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Review - Nosferatu
15 Plays4 months ago
Best movie of the year? Watch and listen to me rant about my most anticipated movie of the year! Spoiler alert: I love it!
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Transcript
Introduction and Context
00:00:01
Speaker
um We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you some breaking news. There's been reports all over the area of something crazy going on, something big. People's homes, their minds even, are being taken over by something called... What is it they're calling it? They're calling it Bad Movie of Age!
Introducing Bad Movie Debate Podcast
00:00:19
Speaker
What up nerds? It's Bad Movie Debate with me, Jacob Babb. I'm doing a review episode, a real short one probably for Nosferatu. Just got to see it last night with my dad on Christmas Day at AMC. the It was a Dolby Cinema, which I did not realize until we got there, which was pretty rad. Don't get me wrong, but that's not even the whole point. um arguably the best movie of the year, definitely the best horror movie of the year, um might be the best movie of the year for me
Admiration for Nosferatu
00:00:49
Speaker
personally. and There's a lot of good stuff that came out this year, but I think that one, this one is just like for me, is just knocked it out of the park, just the way it was shot, edited, just everything about Robert Eggers is one of my favorite, one of my favorite directors. If you've listened to any episode talking about horror, I always talk about how The Witch is one of my favorite movies of all time.
00:01:11
Speaker
um So it's just an absolute blast of a ride for sure. No no doubt about that. um I wanted to get into a couple of specific things I think about the movie. First and foremost, it pays such a good homage to ah not only the 1922 Nosferatu, but also ah just the book Dracula and all of the film adaptations from the Bela Lugosi one to Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula in the 90s with ah Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder and all of them.
00:01:46
Speaker
um The way that the lighting is used or the like the tonal uh lighting like when you like you know when you like tone a movie like do the color grading and stuff you can do a specific uh you can like tint it or tone it in such a way like temperature wise so in the original uh 1922 Nosferatu um pretty much everything is shot during the day it's 1922 so it's hard to shoot at night um but what they do and so what they did was they would have like a blue filter like i have like a they would have um like the screen would be overly blue to signify that it's nighttime or it'd be overly yellow to signify that it was a daytime and then there was like a warm light if it was like inside by the fire or like sunrise or sunset or something like that not like like yellow yellow like kind of like reddish orangy kind of a thing that doesn't happen as much as the blue and the yellow those are apparent um
00:02:41
Speaker
but it's just really cool to see in this movie that when it is nighttime it is almost black and white but there's a little bit of blue in there which is directly from that.
Film Techniques and Homages
00:02:52
Speaker
There's scenes when Nicholas Holt ah and his character Hutter walk into the little inn that he stays in the night before he goes and actually meets Count Orloff and it's like It's like there's a yellowish warm orangy tone because there's a raging fire and um so it signifies it's nighttime and inside. So I think it did a really good job and in the daytime scenes are pretty muted, very like desaturated black and white, which I think
00:03:18
Speaker
is just a good idea for this movie just in general ah for the daytime shots like you don't want to be it'd be weird if it was like too yellow like it would be uh breaking bad there in mexico if it was too yellow like people think that these days i think so probably a good call to not do it that way uh for those specific scenes but I think the way that they ah color graded was played paid a beautiful homage to those that original thing that they did in the 1922 Nosferatu.
00:03:49
Speaker
um one of my favorite parts and it's like really not that big of a deal but for me I've read the book Dracula probably five times I've seen every iteration of Nosferatu or ah um Dracula you can see that like is based on the original novel and everything and this is the only one where they had the vampire the vampir if you want um with a big ol' burly mustache. That is in the novel when he's first introduced when Jonathan Harker is first introduced to
00:04:29
Speaker
ah Dracula in the castle before they get the deal his in his description it talks about like you know how he like looks old and stuff because you know he eats he like eats people's like drinks people's blood and like he gets younger and more youthful as he like gains the sustenance or whatever um but one of the biggest things is he has a big old burly mustache um which is an appropriate look for like an eastern european person at the time so i just think that's really funny that uh they this is the first one to finally get it right and uh obviously immediately like a whole start up just because they did that and they paid uh they uh just nailed that which is again not that important but to me it's very important as a big uh dracula fan uh in general i think the thing that makes this movie
00:05:19
Speaker
much more interesting than the original Nosferatu and even Werner Herzog's, I think it's in the 70s sometime, even Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, which is amazing and beautiful in its own right, and if you haven't seen that one, you need to check that one out too, because there's definitely you know elements of that in this one. Egger's definitely you know so took some inspiration from that one as well. um I think this one does a good job of giving the perspective of ah Ellen or the Mina fill in for the story. um yeah For those who you don't know, which is shocking if you don't know this, um if you didn't like this movie because you thought it was too closely related, too similar to Dracula, it's because it was a it was a
00:06:10
Speaker
plagiarization of Dracula like a they did not have the authority or the authorization or the permission to make this movie and they just did the exact story of Bram Stoker's Dracula which it says at the beginning inspired by or based on Bram Stoker's Dracula.
00:06:26
Speaker
um So they got sued into oblivion and stuff. So that's why the story is so similar now it doesn't matter because the story is so old um that it's a ah It's in the public domain so anybody can do anything they want with the story um So moving past that so the Ellen Mina Ellen in this one um It's in my opinion. It's her story I think, um and I see some interviews, I mean, I guess not my opinion, I've seen some interviews where Eggers was talking about like wanting to use, i like show her perspective and like her experience a little bit more, because the first one definitely you know doesn't. It's mostly just like the men and stuff, which is you know a product of its time. It's 1922. They couldn't even speak. There wasn't even like speaking roles. It was a silent movie.
00:07:10
Speaker
Um, so I think they did a really good job, uh, or he did a really good job, like making it like her story, like in a first watch. I'm sure with anything with Robert Eggers, anytime you go back and, um, you rewatch it, you could watch any, you can watch any of his movies from a different person's perspective and it'll be just as good, if not even better than the first person you, uh, tagged onto. I think it makes sense that ah Ellen's the first person that you would tag on to in this one ah because I think that was his intent based on what I had seen him say in um and an interview like a clip of an interview at least um That being said um I know i'm I'm really rambly I really really really like this movie and I'm trying to Just hit all the talking points that I want to talk about um But I think that's the most important one. She is um
00:07:58
Speaker
It's her story. It starts with her reaching out to something, anything, and ah Count Warlock is the one who answers her and stuff. And, you know, they're always talking about her melancholia, her melancholia, like the first hour. They always, like pretty much any time anybody talks to her or talks about her, they talk about her melancholia. So, which is an old timey word for depression, which I feel like everybody should know by now. but um And so it's like, you know, she says something about like her.
00:08:26
Speaker
Mom died young, her dad may be still around, but it's it's pretty vague on what's going on with that. But she was super depressed and she reached out for anything, and anything to help her through it or anything she could. And she found Count Orlok, or Count Orlok found her, so she succumbed to the darkness, that's you know, a big ad thing is like, succumbed to darkness, like, come to Nosferatu. And ah she, so she takes that, and I think that's a good, like, metaphor. I don't have this whole theory all the way, like, worked out, but I think it's an interesting metaphor.
Character Perspectives and Metaphors
00:08:59
Speaker
um you know its Obviously that's depression. like She's super depressed and the darkness, depression, Count Orlok takes possession of her until she meets ah Hutter, Nicole's character, and she sees a shining light and she's like, I don't need to be like this anymore. I don't need to do this anymore. But like with anybody with depression knows If you have depression like me, um you know that it ebbs and flows. So sometimes you're good for a long time and then just out all of a sudden it just comes out of nowhere and when you least expect it after everything is should be good and like things come back up to the surface and you're back in that darkness and you have to decide like what you want to do and it's kind of her journey um is ah um like deciding what like
00:09:44
Speaker
You know, cause like Orlock is, there's some spoilers in here. I'm going to try to be spoiler free as I can. Um, but, uh, you know, her whole journey is pretty much like deciding to succumb to the darkness and go with count Orlock, or is she going to say, screw that I'm done with that. I want to be with Hunter and live a life that I know I can and deserve and have been living for the past few years, uh, in love and everything's going good. Get some great friends.
00:10:14
Speaker
and everything like that, and a cute little kitty, which is great, I can't remember the cat's name, sorry. um So I think that's part of like what her journey is about, and like that's the whole thing. And then you get, then you know again, different perspectives. It's Eggers, so there's not just one perspective here. And then you've got ah Hutter's character, very you know pretty pretty standard kind of hero's journey thing. John Campbell, hero's journey. He goes on a journey. He goes to Trout's Retripulations. He comes home and like stuff like that. you know um It is what it is in that regard. I haven't fleshed out any other characters, like where they are and like what they mean. or like
00:10:52
Speaker
everything cuz I just saw it last night at like I think we got out of the movie theater at midnight last night and then my dad actually had a pretty interesting thing when we were talking about it on the way home there's a very specific shot where Ellen has a like she's one of those big old bouffant crazy ass 1800s dresses on and like part of her dress is like a big old thing that looks like a black halo and her and Willem Dafoe's character the Van Helsing stand-in for this story so having a like she said like like if she's gonna be their salvation or not like she has to decide and it's like she looks very angelic with like a halo around her but it's black
00:11:33
Speaker
And my dad was talking about how interesting that is Christmas, so you know and like we you know we were raised in Christianity, Catholicism, and stuff. So it came to both of our minds, but he was talking about how like he thinks it's interesting how it was like if it was white, it would have been way too on the nose and stuff. So he thought it was cool that it was an intentional thing of Eggers to do a black-looking halo behind her when they were having this conversation about salvation.
00:11:57
Speaker
because it's like the means justify the ends in a way so it was like a like like her deciding if she was going to potentially sacrifice herself for the greater good and stuff like it's kind of like a Jesus narrative splashed in there with her because it's like um she doesn't do a horrible thing to save the town from a plague but you know uh and like that's not great, like how she has to do it and stuff. So it's it's very interesting and there's a the all very quick little conversation about Sin and that I think is really interesting that they talk about ah her and Willem Dafoe at some point during the movie a little bit before that. So there's definitely something there too. Again, none of this is all super fleshed out. I'm just kind of rambling out everything me and my dad talked about and like my personal thoughts about everything. um I think um
00:12:49
Speaker
One random thing that came up that I thought was interesting was if you if you pay, if you're a big music person, the score in this one pays direct homage to the ah ah homage to ah the original 1922 one. The main theme is very similar and has like certain elements or like notes or whatever. I'm not a big music person. Like technically I love music, but not like technically, I don't really know a ton about it, but like,
00:13:18
Speaker
The main themes are in, like, score is very similar to the original one, which I thought was really great. oh Not surprised that that happened, but it's also very similar to the Coppola, Braun Stoper's Dracula.
00:13:32
Speaker
like Because i when I rewatched Nosferatu earlier this week to get ready for this one, I was like, wow, this is really reminding me of the score in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Coppola one. And then went and saw this one yesterday and was like, oh my god, like it's all similar and stuff. So I think that's pretty rad ah that they were using the same ah like elements of the score throughout all of that um and everything.
Narrative and Dialogue Style
00:14:00
Speaker
um I also did really like um in this one how, um because the story is much more straightforward in Nosferatu as it is to Dracula, there's a lot of side character a lot more characters, a lot more side plot kind of stuff going on in
00:14:16
Speaker
in the book and then Coppola's adaptation, which Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula is the most accurate, um like, direct lifting of the book into a movie. Bela Gossi's one is great, but it's pretty streamlined. It was the 30s. What can you do?
00:14:34
Speaker
um But, ah and so that has all those extra elements and stuff. Nosferatu never had those extra elements, and I think it works without it because they do end differently. the the The original Dracula story ends differently than Nosferatu does. It's a lot more, it's a smaller scale um that I think does work because of the journey that we take. It's a little bit different, but it's basically the same story, which is why they got sued into Oblivion.
00:14:58
Speaker
um Regardless, um I think they did a, I think he just did a really good job of having the characters he needed and like having them fill in a different role. Like the Arthur character, I can't remember his name, but Arthur, Aaron, Taylor, Johnson or whatever his name is.
00:15:20
Speaker
he He's like the rich friend to um Hutter and Ellen and stuff, who's Arthur in the original story. um He owns the ship that comes in on the Demeter and Knott's brought to you, if I'm remembering correctly, they briefly mentioned that there's a ship, like that's how he gets over and stuff, but there's not the whole thing with like the plague's on the ship and like the plague has come to town and there's a ghost ship that rolled in, nothing's there.
00:15:46
Speaker
ah Nobody's on there anymore the captain's log super scary and stuff And then they made that entire the last voyage of the Demeter movie Which could have been really good, but ended in a really shitty way, but I'm not gonna talk about that right now um They went against cannon at the very end, and that's really annoying in my opinion, so they messed up on that Don't know who green lit that but that was stupid ah digress um I really like that Eggers did bring in the ship and like had like it's just a couple of quick little things about the about the ship but you see some kills on the ship some like horror stuff on the ship and ah I think
00:16:22
Speaker
that was awesome to include to make sure was included because at the end of the movie it says based on the screenplay of Nosferatu 1922 by those guys who wrote it and the novel ah Dracula by Bram Stoker. um So he kind of melds the two stories into one cohesive narrative in a way that I don't think anybody had done just yet and I was telling some friends last night talking about it. It is i I just think it's my favorite version of this story. Obviously the book is superior, but when it comes to visual media and movies and stuff, man, this might be the best telling of Dracula. Just the the emotionality of it um is really insane. All the acting was really good, so we don't need to waste time on that. The cast was incredible. They all did such a good job. All the sets, of course, incredible.
00:17:14
Speaker
all All that stuff, amazing, yeah. We we don't even need to like get bogged down in that. um The ah cinematography we'll talk about a little bit more in a second, but I guess my main thing about it is even though it's not the actual story of Dracula, it's done in such a way that it tells an almost more compelling story. I'm not gonna say it's a more compelling story than the actual novel of Dracula. That but that is a much more compelling story, so don't need to freak out about that.
00:17:44
Speaker
But this one was more interesting to watch and maybe a little bit more poetically beautiful. um Eggers, you know, they were speaking the dialogue was, you know, you've seen the witch, you know, he'd get he'd be doing period piece dialogue. No problem. So obviously the very flowery language was nice to see.
00:18:02
Speaker
And I think they hit that a little bit better than in Coppola's Dracula. They talk you know pretty flowery in that, but there was just something about it in this one that the dialogue just fit a little bit better for me. um I think the one thing that I've seen a lot of people talk about in like a negative way And even some people that when I was watching it last night, some people in the theater were like cracking jokes or like just straight up like giggling to themselves, like little children was like how sexual it is, like the sexuality of the whole thing.
00:18:33
Speaker
um i Okay, I don't know why people were like joking about that in the thing and like freaking out about it. It's not um so a big deal. ah We're all grown ups. It's a very integral, it's a very important part of the story, like that it's a it is a it is a sexual connection that they have. it's He says he, you know, she, Ellen yells at Orlock that,
00:18:59
Speaker
He can't love, and he's like, yeah, I don't care about this stuff, but like it this is it is a an abusive relationship kind of love that's going on. She reaches out to him and she like gives herself to him at a young age, and then when she goes off and like leaves him, based in his eyes, like leaves him for Hunter, he implements a plan to get to her to get her back. When Hunter signs the papers to sign over ah the building he's gonna buy when he moves to Germany,
00:19:29
Speaker
and he's like oh it's just in my language it's in my original native language and hunter's like okay yeah cuz he's shittin' his brick shittin' his shittin' bricks which of course you should be he or like looks horrifyingly he's very scary and Bill Skarsgard did an incredible job um but I digress um He says, oh yeah, don't worry about it. Just sign right here. You forgot to sign this thing in. But that was like a, you know, like one of those like an appendix, ah like a thing of a thing of thing inside of a thing of a contract where it's just hidden in the back of the terms and conditions ah is also you're going to, you're divorced, you're getting divorced now and you're nullifying your marriage so I can be with her. So you did it all above board, which is kind of right crazy that he, that he tried to do it all above board and and like legally correct. Um,
00:20:14
Speaker
and before he's like with that wait because he gives him the pair of the one two three night like you have like these three nights and stuff and that first night he's like uh no he signed you away dude like y'all are not legally married anymore and stuff um but uh going back to um what i was saying about sexuality though like that's the whole point of it it's a sexual relationship she has her her fits and they're supposed to resemble like they're supposed to be like like she's having an orgasm like it's that's what that is it's like but I don't know what to tell you like like if you're giggling at it then you're not paying attention or you're like if you're giggling at it or you're feeling embarrassed by it and stuff I mean yeah like that's kind of the point is to feel weird about it because it is kind of a horrifying thing seeing this woman
00:21:05
Speaker
who just got recently married having these fits that are very sexual in nature it's like yeah like that's creepy like if that's off that's weird and stuff but that's the point like this isn't a this isn't a nice little Christmas family romp to go see like this is a a deep dense story uh that revolves around a lot of uh sexuality and stuff and that's like you know not to spoil the end or anything but that's a big part of the end of it too like and it's beautiful and it's done super well and it's not um it's not as weird as in my opinion as people were making it out to be i don't know
00:21:43
Speaker
oh I think it was fine, I think it was great, I think it went exactly how it was supposed to in the version of the story that Eggers was trying to tell.
Impactful Scenes and Recognition
00:21:53
Speaker
I think all of that works um without being too over the top. um Kind of Orlok's dog is kind of a lot. It's very shocking to see um for sure, but and it was the only thing I knew for sure going in that that was gonna happen and I was still not ready for it. so You know, that is what it is. um And I think just lastly, the most important thing about this movie and why I loved it so much and why I think it's my favorite movie and why I absolutely think it deserves to be nominated for as many awards as it can, but specifically Oscars.
00:22:34
Speaker
Quick little rant. The Oscars are anti-horror movies. They hate, hate, hate, hate, hate giving horror movies any kind of recognition, even when it's something important and good. Get out. Like, I'm sure everybody knows about the get out situation. Get out. Obviously a horror movie. A beautiful social commentary about black people's experience in this country and stuff. Everybody's raving about it. It's so good. Jordan Peele knocked it out of the park and They want to recognize it? Great! But they list it as a comedy because it's Jordan Peele and it was kind of funny because he was a comedy guy before he started making horror movies.
00:23:11
Speaker
Absolutely absurd. There's no way they can do that with this one, but this one absolutely deserves to have ah Some recognition at like, you know Oscars are like the top tier like like if you get Oscars for your stuff like that's the highest award you can get um in Hollywood for for movies and stuff. So I don't know they it deserves it It deserves it and part of the reason is is because my favorite absolute absolute absolute absolute favorite thing about this movie was the use of shadows the cinematography and the shadow play is so damn good and it can be argued i'm not 100 sure on this somebody let me know if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure 1922 Nosferatu invented using shadow to elicit
00:24:00
Speaker
fear in a movie. They couldn't talk. They couldn't speak. It was silent movies. They used shadow to illustrate the famous scene of Orlock's shadow going up the stairs and then coming into the door and stuff. They used that to elicit fear because it's creepy as hell with his hand and he's going like... yeah know he's going like up The stairs get scary as hell. um First of all, but also they did that to do because they don't have CGI back then they literally couldn't even use audio like except for like, like speaking audio, which is insane. So they're like, okay, we'll just do a really long cast shadow to illustrate the part of the novel where Dracula is coming to commune with Nina, um Ellen in a
00:24:51
Speaker
in like the ethereal plane not like physically there but like hypnotically reaching out to her that's how they illustrated it and people have been using shadow play in horror movies and a lot of other stuff ever since i was literally talking to my mom about it uh christmas eve night when i got into town like because i was ranting and raving about how excited i was for the movie and uh just so happened to change the channel because some movie she was watching ended and it was like well what else is on while we're talking and scuba-doo was on scuba-doo where are you OG the OG original scuba-doo where are you and um it's the episode which which is which and uh really like the zombie guy uh like
00:25:31
Speaker
There's a scene where Shaggy and Scooby are walking down the hallway and they're casting shadows and lo and behold, coming up behind them, at first you just see the shadow of the hand and you don't see him, but like there are you that's from Knott's Fraud 2.
Innovative Use of Shadows
00:25:45
Speaker
It's insane how important that shadow work is in the original one because it's still happening to this day from Scooby-Doo to like any horror movie you've ever seen.
00:25:54
Speaker
and the The way they do it in this movie is insane. like It's all in the trailer. but His hand coming over the entire town is just beautiful. But then they do the same thing. At the very beginning, the curtain is flowing and you can see his shadow. When it goes away, you don't see him there. But then it blows back up and you can see his shadow in ah Like between the curtain and like the moonlight coming in but then it drips back and then there's nothing there just back and you see him as they're talking as they first meet um As she's reaching out to someone to like help her with her melancholia and whatever and like she's all lonely and stuff um And just like just so many scenes like that where the shadow work is just not only
00:26:42
Speaker
cool to see like the cinematography it is cool it's like great cinematography just how they captured that uh and like it's cool to look at and we love looking at it but it's a part of the direct narrative like it's a part of the story using like shadows to help tell a story and especially because the whole thing is like they're like i'm in the shadow you're in a shadow you're in the shadow of ah of this evil, of this demon of Count Orlok that's not Speratu. That's the whole point. you know like That's a whole major point of the narrative in general. And so it's just amazing to see how they made it work in this version.
00:27:22
Speaker
ah to the point where Kyle, Kyle Lane, he's been on the show. If you don't know Kyle Lane, go back and listen to the episodes with Kyle. He's my TV guy, my TV liaison, as I call him, and we talk about TV shows that we like. um Another one should be coming soon because the new season of something is coming out soon. We're really excited to get in on that, but that's down the road.
00:27:42
Speaker
he listen I was talking to him, he got to see it on December 24th, twenty fourth you got see on Christmas Eve, um and I was talking to him about it after I got out because I'm such a huge fan of it. and like he was he he thought it was he like He's a big horror guy too, but he doesn't like a lot of old stuff, so he's never seen the original, he's that he's never read Dracula.
00:28:02
Speaker
It probably hasn't seen Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Coppola one, and stuff. and But like he barely knows the story of Dracula, and he was like, I think that might be my favorite horror movie of all time. He was amazed, absolutely blown away by the um how incredible the shadow work was. It just blew his mind how it was not only just really cool and well done, but how important it was to the story. And if that's not a good enough reason to give this five out of five stars, ah because like me, a huge nerd
00:28:36
Speaker
Knows everything about or likes to pretend he knows everything about Dracula and like all like seen everything read everything I can about Dracula and Nosferatu and a guy who just kind of knows the name Dracula and like knows this basic general story whatever um And he's like five out of five best horror movie I've seen in a really long
Final Endorsement and Social Media Call
00:28:57
Speaker
time. One of the best movie of the year. Like that it's five out of five and the Oscars need to understand that that people people who don't know anything about this are still loving it because it's so well done and it deserves to be recognized ah for that.
00:29:13
Speaker
um Yeah, I think that's it. ah Thank you for ah sticking with this ah really rambly journey into my thoughts on this movie. I just, ah you know, I could have written something down and not just kind of stream of consciousness talked, but I think this is more fun. This was a better way to do it because I just had so much to say and um I I just kept getting distracted every time I tried to write something down. So I was like, I'm just going to talk and hopefully I'll get everything out there. So if you made it this far, thank you. I appreciate it. Um, you know, follow on TikTok as long as it's there, uh, Instagram, uh, which hopefully will never, it's, you know, that's USA on, so I'll never go away probably. Uh, so follow on all that, uh, YouTube, um, and everything to see more stuff like this. And, uh, yeah, just, uh, appreciate it.