lily Rose Depp. So mean.

2:03

Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe,

2:06

directed by Robert Eggers. You're

2:08

not gonna say speed to

2:10

Willem Dafoe? Well,

2:15

most of those movies came out this

2:17

year, so they should all be happy.

2:19

There's Nosferatu, so nobody's going to be

2:21

thinking about Craven the Hunter, or

2:23

the Garfield movie, or

2:26

the Crow anymore. Those

2:28

are movies I am not thinking about regardless

2:30

of who's starring in this. There was a

2:32

Garfield movie this year? I had no idea.

2:34

Wow. He played John in it. Damn,

2:37

that really went under my radar. It

2:39

was animated, but he still voiced John.

2:41

This is Arnie, co -host of Now

2:43

Playing, and I am ready. I bid

2:46

you come to me. And Stuart, but

2:48

address me as my lord, as my

2:50

blood demands. And this is the co

2:52

-host everyone comes to. Jacob. So, happy

2:55

New Year listeners. We are

2:57

a few days later than usual with

2:59

a weekend of release. However, it

3:01

is a free Friday show as we

3:03

do a twofer. Knows for our two

3:06

reviews this week. Because

3:08

there were two Nosferatu's

3:10

in 2024, which

3:12

of course begs the question, why do

3:14

we even need one? Why would anyone

3:16

want a hundred year old silent movie

3:18

remade? Because Robert Eggers wants it, and

3:20

I think that's all he wants to

3:23

do. I mean, after I saw The

3:25

Witch, he's like, yeah, I'm doing Nosferatu

3:27

next. This is what I want. And

3:29

that was a long time ago and

3:31

two other movies ago. Yeah, Robert Eggers.

3:33

I will return to our podcast review

3:35

for folks that don't know. It is

3:37

a patron pick number 20 on our

3:39

list of over a hundred patron picks

3:42

just did Barry Linden and the witch

3:44

was number 20 and I declared on

3:46

that show Robert Eggers was the director

3:48

to watch that he was going to

3:50

have an amazing career and Watch out.

3:52

This is the beginnings of a major

3:54

new cinematic voice. I don't know What

3:56

do you think about the lighthouse in

3:59

the Northman? We all have our modern

4:01

day working directors that we get excited

4:03

about when a new movie comes from

4:05

them and... Eggers, despite whatever success he's

4:07

had or not success he's had at

4:09

the box office, is one who I

4:11

look forward to. I love the lighthouse.

4:13

Hope we get to review that someday.

4:15

That is just madness for a couple

4:18

of hours with Willem Dafoe and Robert

4:20

Pattinson. And the Northman, what a weird

4:22

movie. I remember the

4:24

marketing for that. They're like, here's the

4:26

next Braveheart. Here's this big epic. And

4:29

I'm like, no, this is like this

4:31

really dirty Viking saga, like naked dudes

4:33

fighting in front of a volcano. With

4:36

lots of blurry images, like I feel

4:38

like half the movie I even see.

4:40

Yeah, I went back and rewatch that

4:43

one, because the other ones I've seen

4:45

multiple times, that one I had only

4:47

seen once when it came out theatrically,

4:49

and yeah, I really like Robert Eggers.

4:51

He taps into... It's what made the

4:53

witch so great is he gets into

4:56

whatever time period he's making a movie

4:58

about, and whatever you think about the

5:00

plot, you feel like you're in that

5:02

time period. I'll agree with that. He

5:04

is, I think, an art director and

5:06

a graphic designer by trade, and his

5:08

attention to detail is unsurpassed. You time

5:11

travel. When you watch his film... witch

5:13

particularly, you go back to a time

5:15

before there was film. You forget that

5:17

there is a crew there on set.

5:19

You feel transported. I did like the

5:21

lighthouse. It was a, you know, a

5:24

mad little film. Felt almost like a

5:26

play. But Northman, I don't... don't know

5:28

what I felt about that. I'll need

5:30

to see it again. It did feel

5:32

transportive, but it also felt punishing. It

5:34

was really hard to endure. I do

5:36

think that Eggers is very resistant to

5:39

entertainment. He makes things not because he

5:41

thinks audiences will like it, but because

5:43

it's what he's compelled to make. And

5:45

I only had seen The Witch until

5:47

a couple of weeks ago. I didn't

5:49

recommend that film. I was pretty hard

5:52

on that film. I did go back

5:54

and revisit that film and I think

5:56

with revised expectations, you

5:58

know, I went in thinking that

6:00

was a horror movie and heard

6:02

it declared as a great new

6:04

horror movie. There's some horror to

6:06

it. There's some suspense to it.

6:08

But I think my expectations for

6:10

what that film was going to

6:12

be sabotaged my ability to appreciate

6:14

that film on the first watch. rewatching

6:16

it I'd go back I'd give

6:18

that a recommend I liked it

6:20

quite a bit I thought the performances

6:23

were very strong and there's definitely

6:25

art in the filmmaking and I

6:27

think you were right Stuart I

6:29

think Eggers was one to watch because

6:31

people talk about him with almost

6:33

the same reverency as they do

6:35

a Nolan you know people who

6:37

like Eggers love fucking Eggers you know

6:39

and so I decided I'd Get

6:41

to the lighthouse. I've been meaning

6:43

to see that for quite some

6:45

time ever since it came out. It

6:48

looked interesting to me. I watched

6:50

that one. Yeah, I'd recommend it

6:52

again. I didn't love it, but

6:54

I liked it. The Northman, I didn't

6:56

know if I'd have time to

6:58

watch. I ended up just watching

7:00

it in between two viewings of

7:02

Nosferatu. It's my favorite Eggers film over

7:05

Nosferatu. Wow. I think it has

7:07

the most going on. I think

7:09

which lighthouse and Nosferatu all have

7:11

periods where they really drag. Yes. felt

7:13

like the Northman really kept its

7:15

pace up. I was surprised that

7:17

I liked Alexander Skarsgard in it

7:19

as much as I do. I pretty

7:21

much only know him from True

7:23

Blood and the remake of The

7:25

Stand, and I thought he was

7:27

a really solid actor in that. I

7:30

thought Anya Taylor -Joy was good.

7:32

I thought the story was familiar

7:34

enough to drive home, you know,

7:36

very Shakespearean and such. I didn't think

7:38

I'd like a period piece Viking

7:40

film, and I really came around

7:42

on that one. I went in

7:44

reluctantly. Yeah, my favorite Eggers

7:46

film. And then, yeah, I

7:48

did see Nosferatu twice. I went

7:51

on Christmas Day just for pure

7:53

enjoyment reasons. I was highly anticipating

7:55

this film. I thought the trailers

7:57

looked really good. There was a

7:59

lot of mystery around it. The

8:01

Marketing for this film has been

8:03

incredible. Yes, of course, there's a

8:05

gross popcorn bucket. That's a casket

8:07

with little rats in it with

8:09

rats printed on the inside. Yeah,

8:11

I had to check that one

8:13

out. Yes. Oh, you get rats

8:15

with your popcorn. OK, good. That

8:17

seems appropriate. But there's also this

8:19

like six. thousand pound

8:21

casket that they put in some theaters,

8:23

one of which isn't all that far

8:25

from me. I was going to take

8:27

the 45 minute drive to see the

8:29

casket. Turns out you can't get in

8:31

the casket. It's too dangerous because the

8:33

lid is too heavy. If you could

8:35

get photos in the casket because I

8:37

saw some people, they snuck in. They

8:39

got some selfies in the casket. Of

8:41

course. You were allowed in

8:43

the casket. I was gonna go see this casket.

8:46

You could just buy it. It's only $3 ,000.

8:48

No, it's $20 ,000. That's the bed. Oh,

8:51

that's the bed. The bed is $20 ,000.

8:53

There's a bed? You can have your bed

8:55

be a coffin, or you could just buy

8:57

a coffin if you think you're going to

8:59

pass soon, or you know someone else that

9:02

needs one for a mere $3 ,000. You

9:04

know, I just had to bury a loved

9:06

one, $3 ,000. Yeah, that seems like a

9:08

reasonable price. It is a bargain if it

9:10

is - actually able to be buried in

9:13

it. Yeah, it actually is. Makes me think

9:15

it's probably not a very good coffin coffin.

9:17

You know, just look cool. Even the band

9:19

Kiss came out with a coffin that cost

9:21

more than that. Yes, I remember that. Wow.

9:24

The weirdest promotion I saw and I

9:26

don't know how this is supposed to

9:29

convince you to go see this movie

9:31

or maybe it's a little reward. I'm

9:33

not sure, but I went to buy

9:35

my tickets on the Fandango app and

9:37

you know, you pick your seats and

9:40

usually like the seats that are taken,

9:42

they're different colors square. I noticed all

9:44

of a sudden they were little coffins

9:46

like those were the taken seats like

9:48

they came up with their own little

9:50

icon again I'm already buying the tickets

9:53

I don't need to be promoted to

9:55

to convince me to buy these but

9:57

I thought that was a weird little

9:59

Easter egg when I bought these tickets

10:01

Or maybe it's a threat like you're

10:04

gonna end up in a coffin when

10:06

you see them You know and this

10:08

is the weird thing because to hear

10:10

this kind of promotion makes you think

10:12

William Castle We're selling those cheesy horror

10:14

movies from the 50s silliness campiness and

10:17

Robert Egg Is not that unless he's

10:19

selling out is the last person that

10:21

I think would want a popcorn bucket

10:23

You know what I mean like he

10:25

is not I think it's out of

10:28

his hands. Yeah, he doesn't want to

10:30

make popcorn entertainment That's not what he's

10:32

about. So he's again of another era

10:34

I feel like he existed a pre

10:36

civilization time when there were no marketing

10:38

campaigns There were no movies. There was

10:41

nothing but the chaos of nature. He

10:43

did say that He wasn't coming up

10:45

with these ideas No, but he did

10:47

have veto power over these ideas and

10:49

he only let the ones he liked

10:52

go through So he is for this

10:54

stuff. He liked the design of the

10:56

popcorn bucket He said he couldn't afford

10:58

one of the beds, but yeah, he

11:00

was for this stuff And yeah, he

11:03

is an interesting one because he's really

11:05

into the period. He was fine with

11:07

the marketing, but when he was asked

11:09

in an interview I watched, would you

11:11

ever make a modern film? His exact

11:13

quote is, the thought of filming a

11:16

car makes me sick. The thought of

11:18

filming a cell phone is just death.

11:20

He does not want to make anything

11:22

after World War II. Yeah.

11:24

Yeah. This is an old timey period piece.

11:26

I don't know what the general public's knowledge

11:29

of Nosferatu is because they did not show.

11:31

I think the most I saw of Skarsgard

11:33

was his eyes in any promotional stuff. And

11:35

I didn't want to go too deep because

11:37

I figured, oh, his look is going to

11:39

be a big deal. But I'm shocked when

11:42

I go to buy my tickets, Christmas Eve,

11:44

to see this on Christmas Day. And there's

11:46

three theaters that are pretty close to me

11:48

and almost all of them are at least

11:50

halfway. out packed theaters for this director who

11:52

pissed off a lot of people with the

11:55

witch because it wasn't what they expected this

11:57

does not seem like a mainstream director this

11:59

does not seem like a mainstream movie yet

12:01

I was shocked with how many tickets were

12:03

sold yeah I'm returning to that question why

12:05

would you remake Nosferatu, not

12:08

Dracula. I get that you'd bring back

12:10

Dracula. Dracula is a name everybody knows.

12:12

Nosferatu is something that half the people

12:14

in the audience can't say. You're going

12:16

to put that out at Christmas? It's

12:18

a hundred -year -old silent movie?

12:21

Again, I get why Eggers would

12:23

geek about it, but it doesn't

12:25

feel commercial. It feels like a

12:27

real risk to spend this much

12:29

money promoting something that is not

12:31

going to be, again, it's that

12:33

elevated horror trick. Is there enough

12:35

horror in it to entrant the

12:37

common folk or are they just

12:40

gonna be bored and wondering why

12:42

the movie so slow the hype

12:44

around this movie that I've seen

12:46

is intense and it is blowing

12:48

away the box office expectations they'd

12:50

hoped for 25 million over Christmas

12:52

weekend for Wednesday through Sunday they've

12:54

now up that to over 40

12:56

million I know I had trouble

12:59

finding a showing that wasn't sold

13:01

out. I usually go to the

13:03

Alamo Draft House and those pre

13:05

-sold out so far in advance.

13:07

It was crazy. So I

13:09

went to a different one, a Flix

13:11

Brew House, if you've heard of those,

13:14

and it was pretty empty when I

13:16

bought my tickets. packed on Christmas Day,

13:18

11 .30 AM showing. I was almost

13:20

the youngest person there. It was like

13:22

the retirement home. All went to see

13:25

Nosferatu. Maybe they remembered the original coming

13:27

out in the 20s. I mean, that's

13:29

how old these people were. They bought

13:31

the caskets. That's funny because I looked

13:33

at my crowd and it was all

13:36

ages. Like I had a line of

13:38

teenagers sitting next to me that bought

13:40

the rest of the row. So it

13:42

was a real mix, which was a

13:44

surprise to me because, yeah, who cares

13:47

about this old silent film that I'm

13:49

guessing a lot of them didn't even

13:51

know if it was a vampire movie

13:53

or not. I'm curious if you guys

13:55

know if you saw it in digital

13:58

projection or 35 millimeter. I'm sure it's

14:00

digital. Like Nolan, I heard that he

14:02

was able to get in certain markets,

14:04

actual film to like Oppenheimer did run

14:06

through a spool. They broke out the

14:08

old projector. I'm sure it was digital

14:11

in both my showings. Yeah. But the

14:13

thing that pissed me off at Flix

14:15

Brewhouse is they showed it. in the

14:17

wrong aspect ratio because I'm watching this

14:19

movie and I'm like, I've just watched

14:22

every Eggers film. I don't remember him

14:24

framing shots where everyone's cut off at

14:26

the forehead, like just the top of

14:28

their head is missing in the frame.

14:30

And I'm thinking this is a really

14:33

weird framing choice. No, they fit the

14:35

frame to the width of their screen

14:37

and cut off the top and bottom.

14:39

When I saw this a second time

14:41

at Marcus, it was a much more

14:44

square ratio, not as square as Lighthouse,

14:46

but pretty square. And I got to

14:48

see the tops of everyone's head. Well,

14:50

lo and behold, the death of the

14:52

projectionist. He died long ago. That used

14:55

to be someone's job that they had

14:57

to very specifically calibrate the film projector

14:59

and be ready for audience. Now that's

15:01

done by the kid that's also filling

15:03

the soda tank. So, yes, mistakes do

15:06

happen, but I will also point out,

15:08

and it was something I noticed on

15:10

my second viewing of this movie, the

15:12

aspect ratio on this thing changes. The

15:14

actual size of the screen image goes

15:17

from rectangle to box, and sometimes other

15:19

shapes as well. It's a subtle little

15:21

trick. Yeah, I did not notice that.

15:23

Oh yeah, it's really cool. Check it

15:25

out. So maybe, again, if you don't

15:28

get it exactly frame right, you're definitely

15:30

going to cut out some of this

15:32

image. Did you get to see this

15:34

in iMacs? Because I understood it was

15:36

released in iMacs. All that my iMac

15:39

screens are showing Mufasa and that is

15:41

it. I checked within a 75 mile

15:43

radius only Mufasa. If this was in

15:45

iMacs, I think it's probably just the

15:47

largest markets. IMAX is

15:50

known for having those aspect ratio changes.

15:52

You know Marvel movies and all the

15:54

movies I see in IMAX do that

15:56

all the time. I wondered if you

15:58

saw this in IMAX and that was

16:00

why the aspect ratio was changing. No

16:03

actually there's even a scene I'll talk

16:05

about it where you can watch only

16:07

on one side the black come in.

16:09

So it sort of like becomes a

16:11

square as the scene moves unfold. It's

16:14

a choice but I do agree probably

16:16

some of it was shot for IMAX

16:18

which means that it's formatted. like a

16:20

square and not a rectangle. Some of

16:22

that is just because they wanted to

16:24

have the nice cameras on that. No,

16:27

like you, they had all the Disney

16:29

movies, Sonic. The movies that were expected

16:31

to make a lot of money. Family

16:33

films were the ones in the big

16:35

screens. They put this in a very

16:38

small theater. They put this in one

16:40

of the smallest in my multiplex. But

16:42

both times that I went, it was

16:44

wall to wall. There were people there

16:46

filling it up. So I think they

16:48

miscalculated how much, at least initially, audiences

16:51

might be ready for a gothic vampire

16:53

movie on Christmas Day. Yeah, my second

16:55

showing was also sold out except for

16:57

the front row. I kind of got

16:59

the Christmas Day sell out. You know,

17:02

first day it was out and everything,

17:04

but I thought by Friday I'd be

17:06

able to see a showing and have

17:08

a lot of seats. Now Alamo was

17:10

doing a special event showing, so I

17:12

couldn't get into that one. They were

17:15

giving out the popcorn buckets with the

17:17

expensive tickets. I did the party showing

17:19

for Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice there. They have all

17:21

kinds of things they put like, I

17:23

bet they put plastic rats out because

17:25

they put plastic spiders out for Beetlejuice,

17:28

Beetlejuice. But I went to the Marcus

17:30

and... if that wasn't sold out. Now,

17:32

yes, it was in a mid -sized

17:34

theater, but there there were people of

17:36

all ages and things. Although I did

17:39

notice some people walking out mid -film

17:41

and afterwards I overheard some chatter. Like,

17:43

what did you think? And the other

17:45

one was like, yeah, I did not

17:47

like that film. Yeah, not surprisingly, this

17:50

is elevated horror. It is not mainstream.

17:52

I wouldn't have dared if I were

17:54

focused features to say that this is

17:57

our big Christmas gamble, that we're going

17:59

to put it out. so hot and

18:01

heavy here. But what is the draw?

18:03

I mean, is it Dracula? Do people

18:05

know that it's the Dracula story? Are

18:07

they just hungry for vampires again? Or

18:10

is it Bill Skarsgard? Is it Nicholas

18:12

Holt? Johnny Depp's daughter? Who in this

18:14

could even be the kind of person

18:16

you put on the cover of People

18:18

Magazine? I did hear people

18:20

talk before this film came out

18:22

about Nicholas Holt's bulge in the

18:25

film. No, I didn't catch his

18:27

bulge, but people were thirsting over

18:29

Nicholas Holt before this film came

18:31

out, but... No, I mean, none

18:33

of these people carried other movies

18:35

to glory this year. There's a

18:38

reason why I pointed out their

18:40

embarrassments of the year. Again, this

18:42

movie may get them Oscar buzz

18:44

and nobody's going to remember their

18:46

flops of the year, but I

18:48

don't see this as a star

18:51

vehicle. But man, did they push

18:53

this trailer. It was before

18:55

every movie I saw in a long

18:57

time. Yeah. And the trailer just looks

18:59

creepy with that music box. and seeing

19:01

Lily Rose Depp falling. I don't think

19:04

she's a draw. I mean, literally Yoga

19:06

Hozers and another Kevin Smith movie Tusk

19:08

is all I've seen her in. Yeah,

19:10

but all right, be nice. She had

19:12

an HBO show there and it was

19:14

terrible. I watched it, but she in

19:17

the weekend. you said be nice. Yeah,

19:19

well, I mean, at least you can

19:21

name something that people paid attention to.

19:23

She was not the thing that people

19:25

made fun of, but all summer long,

19:27

people laughed about the idol. She was

19:30

a... Spears in training and the weekend

19:32

was this creepy lethario that tried to

19:34

sex up her image. And it was

19:36

kind of a drama, kind of a

19:38

musical, kind of a mess. It didn't

19:40

foretake of a career that I would

19:43

have thought had much longevity. She looked

19:45

like a starlet in passing and knowing

19:47

that she was Johnny Depp's kid and

19:49

nepotism, it's an easy label to throw

19:51

on someone. Bill Skarsgard might be a

19:53

reason to see this, right? It, people

19:56

love his incarnation of Pennywise. Yeah, if

19:58

you think you're gonna get Pennywise, Maybe

20:01

listen to our review before you go

20:03

see this because you are not gonna

20:05

get that but that would be the

20:07

draw, right? Yes, and they did that

20:09

was the thing I have to say

20:11

I was really most anticipating and seeing

20:13

this was how little of the vampire

20:15

we had seen you say Nosferatu I

20:17

always like Nosferatu movies better than Dracula

20:19

because Dracula always has to be sexy,

20:21

right? Dracula is the one where we

20:23

see him as the virile lover and

20:25

we're kind of seduced by him but

20:27

in Nosferatu movies we see it as

20:29

We see it as monster and Kinski

20:31

and Max Schreck are two of the

20:33

most terrifying vampires the screen has ever

20:35

given us. I really wanted to know

20:37

what Bill Skarsgard was going to do.

20:39

They hype it up a lot that

20:41

when you were going to see him,

20:43

you're going to be blown away. And

20:45

they kept him in shadow. They

20:48

didn't show him on the trailer except

20:50

a silhouette. I'm actually surprised the trailer

20:52

looked like it was showing a lot,

20:55

but most of that trailers in like

20:57

the first five minutes of this film.

20:59

It's the pre -credits sequence. Yeah. And

21:02

I saw people on Twitter Like,

21:05

I'm leaving Twitter because I can't

21:07

see Nosferatu until next week and

21:09

I don't want spoilers. And I'm

21:12

literally like, this movie's 102 years

21:14

old. What can be spoiled? Spoiler?

21:17

It's Dracula. It does everything

21:19

that Dracula does. They said the spoiler would

21:21

be seeing what Skarsgard looked like or something.

21:24

And I am gonna say, seeing that mustache,

21:26

that will become a meme, right? People are

21:28

going to laugh at that stash. I agree

21:30

with that, though. That was the one spoiler

21:32

that I was kind of being careful about

21:34

when I was looking up stuff pre -watching

21:36

this film is like, I don't want to

21:38

see the design. I don't want to see

21:40

them talking about how they're going to make

21:43

them look. I think if you've seen that

21:45

100 -plus -year -old movie, you're going to

21:47

come into this with certain expectations. To me,

21:49

the star of Nosferatu is Nosferatu. How are

21:51

you going to make this vampire look? That

21:53

was my biggest anticipation. Right. We'd

21:55

all know this plot. We've covered

21:58

it four times already. But Arnie,

22:00

why don't you go ahead and

22:02

give it to us? and we'll

22:04

see what's different about Robert Eggers

22:06

Nosferatu. Yeah, I am again using

22:08

the same plot summary that I

22:10

used for the 1922 version, but

22:12

I did have to rewrite it

22:14

a lot more than I had

22:17

to for the 2023 Doug Jones

22:19

version. I did have to add

22:21

some inserts beyond just cast member

22:23

names. But if you listen carefully,

22:25

I think you'll see the echoes

22:27

of my plot summary from a

22:29

year ago. In her youth, Ellen

22:31

sought companionship, calling out to any

22:34

angel or demon who could fulfill

22:36

her. Her call is answered by

22:38

an ancient evil who ravishes her

22:40

spiritually and to whom she pledges

22:42

herself eternally. That being, we will

22:44

discover, is Count Orlock. We then

22:46

jump forward to the year 1838,

22:48

and Ellen, played by Lily Rose

22:51

Depp, is married to real estate

22:53

agent Thomas Hutter, played by Nicholas

22:55

Holt. Thomas has been sent to

22:57

Transylvania to meet a client named

22:59

Count Orlock, played by Bill Skarsgard.

23:01

Orlock wants to buy an estate

23:03

in Hutter's town. Hutter goes, enticed

23:05

by the thought of the big

23:08

commission, and he ignores Orlock's strange

23:10

appearance. Orlock makes Thomas sign strange

23:12

papers in a language Thomas doesn't

23:14

understand, but Thomas signs, again enticed

23:16

by the commission Orlock is offering.

23:18

Thomas doesn't realize he's signing away

23:20

his marriage and giving Ellen to

23:22

Orlock. Back home, Ellen has been

23:24

having nightmarish visions that her husband

23:27

is in danger, and Orlock is

23:29

coming for her. Ellen is staying

23:31

with friends Frederick and Anna Harding,

23:33

played by Aaron Taylor Johnson and

23:35

Emma Corrin. Fearful of Ellen's night

23:37

terrors, they call on Dr. Severs,

23:39

played by Ralph Inneson, who uses

23:41

ether to sedate Ellen. But Severs

23:44

also suggests bringing in expert Professor

23:46

Albin Eberhardt von Franz, played

23:48

by Willem Dafoe. Von Franz realizes

23:50

that a dark spirit is torturing

23:52

Ellen, and he eventually names that

23:54

spirit Nosferatu. And he is, for

23:56

Orlock is a vampire. Hutter finds

23:59

the Count sleeping in his coffin.

24:01

Hutter flees and falls into the

24:03

water nearly dead. He is rescued

24:05

by some nuns who nurse him

24:07

back to health and beseech him

24:09

to stay under their protection from

24:11

Orlach. But Hutter knows Ellen is

24:13

in danger, so he races back

24:15

to Wisborg, Germany. Orlach has already

24:17

departed for his new home in

24:20

Germany, leaving Hutter behind. Abored the

24:22

ship, Orlach kills the entire crew

24:24

and the Captain. When he reaches

24:26

Vizborg, Hutter's boss, Nock, is waiting,

24:28

played by Simon McBurney. A plague

24:30

breaks out across Vizborg, and Orlock

24:32

goes to Ellen, but Ellen must

24:34

pledge herself freely to the count.

24:36

She refuses, so he gives her

24:38

three nights to do so. The

24:41

first night, Orlock feeds on Anna.

24:43

The second night, Orlock kills Anna

24:45

and her two children. Von Franz,

24:47

Friedrich, Dr. Sievers, and Thomas plot

24:49

to kill Orlock by destroying his

24:51

coffin. But Von Franz and Ellen

24:53

both know the only way to

24:55

really stop Orlock is for Ellen

24:57

to give herself to him. On

24:59

that third night, while Von Franz

25:02

takes Thomas away under the guise

25:04

of attacking Orlock, the Count goes

25:06

to visit Ellen. She gives herself

25:08

to him body and soul. Orlock

25:10

begins to feed on her blood,

25:12

but while drinking from the young

25:14

woman's breast, the sun rises, and

25:17

Orlock is killed by its rays.

25:19

The victory is not without a

25:21

cost, though, as Ellen dies from

25:23

her blood loss in the embrace

25:25

of the vampire as credits roll.

25:28

And as we start, I think

25:30

they want to make an important

25:32

distinction I don't think has ever

25:34

been made before in either Dracula

25:36

or Nosferatu. Ellen was in a

25:38

relationship with the vampire before she

25:40

was ever in a relationship with

25:43

a human being. Yeah, one of

25:45

the things I did know going

25:47

into this is I saw Eggers

25:49

talk about what is his perspective

25:51

going into Nosferatu? What is he

25:53

going to bring to this tale?

25:56

That's been told a few times

25:58

around as we've reviewed and discussed

26:00

and his focus was Ellen. He's

26:02

like, this is going to be

26:04

her story not Nosferatu's and that

26:06

gave me pause when I heard

26:08

that before I saw this I'm

26:11

like okay so it's not all

26:13

about this vampire and it's not

26:15

surprising knowing that going in like

26:17

yeah this whole setup is about

26:19

Ellen. Not only that but I

26:21

mean I'm really getting a sense

26:23

of the witch as we get

26:26

started here and the same way

26:28

that the witch ended with her

26:30

pledging to a delicious life and

26:32

a goat to be some kind

26:34

of which, some evil occultist thing,

26:36

we see another woman in bed

26:38

time, crying out into the dark,

26:41

trying to make a connection. She

26:43

has psychic abilities, and not unlike

26:45

the characters in the insidious movies

26:47

that reach into the further, sometimes

26:49

they pull back a demon. That

26:51

voice that answers is awoken by

26:54

her. She brings this upon the

26:56

world. This is a really interesting

26:58

opening to me. It's really Eggers.

27:00

biggest contribution to the film is

27:02

the reframing of the story from

27:04

Ellen's point of view and making

27:06

Ellen be the one to bring

27:09

him into her life. In all

27:11

of the Dracula stories, including the

27:13

Nosferatu's, it's been her husband who's

27:15

been enticed by money who's been

27:17

making these deals with the devil

27:19

and bringing in the evil here.

27:21

we're gonna get some words of

27:24

a backstory that she's always been

27:26

plagued by a little bit of

27:28

madness and sleepwalking and night terrors,

27:30

but I'm not quite sure why

27:32

she is so lonely that she

27:34

is calling out to just any

27:36

angel or demon that will have

27:39

her, but I really think this

27:41

is a story of a... sexually

27:43

adventurous woman whose libido gets her

27:45

in some trouble. Oh, no, that's

27:47

totally my reading. And just like

27:49

the witch about these puritanical societies

27:52

and what are women's place in

27:54

them. Yeah, I feel like this

27:56

is about a woman who had

27:58

some fun in her early days

28:00

and now is getting slut shamed.

28:02

And that slut shaming is going

28:04

to destroy the whole town. Yeah,

28:07

I don't know that. I mean,

28:09

I think she's a virgin in

28:11

this moment. But I do think

28:13

because she has desire, that is

28:15

what brings out the nature, you

28:17

know? not unlike the witch, which

28:19

sort of existed in this pre

28:22

-civilization America. America before it had

28:24

a constitution and before it was

28:26

really a country. We're in this

28:28

Germany before there was Germany. We're

28:30

gonna get a subtitle, 1838 Germany.

28:32

I know this much. I took

28:34

a history of Germany class. Germany

28:37

didn't exist in 1838. It was

28:39

a series of principalities and didn't

28:41

have a forged identity for another

28:43

40 years. And I think that

28:45

there's something about that wildness, that

28:47

undefinedness that Eggers really liked. on

28:50

the cusp of civilization that's about

28:52

to become modern and yet it's

28:54

ruled by these woods and these

28:56

wilds and this folklore. And yet

28:58

it is the exact same year

29:00

that 1922 film was set in

29:02

when I was revisiting my notes

29:05

there. it is exacting in that

29:07

way. But that film did not

29:09

say Germany. It said Wiesbord, and

29:11

that's the difference, is that by

29:13

calling it out incorrectly that Germany

29:15

was a country at this time,

29:17

that's aspirational. This is a place

29:20

that is aspiring for the modern.

29:22

And you say she's a virgin,

29:24

but I definitely think we see

29:26

her having sex with an invisible

29:28

Count Orlock when she's sleepwalking there.

29:30

She lays down on the grass

29:32

or falls on the grass. and

29:35

she's writhing and moaning and orgasming,

29:37

and we see this with no

29:39

one on top of her, but

29:41

she is consummating her relationship with

29:43

Orlock here in this past time.

29:45

Yes. If Orlock represents folklore, the

29:48

past, nature, primal, the

29:51

non -modern, then yes, that is what

29:53

she is communing with, and that is

29:55

forbidden in this time. I mean, again,

29:57

this is the age of enlightenment. This

30:00

is the time when science and reason

30:02

is supposed to be explaining a way

30:04

of superstition, and she's not giving it

30:06

up. She's having full -on intercourse with

30:08

mysticism. We'll get to Willem Dafoe, but

30:11

I think his character really drives that

30:13

point home that this may be modern

30:15

times, but there's still things we don't

30:17

understand about the past that we need

30:20

to reconcile. And we do get a

30:22

very brief flash. It's really about 45

30:24

minutes until we get an extreme close

30:26

up Bill Skarsgard. But if you have

30:29

a quick eye, we do see what

30:31

basically just looks like a charred zombie

30:33

atop her for just a second, choking

30:35

her out. He's into that kind of

30:37

sex. Yeah, I noticed he was choking

30:40

her. That's when her moans of passion

30:42

turned to screams and she realizes this

30:44

might not be what she bargained for.

30:46

It's getting a little bit rough for

30:49

her tastes. It could just be 50

30:51

shades of Nosferatu. Yeah, I

30:53

do think there's some of that. I

30:55

don't know if back then they

30:57

had a safe word or not.

30:59

She wasn't saying it, but... does

31:02

seem like she's made a bargain

31:04

too far when she's woken up

31:06

this demon who says that for

31:08

centuries he's been in darkness and

31:10

her call awoken him. Yeah, for

31:12

whatever you want to put it,

31:14

it is on her that this

31:16

these work is going to have

31:18

to deal with her and we

31:20

immediately jump. She's calling out to

31:22

another lover this time a human

31:24

one. Her husband Thomas newly married

31:26

is getting ready for his big

31:28

job. And this is usually how

31:30

Nosferatu began with the husband off

31:32

to work cheery unsuspecting of the

31:34

darkness while the wife is petting

31:37

cats and Lamenting dead flower but

31:39

one thing I noticed that Edgers

31:41

does and I think it's really

31:43

effective The second viewing became really

31:45

clear anytime. We're in the modern

31:47

day There is always the sound

31:49

or a visual of a clock

31:51

you will always hear ticking or

31:53

you will always see a clock

31:55

in frame church bells are ringing.

31:57

The modern world is ruled by

31:59

this concept of time, whereas the

32:01

natural world is eternal. It's infinity,

32:03

I think, is how it gets

32:05

explained. And that really is the

32:07

contrast between the two worlds. This

32:10

modern precious little world that tries

32:12

to be ruled by time and

32:14

modernity. And I think you see

32:16

that when Thomas goes to work

32:18

and all his coworkers are like,

32:20

you're 15 minutes late, how dare

32:22

you? And then Nock, who has

32:24

been turned at this point, is

32:26

like, ah, who cares? Yeah, at

32:28

least you're here. Always

32:30

giggling. You always hear laughter in

32:32

this too. Like the ancient people

32:34

are always giggling about something. I'm

32:37

going to say Nosferatu is a

32:39

Christmas movie. It is set at

32:41

Christmas. We're going to hear a

32:43

music box playing Oak Christmas tree

32:45

later on. And here I felt

32:47

this way in... Doug Jones version

32:49

and here I feel it even

32:51

more. I feel like we're seeing

32:53

the opening of Scrooge being told

32:55

from the point of view of

32:57

Scrooge is put upon employee with

32:59

knock as Scrooge. I mean, when

33:02

you see all these people in

33:04

top hats and everything, I definitely

33:06

feel like we're in a dark

33:08

version of a Christmas Carol. Yeah,

33:10

it's about roughly the same period.

33:12

Obviously, Germany is not the same

33:14

thing as England, but yes, I

33:16

guess you could make the equivalents.

33:18

I think it's Christmas because of

33:20

Jesus. Christ, right? Because of the

33:22

sacrifice of some man. And here,

33:24

by contrast, will be the story

33:26

of a sacrifice of a woman.

33:29

And again, this is a age

33:31

that pretends to know so much

33:33

about the world. And yet women

33:35

are mysterious. Look at the writings

33:37

of Freud. I do think that

33:39

women do represent the unexplained, what

33:41

the modern society cannot know. Husband

33:43

is perfectly happy to go about

33:45

his life. He believes that he

33:47

could get money, improve his station,

33:49

like we've seen the character before.

33:51

And that means taking a job

33:54

of going to Transylvania and giving

33:56

some old guy a contract to

33:58

by a dump that's in town.

34:00

And I do like the detail

34:02

that they've added that they are

34:04

newlyweds, Thomas and Ellen. In the

34:06

past, I think they've been celebrating

34:08

their one year anniversary, but... this

34:10

time before birth control, you would

34:12

wonder why a couple wouldn't have

34:14

children, especially such a lebedentous couple

34:16

as this, but we're going to

34:18

get knocked saying congratulations on your

34:21

nuptial, a married man needs

34:23

a higher salary, so

34:25

secure this contract, secure your position

34:27

with the company. Yeah, this is

34:29

a detail that's different. Usually they're

34:31

living right by the place that

34:33

the vampire buys, right? But they

34:35

don't own a house. They're poor.

34:37

We will find out that Thomas

34:39

is actually in debt to a

34:41

school chum and that he's just

34:43

wanting. Again, this is maybe the

34:45

gig. If I can do this,

34:47

it requires me to travel for

34:49

six weeks and be around some

34:52

creep. But if I can do

34:54

this, I can finally have what

34:56

I aspired. And it puts him

34:58

in contrast with his wife, who

35:00

has had premonitions, a dream of

35:02

marrying death, who receives his bouquet,

35:04

not as a gift of flowers, but

35:07

as why did you give me these

35:09

dead flowers? I like they reuse that

35:11

line from the original Murnau movie. I

35:14

feel like I recognize this movie, and

35:16

yet the emphasis is such that it

35:18

definitely has its own character, its own

35:20

spin, it benefits by being Ellen -focused.

35:23

We're with her when she knows her

35:25

husband's gonna leave her and go on

35:27

this doom voyage. She knows what we

35:29

know. And yet I feel like we've

35:32

seen that before as well. She's always

35:34

had premonitions that this was going to

35:36

be a bad voyage. She's always beseeched

35:39

him not to leave her. But here

35:41

it's more emphasized. Yeah. And

35:43

again, he's like, don't talk about your dreams.

35:45

Like I don't want to hear about this

35:47

wedding where everyone's dead in the wedding party

35:50

and you're like never been happier to be

35:52

holding hands with death. Just stop being weird,

35:54

lady. I married you because you're cute, not

35:56

because I like what's in your head. And

35:59

that seems to be the tension of there.

36:01

He's not really in love with her. She's

36:03

just beautiful, right? That's what gets commented about

36:05

her. She's a beautiful woman. She's the kind

36:07

of wife that you marry that has a

36:10

certain status. Just don't pay attention to that

36:12

weird stuff she talks about sometime and that

36:14

he's hoping she'll be silent. He'll pass her

36:16

off to his friend. And this is where

36:19

we realize that Aaron Taylor Johnson has a

36:21

lot to giggle about now that he has

36:23

escaped the role of Craven. And he very

36:25

much seems like that. as you described, like,

36:27

oh, this foolish woman with her delusions, her

36:30

seizures at night when she's sleeping, like, yeah,

36:32

he really doesn't want to put up with

36:34

her. Contempt, yeah. He, I would say, actively

36:36

dislikes her. She'll even call him on that

36:39

at some point, like, why do you hate

36:41

him? It's like, yeah, that's what it feels

36:43

like. But he doesn't even talk to his

36:45

wife. I mean, men talk with men, you

36:47

know, and they talk about manly things. He's

36:50

got two daughters, but he's excited about that

36:52

son that's going to be born. The son

36:54

in the womb, little Frederick, is what I'm

36:56

thinking about. And yes, he just happens to

36:59

be the son of a shipping magnet. It's

37:01

been handed to him. Success is easy for

37:03

him to obtain and now he's just happy

37:05

to have status and thinks Thomas would be

37:07

crazy not to go on this voyage and

37:10

to get status as well. But I do

37:12

like, again, unlike that first film where Frederick

37:14

and Anna are just Introduced as

37:16

Ellen's being dropped off, we do get

37:18

a scene here. We get to see

37:21

their little girls who are going to

37:23

foreshadow their own death by saying, there's

37:25

a monster in our room. Don't let

37:27

him eat us. There's a lot of

37:29

that kind of stuff. Knock is like,

37:31

oh, when you see Orlock, he's really

37:33

old. He's got one foot in the

37:35

grave. Yeah. And I think that's sort

37:37

of campy. But at the same time,

37:39

I think it sets up this theme

37:42

about children know about superstition. They believe

37:44

in old world things where his dad

37:46

is like, there's no such thing as

37:48

monsters. I'm a guy of science. I

37:50

worry about how to ship things around.

37:52

I don't worry about folk. How did

37:54

not get changed? That's one mystery that

37:56

I don't think any version has ever

37:58

really explained. But knock is crazy from

38:00

the word jump. And I guess it

38:03

just came through correspondence that he just

38:05

received letters from Orlock that made him

38:07

crazy and want to get naked and

38:09

start writing in his own blood. I

38:11

feel like the Doug Jones version actually

38:13

explained that best when he gets that

38:15

letter and the letters start to glow

38:17

and it's like it's hypnotizing him, the

38:19

strange writing on the page. Here, we

38:21

don't know. You could see him doing

38:24

some of this for money, but not

38:26

biting the heads off pigeons and going

38:28

as crazy as he goes. I agree

38:30

with you already, I guess. If you

38:32

need an explicit reason for why not

38:34

goes crazy, there's a reason to go

38:36

watch that Doug Jones and Osvara too.

38:38

Still, I'd not recommend for me, but

38:40

there's a reason, but from what I

38:43

take... In this movie, what I could

38:45

gather, and I'll especially get this one,

38:47

Hutter finally meets Orlock, is like, Orlock,

38:49

he kind of just says stuff and

38:51

you're like, oh, okay, yeah, I'm gonna

38:53

do that. You fall under that spell.

38:55

And so my assumption is because Nock

38:57

has been corresponding with him, he's already

38:59

fallen under that spell. It's that voice,

39:01

right? That deep, deep voice. But I

39:04

do think in the early versions, it

39:06

was something we talked about. The part

39:08

of the subjects, you know, the first

39:10

movie came out before Hitler came to

39:12

rise, he was a Jew, right? And

39:14

they I do have. I want to

39:16

point out. I see this man naked

39:18

drawing a, well, I kept writing pentagram

39:20

and then I counted. No, it's six

39:22

sides or something. Seven. I counted two.

39:25

It was a seven point star. It's

39:27

a heptagram, not a pentagram, which is

39:29

associated with Kabbalah. So they are keeping

39:31

the idea that this is a Jewish

39:33

man and you could have that anti

39:35

-Semitic reading, that that is why he

39:37

is in cahoots with evil. Whatever the

39:39

reason is, he definitely looks insane and

39:41

inviting the evil in. And Ellen, as

39:43

best she can prepare, wants her husband

39:46

to remember her by cutting off a

39:48

lock of her hair and putting it

39:50

in his heart -shaped locket. Keep it

39:52

close to you. I love that he

39:54

keeps it close to his. He doesn't

39:56

keep it to his heart. He doesn't

39:58

wear it on a chain. It's on

40:00

his waist belt, yeah. By

40:02

his dick, yes. Yes, whatever it

40:05

takes for you to think of

40:07

me as you venture away. And

40:09

we hear those church bells again,

40:11

always the sound of clock. And

40:13

the journey to Orlox Castle is

40:15

brief. I was surprised how fast

40:17

the movie goes through this. It's

40:19

a quick montage of the next

40:21

thing you know. He's in the

40:23

village near the castle. There's

40:26

all the townspeople dancing around

40:28

him and they're speaking a

40:30

language he doesn't understand. Eggers

40:32

did say one of his

40:34

big influences while making this

40:36

movie. was an unexpected one.

40:39

Mel Brooks Dracula dead and

40:41

loving it. Okay. That should

40:43

never be an influence. He

40:45

watched that movie for all the

40:48

things not to do in a

40:50

vampire film. Okay, good. For

40:52

all the things that people make fun

40:54

of and one of them is apparently

40:56

the townspeople like don't go there. It's

40:59

cursed and the guy going anyway. And

41:01

here he's like, They're not speaking a

41:03

language he understands, so he's not just

41:05

ignoring them. He has no idea what

41:07

they're saying. Yeah, we all know that

41:10

cliched scene of guy walks into a

41:12

bar, says, hey, I'm going to the

41:14

castle and everyone turns their head. Yeah,

41:16

it goes silent and turns around and

41:19

look at him. Yeah. No, here they're

41:21

just Romani. Basically, they're trying to rip

41:23

him off. Their kids are swarming him,

41:25

wanting him to do things. They probably

41:27

want that cool -ass cap that he's

41:30

wearing. I was for sure like they're

41:32

picking his pockets. Yes. Some guys like

41:34

slap dancing while they do that folk

41:36

music and there's the leader. You know,

41:38

he's smoking a pipe and he just

41:41

laughs and it's creepy because it seems

41:43

unmotivated, but it becomes contagious. Soon they're

41:45

all just laughing at this guy for

41:47

just being here. You ridiculous man. Now,

41:50

do they know why he's there? Do

41:52

they understand the context? Is this just

41:54

projection on the part of a nervous

41:56

realtor outside of his comfort zone? It's

41:58

an eerie moment and they don't do

42:01

the book. You know, normally,

42:03

I think in silent movies, it's always

42:05

helpful to cut to, you know, pages

42:07

that you can read because there were

42:09

intertitles. But here he's brought into his

42:11

room by an old lady who just

42:13

gives him the crucifix. And instead of

42:15

reading about vampires, he's going to see

42:17

these Romani perform a ritual out in

42:19

the woods. Or is it a dream?

42:22

Yeah, this is a strange

42:24

scene because he's following the

42:26

Romani who go and say

42:28

they found the grave of

42:30

a vampire, a Nosferatu, and

42:33

they open the casket, stab

42:35

it with a pickaxe, an

42:37

iron item, and it coughs

42:39

up blood, but then Hutter

42:41

wakes up in bed, was

42:43

this a nightmare? His

42:45

feet are muddy, so, you know, this

42:47

is kind of a cliche we've seen

42:49

in a lot of movies where, was

42:51

it a dream or was I really

42:53

out there? But in an Eggers movie

42:55

that's this trippy, I go with it

42:57

more. I'm just confused why there's this

42:59

naked Romani girl on a horse. I'm

43:01

like, okay, they're gonna send her into

43:03

the woods and Nosferatu is gonna feed

43:05

on her. This is how they keep

43:07

him from coming into the village. But

43:09

yeah, they're gonna open that casket and

43:11

supposedly there's a vampire right there. I

43:13

wasn't sure what the point of the

43:16

sacrifice was because they don't sacrifice. And

43:18

they even say she's a virgin, so

43:20

you expect a virgin sacrifice out of

43:22

that. I think there is. I mean,

43:24

I think that the movie has just

43:26

signaled the ending. Here's a story about

43:28

a man that believes the way to

43:30

kill evil is to stake it through

43:32

the heart. You know, very phallically, I'm

43:34

going to grab my rod and kill

43:36

it because I'm the man. And don't

43:38

notice the virgin woman that's actually going

43:40

to be the thing that stops, that

43:42

we actually kill women in order to

43:44

keep the evil at bay is the

43:46

truth. Now, these are Romani, do any

43:48

of these practices. is actually work. Did

43:50

it even happen? It remains, as you

43:52

say, just a trippy moment of uncertainty.

43:54

But they definitely were around because they

43:56

stole his horse. And now this poor

43:58

guy, he has to keep walking. And

44:00

I love, again, now that we're away

44:03

from Wiesborg, no more ticking, no more

44:05

sound at all. It gets more quiet

44:07

and more quiet the further he ventures.

44:09

And he eventually gets to this wooden

44:11

bridge. There's this little temple of crucifixes.

44:13

It's like the last opportunity to pray

44:15

to Christ. before you go into this

44:17

area where Christianity has never touched. And

44:19

it's so dark and quiet when he

44:21

finally gets to that crossroads and sees

44:23

the coach. And I love you. You

44:25

see that coach like coming right at

44:27

you. There are crossroads and then it

44:29

goes to Thomas and then it cuts

44:31

back and that coach is the wrong

44:33

way. It's facing the perpendicular or whatever.

44:35

It's not coming at him anymore. It's

44:37

ready to take him, I guess, to

44:39

the castle. And he just floats inside.

44:41

Again, almost against your will. Yeah. You

44:43

end up doing things that your rational

44:45

mind wouldn't let you do, but have

44:47

no control over your body. And it's

44:49

such a... Strange shot. I love the

44:52

lighting, it's top lit, it's snowing. The

44:54

way he just kind of hypnotically walks

44:56

towards the carriage, the carriage, its

44:58

door opens slowly. One thing

45:00

that really I noticed about this

45:02

film is how often Eggers puts

45:05

his subject directly in center frame,

45:07

and there's so much around. There's

45:09

just one person in the shot,

45:11

they're in the dead middle, and

45:13

there's a lot of landscape around

45:15

them, and it's a really effective

45:17

shot that drives home the solitude

45:19

of the character. The character could

45:21

be in a room with other

45:24

people, but he's selling you the

45:26

isolation spiritually of the character, and

45:28

I just, he kept going back

45:30

to that shot, and it really

45:32

caught my eye that usually you

45:34

don't have three quarter body shots

45:36

like that outside of like a

45:38

news report, you know, you usually

45:40

do more close ups or you

45:43

do two shots and here he

45:45

was. isolating the characters a lot.

45:47

Yeah, the one character I don't

45:49

notice in frame, and I'm looking

45:51

because this is my most anticipated

45:53

character in this film, is we

45:55

always had Nosferatu wrapped up. He

45:57

could just see his eyes as

46:00

he's driving that carriage. The

46:02

angle, maybe there's someone in that carriage

46:04

seat. I don't see anyone. I don't

46:06

see hands holding the reins. I only

46:08

saw this once. Maybe I missed it.

46:10

No, it's a ghost carriage. There's nothing

46:12

there. Okay. Yeah, I was really looking

46:14

the second time because we've seen it

46:17

before. Dracula himself or... Orlock himself is

46:19

driving it and he's got the mask

46:21

on making it appear like it's a

46:23

servant here There's no one in that

46:25

carriage and Nicholas holds gonna get in

46:27

it anyway. Yeah. Yeah pulled into it

46:29

again the way he starts by stepping

46:31

into it and then he's just floating

46:33

and then again yes they do have

46:36

a lot of close -ups on someone's

46:38

face but what's unique oftentimes the camera

46:40

work in this is marvelous but sometimes

46:42

it will circle and swirl around and

46:44

suddenly you realize you're in a larger

46:46

perspective than you thought like there's a

46:48

close -up of Thomas's eye and then

46:50

all a sudden we pull back and

46:52

there's the door I don't know how

46:54

they racked focus this well or maybe

46:57

it's all computer process. But yes, as

46:59

he's being driven against his will really

47:01

almost to the castle chased by wolves

47:03

behind him, he's clutching his heart. That

47:05

is one of the things that stuck

47:07

out to me that there are these

47:09

wolves we talked about in those silent

47:11

films and even with Bella Legosi, like

47:13

they have to look out the window

47:16

and they're like, oh, did that man

47:18

just turn into a dog? It's really

47:20

corny. I'm glad the Doug Jones ones,

47:22

they kind of just dropped that whole

47:24

thing. I did wonder Robert Eggers, he

47:26

loves those original folktales. Will we see

47:28

Dracula or Orlock turn into a dog?

47:30

We don't see it, but he's always

47:32

hanging out with wolves or hellhounds in

47:35

this. They do his bidding. And when

47:37

you're talking about some of these shots,

47:39

Stuart, when the carriage is going up

47:41

to the castle, that feels very surreal

47:43

and almost like an old -school matte

47:45

painting. I'm assuming this is a CG

47:47

shot. I know they did a lot

47:49

of location scouting and a lot of

47:51

location shooting. I think the Czech Republic,

47:54

if I remember right. But that shot

47:56

really was... incredible shot. Most

47:58

of the camera work here is,

48:00

I think, living up. If you're going

48:02

to make a Nosferatu film, which

48:04

as Stuart has said, is teaching the

48:06

grammar of film language and camera

48:08

work, you're being ballsy to say, I

48:11

can do that. And I think

48:13

that Eggers with his shots here is

48:15

living up to the legacy of

48:17

a visually impressive film. And yet it

48:19

doesn't feel... the way that Coppola

48:21

would sometimes overdramatize, have trick shots. Coppola

48:24

loved to do trick shots, and

48:26

here the tricks are more seamless. I

48:28

kid you not, when this door

48:30

open, he follows the shadow figure in

48:32

and goes up some stairs, watch

48:34

the sides of the frame. They close

48:37

in. The aspect ratio changes from rectangle

48:39

to square. You don't notice it. Coppola

48:41

would have it so that you'd never

48:44

miss. all the things that he

48:46

was doing, whereas Eggers is working much

48:48

more on a subconscious level. you

48:50

could blink and almost miss what he's

48:52

doing. Yeah. And I don't think I

48:55

noticed that because I'm looking for Orlock

48:57

and he's always so far back. I'll

49:00

notice at the beginning and I

49:02

realize I'm like, okay, this is not

49:04

about Orlock because they are not

49:06

giving us that close up shot. It's

49:08

at the beginning here. It's always long

49:11

ways away obfuscated. You can't see what

49:13

the look is going to be. You

49:15

are late. I hear that

49:17

Skarsgard trained with an opera singer that

49:19

the way that he got his voice

49:21

so bass was to just like study

49:24

music. It does not sound like Scar's

49:26

Guard. It really does not. I would

49:28

not know that he was in this

49:30

movie. When we finally see him, same

49:32

feeling. I do not recognize Bill Skarsgard

49:34

in them. One of my critiques with

49:36

Skarsgard's performance, or maybe this is on

49:38

Eggers, there's times Orlach will speak in

49:40

a different language and they give him

49:43

subtitles. That's great, because I don't know

49:45

whatever Romani language he may be speaking,

49:47

Transylvanian, whatever. I wish they

49:49

always gave him subtitles because he

49:51

is registered solo. It just sounds

49:53

like a rumble a lot of

49:55

the time to me. I had

49:57

a hard time understanding it. Apparently

49:59

he's speaking ancient Dakian, which is

50:02

a dead language, even more. Dead

50:04

than Latin, I assume. But all

50:06

the writing in this that looks

50:08

like Satanic symbols is a real

50:10

language. All of this dialect is

50:12

a real language. I saw a

50:14

historian on Twitter who did like

50:16

this 25 post thread about all

50:18

the historical accuracy in the costumes

50:21

and the hairstyles. I would expect

50:23

no less from Eggers. Correct. That

50:25

is his jam. That is why

50:27

he made this. Let's just call

50:29

it what it is. He didn't

50:31

make this to scare you. And

50:33

I don't think this movie is

50:35

very scary. He made this to

50:37

evoke a period and a time

50:39

and something ancient he wants to

50:42

conjure. he is into the occult

50:44

and alchemy in the same way

50:46

that I feel like Osgood Perkin

50:48

conjures the occult I feel like

50:50

he really is casting spells with

50:52

the way that he's visualized and

50:54

maybe that is frightening but it's

50:56

not scary in the way that

50:58

a jump scare gory horror movie

51:01

would be scary it's ominous it

51:03

feels otherworldly you feel like you're

51:05

looking at something never photographed before

51:07

and they're still going to tease

51:09

you with the look of Count

51:11

Orlock. They're gonna do that for

51:13

most of the film and I

51:15

feel like here we get little

51:17

shots of him but they're introducing

51:19

him bit by bit, maybe a

51:22

close -up of the eyes. Bill

51:24

Skarsgard is great as this performance.

51:26

I understand his voice. He took

51:28

it down an octave, and there's

51:30

very little digital enhancement. Now, thanks

51:32

to now playing, there's an ADR

51:34

recorder I've been talking to on

51:36

Twitter, and there's always more than

51:38

you know. They'll sell that the

51:41

actor does the voice like Tom

51:43

Hardy does the Venom voice. Yeah,

51:45

but they up the bass and

51:47

they add the rumble and do

51:49

some tonal shifting. But Well, I

51:51

love his voice and his delivery.

51:54

They went for a look with

51:56

Orlock here, with that mustache and

51:59

the heavy cloaks and everything. Eggers

52:01

really wanted it to look like

52:03

a Transylvanian Count from hundreds of

52:05

years ago. It looks like Vlad

52:08

Impaler if you look at those

52:10

old paintings. He's got that mustache.

52:12

That is the shot. is that Max

52:14

Schreck looked like a rat. He looked

52:17

like vermin. The teeth. And Kinski mirrored

52:19

that and even took it up a

52:21

notch. And Kinski's so crazy, you believe

52:24

he would kill you. I don't get

52:26

fear off this performance. And I do

52:28

think that it changes. I mean, this

52:31

next section is really about the seduction

52:33

of Tom. I do think that he's

52:35

got an awesome bite. I think that

52:37

his method here... We're not biting necks.

52:40

Yes, going for the heart itself. There's

52:42

a crunch in his... that's notable. But

52:45

I don't fear this Nosferatu. I

52:47

mean, even Doug Jones, I think,

52:50

had a scarier look than this

52:52

apparition. And that makes me question

52:55

why Thomas is so afraid all

52:57

the time in his presence. Is

52:59

it just his aura? But it's

53:02

not his look. And yeah, I

53:04

think this is the least impressive

53:07

looking of all the Nosferatu, despite

53:09

the fact that they've obviously put

53:11

a lot of work into the

53:14

makeup and it's a well done

53:16

makeup job. But the overall result,

53:19

neither sexy like Dracula, nor

53:21

scary like Murnau's

53:23

original, it just is

53:26

this neither fish nor foul Nosferatu that

53:28

I'm underwhelmed by. Underwhelmed is a good

53:30

word. After I saw this film, one

53:32

of my brothers texted me, he's like,

53:34

hey, I'm gonna go see this. Did

53:36

you like it? And I'm not gonna

53:38

say if I liked it or not,

53:40

withholding that to the end. But during

53:42

the conversation, he's like, oh, should I

53:44

go see that original silent film? He's

53:46

never seen anything Nosferatu. And I said,

53:48

no. Just go into this and let

53:50

this set the expectations because, yeah, I

53:52

feel like if you've seen this before

53:54

and you're really waiting to see this

53:56

oar lock, they're going with something different.

53:58

This is not the main attraction like

54:00

I thought it would be. Agreed. And

54:02

I think it is a disappointment of

54:04

my experience. Certainly the first time it

54:06

sort of deflates the balloon a little

54:08

bit. I feel like for the first

54:10

45 minutes, I'm really hooked into the

54:12

magic, the black incantation magic of what's

54:14

going on here and the rest of

54:16

the... don't feel under its

54:18

spell in quite the same way but

54:21

here in the beginning I feel for

54:23

Thomas because you would too you're in

54:25

this scary castle being handed this chalice

54:27

what looks like blood being told that

54:29

don't worry about those band of gypsies

54:32

that they just believe in morbid fairy

54:34

tales and I think this is an

54:36

important quote I can't wait to live

54:38

in a city of modern mind that

54:41

knows nothing of or believes and know

54:43

such morbid fairy tales again. He prays

54:45

upon the mother modern world because it

54:47

doesn't believe in mysticism. That's the power

54:49

in the hole that he has over

54:52

you. As long as you deny its

54:54

existence, if you believe in enlightenment,

54:56

you don't believe in the monster

54:59

in the dark. And thus, you

55:01

will be always the monster's victim.

55:03

And yet, Orlach was awoken by

55:06

Ellen years ago. He's Ben in

55:08

that castle, the Romani there

55:10

are obviously hunting vampires and staking them

55:13

while they sleep. Is Orlock fleeing them?

55:15

Is he afraid that they'll get to

55:17

him at some point? Or is it

55:19

just his lust for Ellen that drives

55:21

him? I'm left wondering a little bit.

55:24

I do think part of it is

55:26

like Stuart said, I want to get

55:28

around these modern people that will not

55:30

suspect anything of me. I'm sick of

55:32

these Romani marching their virgins out in

55:35

the woods and spoiling my fun. Yeah,

55:37

they have not modernized. These people understand

55:39

me and they keep me trapped. The

55:41

way I see it is I'm trapped

55:44

in my castle. because of them. I

55:46

can't venture out too far because they

55:48

kill my servants, they know my tricks,

55:50

and I want to go to a

55:52

place where it's Christian, and

55:55

we have Ellen and Anna, they're walking

55:57

on the beach, and Ellen's trying to

55:59

explain her condition. Do you ever feel

56:01

like you're under the power of someone,

56:04

that you're being puppeted, that there's this

56:06

darkness that grabs you, and Anna's just

56:08

like, oh, that's just God. Just think

56:10

about Christmas. The gentle breeze

56:12

of heaven is, I think, her quote. She

56:15

wants to keep framing things in terms of

56:17

the way the Enlightenment framed it. Like, you

56:19

know, just believe in your Christian God, and

56:21

you won't have to worry about any of

56:23

this voodoo stuff. What's really troubling is they

56:26

bring this doctor in, Ralph Innes in Plainett,

56:28

who is the father and the witch, and

56:30

there's this really disturbing moment where they're like,

56:32

just give her more ether, and then he

56:35

puts the cloth over her face so she

56:37

passes out. That was just so troubling to

56:39

me for some reason. The callousness of these

56:41

doctors just drug them up more. Oh, and

56:43

I love that it's like also make her

56:46

sleep in her corset. It'll help with the

56:48

blood flow and the posture. Yes. Again, you

56:50

see it. It's very clearly the age of

56:52

enlightenment for all that it claimed to know

56:54

it knew nothing of women. and it knew

56:57

nothing of the natural state of women, their

56:59

lusts, their sexuality. And to

57:01

deny that is to deny the beast.

57:03

They're playing into it by just saying,

57:05

be quiet woman, be in your corset,

57:07

breathe this ether, don't moan in ecstasy

57:09

when you think about what's in your

57:11

loin. Yeah, that's definitely the conflict. Again,

57:13

you could make the argument like the

57:15

witch that there is no real evil

57:17

here. It's just female sexuality. It's just

57:19

female's natural state that is so Horrific

57:21

to this age of enlightenment that they

57:24

can't bear it and that it ends

57:26

up spreading some disease I guess you

57:28

could extract that as a metaphor for

57:30

venereal disease, but Tom he basically keeps

57:32

getting bitten I think he's a vampire,

57:34

right? He wakes up with one bite

57:36

and then he drops the mirror and

57:38

there's rats at his feet He gets

57:40

the contract signed and I really love

57:42

the way that they film that it

57:44

feels like he's not selling real estate

57:46

He's selling his wife at the same

57:48

time that he's putting his signature on

57:50

there. He's been handed this sack of

57:52

coins and had the locket removed from

57:54

his waist. It really feels like he

57:56

just sold Ellen. Yeah, that's the big

57:58

moment is where Orlock sees Ellen and

58:00

that, oh, let me see that. What

58:02

a beautiful neck, all that kind of

58:05

stuff. Yeah. Here he takes and I

58:07

love the like. Thomas will just be

58:09

like, he never gave it back to

58:11

me. He just kept that locket, which

58:13

is very telling. And he even smells

58:15

it in there is like lilac, which

58:17

again, was how she described her dream

58:19

of getting married was that and smelled

58:21

of lilac that this guy knows his

58:23

wife. He senses that he knows that

58:25

something bad has happened, which is why

58:27

when he wakes up with a second

58:29

bite, he's ready to do what the

58:31

Romani did. I'm going to go find

58:33

an axe. I'm going to go find

58:35

this guy. I'm going to kill him.

58:37

And this is where we finally, finally

58:39

get an extreme close up. He finds

58:41

the coffin, he rips off the lid.

58:43

As the sunlight is fading, we get

58:46

one very long shot of Bill Skarsgard.

58:48

To me, it's Vlad the Impaler. It

58:50

looks like a person, a human being.

58:52

You know, before he can put the

58:54

rod in him, Orlock stands up and

58:56

we see his rod. Yeah, he sleeps

58:58

in the nude, but yes, he flees

59:00

because the wolves are coming and steps

59:02

on a ledge in each. Telling of

59:04

Nosferatu, the reason why Hutter

59:06

doesn't make it home before Oralock is

59:08

a little bit different here. He's gonna

59:11

slip off a ledge, fall into the

59:13

water, almost die. But no, not before

59:15

he's bitten. I mean, it's worth pointing

59:17

out, before he goes out that window,

59:20

he's in bed, lifted up, levitating, crunch

59:22

in the chest. He is bitten three

59:24

times. He is infected. By this point,

59:27

by any standard, he would be a

59:29

vampire. But the other big difference I'm

59:31

noticing, not that there's not enough atmosphere

59:33

that this uses with the atmosphere is

59:36

the Robert Eggers film. But one of

59:38

the things, especially with that 1920s version,

59:40

the original version, is just how spooky

59:43

it is when Orlock's moving around this

59:45

castle, coming through the doorway, the

59:47

lighting, all that stuff is just masterful. And

59:49

I'm like, OK, Eggers is going to kill

59:52

on this kind of stuff. And yeah, he

59:54

kind of just passes it by. Well, we'll

59:56

see Orlock with a couple of wolves walking

59:58

down the hall. And then Thomas just jumps

1:00:00

out a window. And again, this is a

1:00:02

readjustment. OK, he's not. going for those same

1:00:05

kind of scares. If he's going for any

1:00:07

in this, he's always very conceptual, I think,

1:00:09

with his horror. But yeah, again, it's just

1:00:11

a difference. Things that I was anticipating are

1:00:13

not going to be in them. Yeah, they

1:00:15

still keep the motif that this is a

1:00:17

man of shadow that largely when you see

1:00:20

Orlock working, he'll hold out his fingers and

1:00:22

you'll see those shadows cast on people. That's

1:00:25

what makes them do what we see

1:00:27

Thomas do is he seals himself in

1:00:29

his room and then Orlock is at

1:00:31

the window. His shadow falls on. and

1:00:33

Thomas just can't help himself. He stands

1:00:35

up and he opens that door and

1:00:37

he invites the dogs and Orlock into

1:00:39

his bed. So again, it's the idea

1:00:41

that the shadows will control you. But

1:00:43

in order to get away from those

1:00:45

wolves, yes, he ultimately runs on the

1:00:47

ledge, falls out, washes his shore downstream,

1:00:50

and is saved by nuns. I think

1:00:52

the reason why he never grows fangs...

1:00:54

Yeah, why he doesn't change is that

1:00:57

church treats him. Yes, it is Mother

1:00:59

Superior. Whatever voodoo the Catholics have. they

1:01:01

get the vampire out of him and

1:01:03

they know about Orlock. They even say

1:01:05

something to the effect of that he

1:01:07

is someone that is found a way

1:01:09

to make his corpse walk around and

1:01:11

don't worry about him going home to

1:01:13

get to your wife because he can't

1:01:15

leave his soil. He is forever trapped

1:01:18

in the soil in which he's buried,

1:01:20

so you don't have to worry about

1:01:22

Ellen. He's going to be stuck here.

1:01:24

This whole adventure is really about how

1:01:26

a vampire tricks the mythology to allow

1:01:28

him to extend beyond the limitations of

1:01:30

local folklore, right? How do I become

1:01:32

an urban legend through the power of

1:01:34

Thomas and through the power of Ella?

1:01:37

I think the movie is great when

1:01:39

we're seeing all of this stuff. And

1:01:41

I have to say, I lose a

1:01:43

lot of interest once Dr. Severs and

1:01:45

Willem Dafoe show up. I feel like

1:01:47

there are just a lot of talking

1:01:49

scenes that slow down the pace of

1:01:51

this movie. They're less scary. I think

1:01:53

they try to counterbalance it. by showing

1:01:56

the stuff on the boat, but that

1:01:58

stuff is really done in very fleeting

1:02:00

terms. Yeah, you're not gonna get that

1:02:02

stiff as a board rising up from

1:02:04

the grave on the boat. That is

1:02:06

not in this. The boat is just

1:02:08

three scenes. We see the coffin loaded

1:02:10

up, we see the captain go down

1:02:12

and see an infected child dead, and

1:02:14

another man vomiting blood. And then after

1:02:17

tossing a body overboard, he goes down

1:02:19

there with the axe. And I like

1:02:21

this moment because we can actually see

1:02:23

Orlak's gross backs lithering behind him before

1:02:25

he turns and bites him on the

1:02:27

neck this time. He doesn't always go

1:02:29

for the chest. I guess if he

1:02:31

doesn't love you, he doesn't go for

1:02:33

your heart. He'll just go for the

1:02:36

neck. But the boat stuff, I guess

1:02:38

we had a whole movie of it,

1:02:40

maybe because of the last voyage of

1:02:42

the Demeter. They backed away from playing

1:02:44

up the boat. I agree with you,

1:02:46

Stuart, in all the tellings of Nosferatu.

1:02:49

Once... Orlok leaves the castle and we

1:02:51

deal with his journey and we deal

1:02:53

with the racing against Hutter and we

1:02:56

have the plague bit. I've always felt

1:02:58

like the story just loses momentum and

1:03:00

here, yes, they've introduced a new character.

1:03:02

There's always been a doctor who's been

1:03:04

seeing to Ellen who's always been having

1:03:07

nightmares. But here, it does feel like,

1:03:09

despite calling it Nosferatu, Eggers is looking

1:03:11

very much at dragon. and decides we

1:03:13

need a Von Helsing. No, there was

1:03:16

this character in the silent movie. There

1:03:18

was always Severs and the other one,

1:03:20

and that was the professor. But Severs,

1:03:22

you know, he's the rational one. He's

1:03:24

the age of enlightenment. He's the doctor

1:03:27

that's going to look at her and

1:03:29

say she has too much blood, which

1:03:31

sounds funny until you realize that makes

1:03:33

her delicious. Like she's a big gulp,

1:03:35

just waiting to be downed by Orlock.

1:03:38

But he keeps holding on to rational

1:03:40

beliefs, but will eventually go and find

1:03:42

the crazy guy that he took classes

1:03:44

from in Zurich. And I think this

1:03:47

is what Willem Dafoe does in Robert

1:03:49

Eggerm piece now, just plays the crazy

1:03:51

guy, like if you see in the

1:03:53

lighthouse, if you see in the Northman,

1:03:55

just like, readied you to act insane.

1:03:58

And I think Willem Dafoe does a

1:04:00

very good job at that. And I

1:04:02

get what you're saying, there's a lot

1:04:04

of talking in the second half. Dafoe

1:04:06

was my favorite thing in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

1:04:09

I like it when he's just acting

1:04:11

over the top and crazy here. At

1:04:13

first I'm on guard because like, oh,

1:04:15

all your modern science tells you nothing.

1:04:18

I'm like, oh, great. Here we go.

1:04:20

Science is actually evil, but I get

1:04:22

his point here. Yeah. Oh, science is

1:04:24

good, but we've overlooked a lot of

1:04:26

things because we thought science would explain

1:04:29

it all. Right. He can straddle the

1:04:31

difference. He can recognize that medicine explains

1:04:33

so much. but that there is still

1:04:35

the supernatural bully. Colt is real. And

1:04:38

yeah, his diagnosis is once he sees

1:04:40

Ellen, he's like, stop giving her meds,

1:04:43

stop, you know, chloroforming her and just

1:04:45

let her rave and determines that she's

1:04:47

possessed by a demon. That's for him.

1:04:49

Makes sense. That's a diagnosis you can

1:04:51

give. You are possessed by a demon.

1:04:54

And she does do a little bit

1:04:56

of Linda Blair. I have to say,

1:04:58

there is some moments where she's rolling

1:05:00

her eyes and she doesn't quite say

1:05:03

your momma sucks cocks and hell. something

1:05:05

like that as they're trying to circle

1:05:07

her and figure out what is so

1:05:09

wrong. She does this like, yeah, levitation,

1:05:11

back -cracking motion. I gotta say, maybe

1:05:14

the visuals aren't the greatest thing about

1:05:16

this, but I do like the sound

1:05:18

effects. The crunching and sucking noises are

1:05:20

so off -putting. They want it to

1:05:23

be realistic, so they never are gonna

1:05:25

put in supernatural CGI stuff, and it

1:05:27

just means that a lot of it

1:05:29

is performance. It's a lot of people,

1:05:31

yeah, rolling their eyes back and saying

1:05:34

things like, does evil come from within

1:05:36

or from beyond? Yeah, she definitely contorts

1:05:38

in many ways that that was effective,

1:05:40

it keeps the mood, but yeah, I'm

1:05:43

thinking... of the Exorcist a lot during

1:05:45

these scenes too, and they're trying to

1:05:47

focus more on Ellen. Again, all the

1:05:49

tellings have had her have nightmares, but

1:05:52

this is her nightmare that has

1:05:54

caused the problem to begin with,

1:05:56

so we're going to spend even

1:05:58

more time analyzing it here. I

1:06:00

think what gets said is demons

1:06:02

are attracted to people with dramatic

1:06:04

lower animal function, aka she -horny,

1:06:06

right? That's the thing. Yes, because

1:06:08

she's got a libido and we

1:06:10

don't understand why women would have

1:06:13

that. We're totally intimidated as men

1:06:15

of science. We will not be

1:06:17

able to explain this behavior. I

1:06:19

totally took it when she's writhing

1:06:21

around in bed and mode. I'm

1:06:23

like, okay, she's just masturbating. She's

1:06:25

just torty. Totally. Very orgiastic sounds

1:06:27

she's making as she's saying he

1:06:29

is coming. And while she's saying

1:06:31

he is coming, there is... She's

1:06:33

coming. Yes. Yes. She may

1:06:35

be literally coming. We also see that

1:06:37

Nock is shown up in the hospital

1:06:39

and making similar pronouns. Nock's interesting. I

1:06:42

like this little detail because when he's

1:06:44

brought in, it said that he was

1:06:46

ruining like a Christmas festival or something.

1:06:48

He was running around eating goats raw,

1:06:51

just like biting into them. And because

1:06:53

this hospital used to be a prison,

1:06:55

they have... the lower basement rooms are

1:06:57

actually jail cells. I thought that was

1:07:00

a cool device, thinking about where modern

1:07:02

medicine came out of. And Severs is

1:07:04

actually even upset that they would put

1:07:06

a patient down there that's so uncivilized.

1:07:08

Right, exactly. This is the part where,

1:07:11

again, if you think about the modern

1:07:13

enlightened perspective, we don't look at the

1:07:15

past and some of the quackery that

1:07:17

we did in the past. Don't put

1:07:20

our patients down in the jail cell.

1:07:22

Well, this one deserves to be in

1:07:24

the jail cell because he's biting the

1:07:26

heads off pitch. Full Aussie, he's going.

1:07:29

And he will eventually bite the guard,

1:07:31

get away, and meet the boat as

1:07:33

it's crashing into the dock. He will

1:07:35

be the one. I think it's good.

1:07:37

We always laughed at Orlock having to

1:07:40

carry his own coffin. Yes, carrying his

1:07:42

own grave. Now he can

1:07:44

have this knot guy row him to

1:07:46

his new manner. Can I say I'm

1:07:49

disappointed in that though, because I really

1:07:51

enjoy Orlok carrying that coffin. I find

1:07:53

it funny, but I also find it

1:07:55

endearing, and I think it's just one

1:07:57

of the things a Nosferatu film should

1:07:59

have. And Eggers is so focused on

1:08:01

realism, how would he do it? Unfortunately,

1:08:04

he's so focused on realism that Orlok

1:08:06

will not be carrying his own coffin.

1:08:08

does it, but I really wanted to

1:08:10

see Orla carrying a coffin. I kind

1:08:12

of agree with you Artie, but I

1:08:14

feel like Nock is always this weird

1:08:17

character. You need him in the beginning

1:08:19

of this story and then they never

1:08:21

really know what to do with him.

1:08:23

He kind of runs around and causes

1:08:25

havoc and then he dies or just

1:08:27

disappears from the film. Here I feel

1:08:30

like... Eggers is trying to write him

1:08:32

into the story, trying to make him

1:08:34

relevant the whole way through. Yeah, he

1:08:36

actually says, let me go kill the

1:08:38

broker because the broker is still alive.

1:08:40

Thomas has finally made it home. He

1:08:42

stole a horse from the nuns and

1:08:45

he comes riding back in and he's

1:08:47

convalescing in some bed and presumably will

1:08:49

get well. You should have killed him.

1:08:51

I'll go kill him. Yeah, we see

1:08:53

knock actually on all fours. He has

1:08:55

become the dog, right? Like he is

1:08:58

now the dog to Orlock now that

1:09:00

he's living. He

1:09:21

ends up not having much

1:09:24

purpose for the rest of

1:09:26

the movie no and it

1:09:28

definitely feels like a Renfield

1:09:30

more so than Nock has

1:09:32

in even other installments where

1:09:34

he's begging Orlok for attention

1:09:36

and Orlok's beating him down

1:09:38

and he's eating the other

1:09:40

animals. I just get a

1:09:42

lot of Dracula off this. I get

1:09:44

a lot of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula

1:09:46

off of this. When it comes to

1:09:48

the styles, some of the score feels

1:09:50

like it's harkening back to that score

1:09:52

from Coppola. I just feel like these

1:09:55

two could be watched in a double

1:09:57

feature and fit very well together. This

1:09:59

feels like the most Dracula -y of

1:10:01

the Nosferatu, even though the 79 one

1:10:03

renamed Orlaka's Dracula. But with a very

1:10:05

important distinction. And that is, I think

1:10:07

Coppola gave us permission to laugh. When

1:10:09

Gary Oldman is wearing Kabuki hair and

1:10:11

red robes and walking out stage right

1:10:13

and then coming back in as a

1:10:15

shadow stage left, there's something kind of

1:10:18

giggle inducing. I'm with you, Artie. I

1:10:20

am thinking about Coppola's Dracula a lot.

1:10:22

this because of how different they are,

1:10:24

not because they're similar to what you're

1:10:26

saying Stuart. There is something I appreciated

1:10:28

about the campiness of that film and

1:10:30

I think that kind of comes through

1:10:32

with that 1920s version of Nosferatu. How

1:10:34

could you not have it be a

1:10:36

bit campy when you have this guy

1:10:38

with rabbit teeth running around biting next?

1:10:40

There is something to that and I'm

1:10:43

not that I would ever expect that

1:10:45

with the Robert Eggers film, but I'm

1:10:47

noticing I'm missing that. I kind of

1:10:49

like that camp with this story. There

1:10:51

is humor here, but it all comes

1:10:53

from Defoe. It's Defoe saying things. like

1:10:55

I've seen things that would make Isaac

1:10:57

Newton cry back into his mother's womb.

1:10:59

I love that line. Yeah, like that's

1:11:01

where we get the laughter, but we're

1:11:03

not permitted to laugh at the visual.

1:11:05

We're never given permission to think any

1:11:08

of this is anything other than stark,

1:11:10

nightmarish, horrifying. And after a while, to

1:11:12

borrow a word from the characters, it

1:11:14

becomes a little suffocating. It becomes a

1:11:16

little much to endure. Yeah, I think

1:11:18

the main problem is its length. The

1:11:20

original was like barely 90 minutes, I

1:11:22

think, and this is over two hours.

1:11:24

They've added a half hour of extra

1:11:26

stuff here and I don't think it

1:11:28

all pays off. It all seems to

1:11:31

be here in the end too with

1:11:33

a lot of people debating and candlelight

1:11:35

about what they should do about Ellen.

1:11:37

As for Defoe, I do like how

1:11:39

they make him stand out. Everybody seems

1:11:41

to be dressed in just these all

1:11:43

blacks, but they give him brown coats

1:11:45

and everything. He just looks very different

1:11:47

than everyone else. I also always thought

1:11:49

of Defoe as a very tall person.

1:11:51

He's the shortest one! Yeah, I had

1:11:53

to look it up. Most of these

1:11:56

people are over six feet and Defoe

1:11:58

is five nine, which is shorter than

1:12:00

I thought Defoe was, but he always

1:12:02

feels the way this is framed, like

1:12:04

everybody's towering over him in these shots.

1:12:06

Yeah. And in some ways that works

1:12:08

with the metaphor of the fact that

1:12:10

he doesn't have much standing. He was

1:12:12

dismissed from his university and he now

1:12:14

kind of just lives on his own

1:12:16

with his cats and is just kind

1:12:19

of crazy. And it's only because Severs

1:12:21

was desperate that he called in here,

1:12:23

but he's kind of proving his point.

1:12:25

At the very least, Ellen is definitely

1:12:27

going into another hyper state. He can

1:12:29

poke her arm with needles, and she

1:12:31

doesn't feel it, and he seems to

1:12:33

get her in ways that the men

1:12:35

of science, and certainly Frederick, who becomes

1:12:37

the focal character at this point, now

1:12:39

that the ship has arrived and released

1:12:41

all these rats. And there's now a

1:12:44

actual plague and he's arguing this is

1:12:46

a real plague affecting real people. I'm

1:12:48

not gonna believe in demon. I'm not

1:12:50

going to accept Defoe's theory to his

1:12:52

ultimate tragedy. Ellen meanwhile has recovered. As

1:12:54

soon as her husband came home, maybe

1:12:56

that was all she needed, right? She

1:12:58

was a mess by herself, but now

1:13:00

that she's in that relationship, she describes

1:13:02

that relationship as saving her from madness.

1:13:04

So maybe there is something to that.

1:13:06

now that he's returned even in his

1:13:09

feeble state. My reading is here's a

1:13:11

woman. She maybe did something that people

1:13:13

looked down upon when she was a

1:13:15

teenager. She had sex with the dude

1:13:17

and has become obsessed with this guy.

1:13:19

And then whenever her husband's not around,

1:13:21

she could just think about that good

1:13:23

dicking she got so long ago. And

1:13:25

when the husband comes back, she could

1:13:27

calm down. That's how this feels to

1:13:29

me, though. Here's someone that and I'm

1:13:32

not blaming her. This isn't a slut

1:13:34

shaming thing. But here's a woman who

1:13:36

had a sexual experience and wants to

1:13:38

get back to that. Men do that

1:13:40

all the time. why can't she I

1:13:42

don't know that she had a sexual

1:13:44

experience, but her father did say she

1:13:46

was sinful and cast her out Yeah,

1:13:48

it came off very much like she

1:13:50

had sex it may have just been

1:13:52

masturbation Oh, come on. There's the scene

1:13:54

later on where Frederick kicks them out

1:13:57

because honestly, they're houseguests who have stayed

1:13:59

too long and first Ellen was sick

1:14:01

and then Thomas was sick. But when

1:14:03

they get back to their own house,

1:14:05

she gets on her knees and looks

1:14:07

up at her husband and says, you

1:14:09

could never please me as he could.

1:14:11

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And

1:14:13

then he goes at her. No, no,

1:14:15

no. Metaphorically, she fucked

1:14:18

the dark. Absolutely. I get that. You're

1:14:20

implying that if we don't look at

1:14:22

a supernatural reading of this, this is

1:14:24

just about a woman that was promiscuous

1:14:26

in her early days. There's no evidence.

1:14:28

I will tweak what you're saying slightly.

1:14:30

She is able to act like a

1:14:32

proper century

1:14:34

lady when her husband is around. And

1:14:36

when her husband is not around, she's

1:14:38

feral like her cat. She's wild and

1:14:40

her natural sexual instincts kick in. And

1:14:42

to many people, that looks demonic, sick,

1:14:45

unhealthy. Yeah, I'm not placing judgment on

1:14:47

whatever King she's in. I'm not passing

1:14:49

judgment. I just think there is a

1:14:51

reading. It's not my attitudes towards women.

1:14:53

It's societies that we're looking at. It's

1:14:55

the point. Yeah. It's what Eggers is

1:14:57

saying about the society, why they should

1:14:59

be killed, why they will be wiped

1:15:02

out. They do not understand women's sexuality.

1:15:04

They demonize it and they are punished

1:15:06

for it. But we finally get this

1:15:08

is, I think this is the only

1:15:10

time in any Dracula, Nosferatu that I've

1:15:12

seen it turn into this sort of

1:15:14

three -night deal. You know, Orlock comes

1:15:16

to her, she opens the window, she's

1:15:19

trying to sleep with Anna and crucifix,

1:15:21

but he appears in the room and

1:15:23

basically says, I'm just your thirst. You're

1:15:25

the one that wants me. It's almost

1:15:27

like a gaslighting, but he's like, you're

1:15:29

the one that wants me. I just

1:15:31

thirst for you. And she insists she

1:15:34

would rather have her husband. So he's

1:15:36

going to give her three nights to

1:15:38

change her mind before he kills Tom.

1:15:40

And that feels new to me. It

1:15:42

is new. It's all Also, the first

1:15:44

time she's had called him, though. I

1:15:46

mean, she'll always have to make the

1:15:48

choice to give herself to him. That

1:15:51

goes back to 1922, where she had

1:15:53

to be a willing victim. But

1:15:55

in the past ones, it

1:15:57

was a willing victim who

1:15:59

he would feed upon, not

1:16:01

a willing lover who he

1:16:04

would bed and consummate a

1:16:06

relationship with. I found

1:16:08

it odd that she called to him,

1:16:10

she woke him up, and now he's

1:16:12

like, oh, but she has to agree

1:16:14

again of her own free will. I

1:16:16

mean, usually you make the bargain, especially

1:16:19

in a horror movie, you make the

1:16:21

devil's deal, and you live with that

1:16:23

result, but here she has to do

1:16:26

it again, or everyone around her is

1:16:28

going to die. There was no Thomas

1:16:30

before. She cheated on Orla. She got

1:16:32

married with Thomas after committing to Orla.

1:16:34

So now that's what he was saying.

1:16:36

I can't kill Thomas. I can't have,

1:16:39

knock, interfere with this. She has to

1:16:41

divorce that relationship in order for this

1:16:43

to be what we were. But yet

1:16:45

on that third night, he's going to

1:16:47

kill Thomas is what he said. I'm

1:16:49

going to give you three nights and

1:16:52

then I'm going to kill the one

1:16:54

you love. Yeah. And he is ill.

1:16:56

We definitely see that he is looking

1:16:58

as bad as she was a few

1:17:00

days before. Bedridden, babbling, the

1:17:02

nuns haven't fully taken the sickness out

1:17:05

of him. And again, rats are scurrying

1:17:07

through the streets, and as they are

1:17:09

being sent home, you do see so

1:17:12

many people burning their things, corpses and

1:17:14

coffins being carried through the streets, street

1:17:16

preachers talking revelations, fire and brimstone. It

1:17:19

is starting to feel really apocalyptic here

1:17:21

in this modern society. The hospitals are

1:17:23

overrun. they're even talking about quarantining the

1:17:26

whole city and it's gonna be a

1:17:28

real COVID situation. And Frederick wants to

1:17:30

get his wife and family out of

1:17:32

there. Anna was found on night one

1:17:35

bitten by rats and is now looking

1:17:37

sick. Yeah, he's gonna break the quarantine

1:17:39

he himself ordered. I found that to

1:17:42

be a little bit amusing. I

1:17:44

mean, I lived in California. We

1:17:46

know what Newsom did during quarantine.

1:17:49

We know what Pelosi did, getting

1:17:51

her hair did. Can I just

1:17:53

say, though, I appreciate that this

1:17:56

film has really good performers in

1:17:58

supporting roles. Aaron Taylor -Johnson as

1:18:00

Frederick and Emma Corrin here as

1:18:03

Anna, I think, are giving really

1:18:05

good performances. And now

1:18:07

here, Anna as she is

1:18:09

sickly and fearful and then

1:18:11

just the deep sorrow of

1:18:13

Frederick that we're getting coming

1:18:15

up here. It pays to

1:18:17

have... good performers in small

1:18:20

roles like this. Here's the

1:18:22

thing, though. Normally, you would

1:18:24

want to have this being

1:18:26

nightmarish. Rats are running through

1:18:28

the city. It's horrifying. I'm

1:18:30

so scared about the plague taking over

1:18:32

everything. I'm kind of gleeful. Like, these

1:18:35

were the shitty one -percenters that thought

1:18:37

life wasn't going to hurt them, right?

1:18:39

That, oh, there's no such thing as

1:18:41

a monster in the closet. And so

1:18:43

we're kind of glad when Orlot comes

1:18:46

and takes those girls, right? There's some

1:18:48

kind of perverse joy I take and

1:18:50

proving to these people they were wrong

1:18:52

to think they were protected with their

1:18:54

little crucifix. Yeah and there's something about

1:18:57

those girls my wife collapsed when they

1:18:59

finally got eaten by Orlock. Yeah I

1:19:01

hate to say that but yes. I

1:19:03

did wonder when I saw the trailer

1:19:05

I noticed them I'm like oh are

1:19:08

you doing a shining thing with twins

1:19:10

but no that's not where they go

1:19:12

with these girls but yeah they're kind

1:19:14

of annoying and so you're kind of

1:19:16

glad when they finally go that Orlock

1:19:19

did us a favor. It's an eat

1:19:21

the rich feeling. It's like they deserve

1:19:23

this for being so wealthy and privileged

1:19:25

and unsuspecting that plague could hurt them.

1:19:27

I didn't have that reaction. I

1:19:30

thought they were definitely going for horror

1:19:32

and shock when Anna runs into the

1:19:34

room and you see Orlock rip out

1:19:37

the throat of one of the little

1:19:39

girls with his teeth and spit out

1:19:41

the blood. Oh, they were going for

1:19:43

it. Again, because this couple has been

1:19:46

seen as so perfect, it felt like

1:19:48

just dessert. That's what you get for

1:19:50

not protecting your kids from the monster

1:19:52

in the closet. Because this movie has

1:19:55

sort of framed it that way, it's

1:19:57

not horrifying to me, and it's actually

1:19:59

a little boring how many scenes we

1:20:01

get of Frederick crying in the mausoleum.

1:20:04

Yeah, Aaron Taylor Johnson is great, but

1:20:06

maybe it's because he's so great at

1:20:08

doing this despicable character. I do not

1:20:10

like this character. I'm not criticizing the

1:20:13

way it's portrayed. I think this character

1:20:15

is supposed to be unlikable. I'm not

1:20:17

sad for him. Again, it feels like

1:20:19

this is what you get when you

1:20:22

deny old world belief. If you live

1:20:24

in the modern and you pay attention

1:20:26

to the clock and you only care

1:20:28

about money and you don't pay attention

1:20:31

to the way the world really is,

1:20:33

the way the natural world. If you

1:20:35

don't pay attention to women, you're going

1:20:37

to get this. This seems to be

1:20:40

the rooster coming home. And then again,

1:20:42

I'm reminded of Dracula after the funeral

1:20:44

for Anna and the children. There's just

1:20:46

something so morbid that they had those

1:20:49

children's coffins at the ready I feel

1:20:51

like since this is only three nights

1:20:53

again I just had a loved one

1:20:55

pass away and it took like two

1:20:58

weeks to get on the burial schedule

1:21:00

and all of that here the very

1:21:02

next day they've got children's coffins lined

1:21:04

up and ready to bury them It

1:21:07

felt a little convenient. I agree. This

1:21:09

whole three -day thing is really compressing.

1:21:11

Like, you're already having the funeral and

1:21:13

they've been dead a couple of hours?

1:21:16

Yeah. It is what it is. Again,

1:21:18

they're trying to work by this convention

1:21:20

that things are getting worse, that Ellen

1:21:23

should be feeling the pressure that something

1:21:25

has to be done and that it's

1:21:27

for her to do. Because during all

1:21:29

of this, Severs finally showed his professor

1:21:32

what Nock was doing in that basement

1:21:34

cell. And he's like, why didn't you

1:21:36

show me this before? This guy clearly

1:21:38

is connected to the darkness and they

1:21:41

raid the estate agents offices and find

1:21:43

this codex this book that's gonna tell

1:21:45

them how Vampires truly are vanquished and

1:21:47

he knows and Ellen knows that it's

1:21:50

only going to be her It's the

1:21:52

delusion of Thomas that he thinks he

1:21:54

can go out there with a stake

1:21:56

and win this fight And I think

1:21:59

that works really well with the feminist

1:22:01

themes that this is going with the

1:22:03

men think they're gonna have this action

1:22:05

scene that's gonna save the day and

1:22:08

it's totally pointless and useless. It's not

1:22:10

gonna accomplish anything. But that's where I'm

1:22:12

saying I was thinking of Dracula because

1:22:14

that is exactly what happens in Dracula

1:22:17

is you get the four men who

1:22:19

are... together to go confront Dracula in

1:22:21

his castle. That's the ending that is

1:22:23

being set up here. And for people

1:22:26

who hadn't seen the earlier Nosferatu's or

1:22:28

the Snickers ad that shows the ending

1:22:30

of the 22 Nosferatu, you might think

1:22:32

this is the ending we're getting. It's

1:22:35

only Von Franz who

1:22:38

knows the truth and takes Ellen aside

1:22:40

and is like, I'll keep your husband

1:22:42

away. I'm going to take him on

1:22:45

this pointless mission. You know what you

1:22:47

have to do. I'll just make sure

1:22:49

you're not interrupted while doing it. Is

1:22:51

that totally pointless? They do stick knock.

1:22:53

He's the one that's sleeping in the

1:22:55

crib when they finally get to this

1:22:57

chapel that's covered in rats and ripped

1:22:59

the lid off the coffin. He stakes

1:23:02

without looking, thinking, aha, I got him.

1:23:04

And it's hard to hear what is

1:23:06

being said here in the moment, but

1:23:08

it almost seems like knock comes to

1:23:10

his senses. A little bit of regret.

1:23:12

He talks about he should have been

1:23:14

a master of rats and he ends

1:23:16

up maybe regretting his choice of his

1:23:18

alignment. I just took it as he's

1:23:21

upset for dying because yeah, he wanted

1:23:23

to do you that master of rats.

1:23:25

He does say that like he should

1:23:27

have been master of rats except Orlock

1:23:29

only cared about his bride. Right. He's

1:23:31

feeling spurned that Orlock didn't care about

1:23:33

him enough. I don't think he necessarily

1:23:35

regrets. his choices so much

1:23:38

as he. feels like he wasn't appreciated

1:23:40

enough. And indeed he's not. Get out

1:23:42

of here. You get to read the

1:23:44

kill that Thomas can make. But the

1:23:46

one that matters, the one that's the

1:23:49

difference between the city plunged in plague

1:23:51

and death and being saved by God's

1:23:53

morning light is Ellen, who has put

1:23:55

on her bridal dress that she presumably

1:23:57

wore for Thomas and is now standing

1:24:00

at the window inviting the shadows. You

1:24:02

know, we had that great scene they

1:24:05

used in the trailer earlier when those

1:24:07

talon shadows fall against the whole city.

1:24:09

and you can hear the screams of

1:24:11

all the people in all the houses.

1:24:14

Yeah, it really does feel like she's

1:24:16

taking it all on here in the

1:24:18

climax. Oh, she's taking it all on

1:24:21

for sure. She is waiting with that

1:24:23

dress and you have to do it,

1:24:25

right? If you're doing a Nosferatu film,

1:24:27

you have to do the silhouette approaching

1:24:30

the door at the climax. just

1:24:33

an iconic image of the series, and

1:24:35

Eggers does a pretty good job. I

1:24:37

don't think this one's going to be

1:24:39

remembered as well as Murnau's, but the

1:24:41

hand, the shadow of the hand, he's

1:24:44

done a lot with the silhouette of

1:24:46

the hand. And here the shadow of

1:24:48

the hand goes to the door and

1:24:50

it's the shadow that opens the door.

1:24:52

We didn't really go into depth about

1:24:54

it, but the opening scene with Ellen,

1:24:57

she's kind of levitating and that drape

1:24:59

is blowing in the wind and every

1:25:01

time it blows out, you that shadow

1:25:03

of Orlock and even though there's no

1:25:05

feet underneath it or anything. So yeah,

1:25:08

he has continued that play with shadows

1:25:10

that was so great about that original

1:25:12

one. And she makes the recommitment. She

1:25:14

essentially burns Thomas and commits to soul

1:25:16

and then body. It's not enough just

1:25:19

to say I love you. You have

1:25:21

to have the vampire crunch down on

1:25:23

your tits and suck all night long.

1:25:25

Yeah, I don't know if he's just

1:25:27

sucking. He's got no pants on at

1:25:30

the end. I felt like when he

1:25:32

was feeding on Thomas, he was doing

1:25:34

like this humping motion during it. So

1:25:36

I assume that's what's going on here.

1:25:39

And this is... where he has

1:25:41

taken off all his clothes for

1:25:43

this one and you see his

1:25:46

rotted flesh. There's holes in it.

1:25:48

He's not a sexy vampire by

1:25:50

any means. No, yeah. He's become

1:25:52

monstrous in this moment. And

1:25:55

again, just as the book foretold, the

1:25:57

illustration showed that he would be distracted

1:25:59

when the cock crows, the sunlight is

1:26:01

streaming through the window. They don't have

1:26:03

them vaporized. That was the classic way

1:26:06

of demonstrating it. Here, he cries Here's

1:26:08

a blood. You know, she was so

1:26:10

full of blood and now he's giving

1:26:12

it all back in the morning light.

1:26:15

Yeah, when they were talking about her

1:26:17

blood, I noticed they talked about her

1:26:19

menstruation too. So the very femaleness that

1:26:21

is so exoticized and quite frankly intimidating

1:26:23

to these men of science is the

1:26:26

thing on Christmas at a time when

1:26:28

we celebrate a man for sacrificing his

1:26:30

life to save all of us. It

1:26:32

truly was the woman that did it

1:26:35

and Thomas and friends arrive too late

1:26:37

and then Tell me this, we have

1:26:39

Defoe walking to the window, picking up

1:26:41

the feral cat that represents the wild

1:26:43

femininity, and it seems like it's forgiven

1:26:46

us, we're saved, and yet if you

1:26:48

look at his face in the mirror,

1:26:50

I can't tell whether that's Plague. You

1:26:52

know, when you have Plague, you have

1:26:54

spots under your eyes. He's got something

1:26:57

under his eyes, but it could have

1:26:59

been... a silhouette from the window. It

1:27:01

looked like a crucifix. Either way, it

1:27:03

had a crucifix marking. I thought for

1:27:06

sure that that was a crucifix shadow.

1:27:08

Is it a shadow? It wasn't plague.

1:27:10

Yeah. I think it's a shadow from

1:27:12

the window, from the window pane. Yeah.

1:27:14

So he doesn't have plague. He's not

1:27:17

denying a plague that he has. I

1:27:19

don't think so. I didn't read it

1:27:21

that way. Okay. I wasn't sure. But

1:27:23

the final images from God himself may

1:27:26

be looking down heaven word on man

1:27:28

and woman coiled together. It's quite a

1:27:30

dramatic commingling before the credits roll. Yeah.

1:27:32

I thought it was a great image

1:27:34

to pull back on with Oralock on

1:27:37

top of her. It's haunting. Mm -hmm.

1:27:39

There is something kind of tender about

1:27:41

it. Strangely enough, grotesque as it also

1:27:43

is, there is something of love in

1:27:46

it. It looks like two lovers dead

1:27:48

in bed like you'd find in the

1:27:50

plague. It does look like love of

1:27:52

some kind. So Jacob,

1:27:55

Stuart, do you recommend

1:27:57

Nosferatu? Jacob, most anticipated film of

1:27:59

the year for me. I was

1:28:01

very excited. I'm a huge Robert

1:28:03

Eggers fan. I've talked about my

1:28:05

love for Nosferatu. The first one

1:28:07

I saw was the Werner Herzog

1:28:09

one and Klaus Kinski as as

1:28:11

scary as he is. That film

1:28:13

sold me on this gothic longing

1:28:15

romance love that the vampire pines

1:28:17

for it. It was an emotional

1:28:19

experience when I watched that one.

1:28:21

I'm like, I got to go

1:28:23

back and watch that original silent

1:28:25

film now. And I watched that

1:28:27

and I'm like, Wow, Max Shrek.

1:28:29

What an amazing performance, the use

1:28:31

of shadow. Even though this is

1:28:33

such an old silent movie, there's

1:28:35

something off -putting and scary about

1:28:37

it, and I love that film

1:28:39

as well. And so that's tough.

1:28:41

This is a story that has

1:28:43

had two cinematic expressions that I

1:28:45

rank very highly. And this was

1:28:47

when I was anticipating very highly,

1:28:49

and maybe that's setting yourself up

1:28:51

for disappointment. I was really anticipating

1:28:53

doing two, though, and that exceeded

1:28:55

expectations. Then I watched this

1:28:57

one and I'm like, oh, okay, that was a

1:29:00

movie. And I talked to my brother about it,

1:29:02

cause he's like, should I go see this? I'm

1:29:04

like, yeah, it's good. I just don't have a

1:29:06

lot of passion for it. And I do wonder

1:29:08

if that's because there are two versions of this

1:29:11

that I really do love. And this definitely tries

1:29:13

to do something different. Point of

1:29:15

view is not Orlock, it is not

1:29:17

the vampire, it's not about scares, and

1:29:20

there are uses of shadows and things

1:29:22

that I would expect Eggers to execute

1:29:24

perfectly, and he does. The camera work,

1:29:26

the cinematography, all that stuff is amazing,

1:29:29

but there is something about this story,

1:29:31

maybe because it's just, yeah, it's longer,

1:29:33

there's a lot more debates among humans

1:29:35

going on. Like I said, I was

1:29:37

thinking about Coppola's Dracula, and I'm like,

1:29:40

yeah, that's probably not as masterful as

1:29:42

this, but there's something about that one.

1:29:44

even enjoyed more. The campiness, the humor,

1:29:47

just the outrageous visuals. I think Eggers is

1:29:49

always going to give you authentic visuals. Sometimes

1:29:51

they might be outrageous, but he's more concerned

1:29:53

about authenticity. And so there is an experience

1:29:55

here. And maybe those who are not familiar

1:29:57

with Nosferatu will get something more out of

1:29:59

this. For me, it's a very good film.

1:30:01

I just think there are better versions of

1:30:03

this story that I've seen. This, again, it's

1:30:05

going to try to do its own thing,

1:30:07

focusing on Ellen, focusing on how society looked

1:30:09

at women at the time or maybe how

1:30:11

they still look at them today. So this

1:30:13

isn't a trash movie. It's a very good,

1:30:16

well -constructed movie. It's one, like I said,

1:30:18

I just don't have a lot of passion

1:30:20

for because it didn't move me like other

1:30:22

versions of the story had. So it's still

1:30:24

a recommend. Again, I'd be interested to hear

1:30:26

people that have no experience with Nosferatu. Much

1:30:28

like I experienced The Witch where I had

1:30:30

no expectations going in and that is a

1:30:32

film that turned me on to horror. I'm

1:30:34

like, oh, horror could be more than goofy

1:30:36

rubber masks to make a monster. That showed

1:30:38

me something else. and I didn't have that

1:30:40

experience, maybe that's a once in a lifetime

1:30:42

experience. Again, I brought a lot of expectations

1:30:44

into this, and so I just want to

1:30:46

be clear because we could only come with

1:30:48

our point of view, but I think it's

1:30:50

a very well constructed film, very well acted,

1:30:52

a unique point of view. There's a lot

1:30:54

of things to enjoy here. I just don't

1:30:56

have a lot of passion for it, but

1:30:58

it's still a recommend. Stuart. Yeah,

1:31:01

I hear the disappointment in that

1:31:03

review of, like, it's clearly a

1:31:06

well -made movie, but how do

1:31:08

you feel about it? Well, here's

1:31:10

one thing I feel about it.

1:31:12

It's a very Robert Eggers Nosferatu.

1:31:14

If that's what you want, he has

1:31:17

done what he does. And in many

1:31:19

ways, I feel like it is a

1:31:21

virtual remake of The Witch. You can

1:31:23

see how influential the Murnau movie must

1:31:25

have been. when he was telling that

1:31:27

movie. But here's the difference. When I

1:31:29

watch The Witch, I'm scared of that

1:31:31

goat. There's something

1:31:33

primal about that goat. And when

1:31:35

she pledges to that delicious life

1:31:37

of evil with him, I feel

1:31:40

the foreboding. And here... I don't.

1:31:42

I think it's kind of what

1:31:44

you're talking about, Jacob, of just

1:31:46

there's not a whole lot of

1:31:48

feeling in it, which is not

1:31:50

to say that Eggers doesn't care.

1:31:52

He clearly does in all the

1:31:54

detail. I dare say you're going

1:31:56

to see a better looking film

1:31:58

this year. The attention to detail

1:32:00

is astounding. Art direction, cinematography, sound

1:32:02

design, all of these things are

1:32:04

superlative. But the actual feeling it

1:32:06

leaves you with, and I do

1:32:08

think you're right, because we've seen

1:32:10

this movie many times before, there's

1:32:12

not a whole lot of room

1:32:14

for them to find new territory.

1:32:16

I guess I think it comes

1:32:18

down to Bill Skarsgaard's Nosferatu leaves

1:32:21

me a little cold. If I

1:32:23

had more feeling about him, I'd

1:32:25

probably be higher on this movie.

1:32:27

I love Kinski, I love

1:32:29

Max Schreck, and again, even Doug

1:32:31

Jones had more menace in a

1:32:33

few of his scenes. And certainly

1:32:35

Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the

1:32:37

Vampire was a wonderful version of

1:32:39