Film Review: Nosferatu (Focus Features/Universal Pictures)

By: Shawn McKee

A demonic, shadowy figure spreads doom, despair, and death upon a 19th-century German town. The story of Nosferatu originates from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, which set the stage for all vampire lore and mythology to follow. Along with Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, two of the horror genre’s greatest monsters were created.

The 1922 silent film Nosferatu was my gateway into German Expressionist films of the 1920s, which included The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), and Faust (1926), among others. The golden age of German cinema culminated with Fritz Lang’s epic sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis (1927) and his equally brilliant mystery thriller M (1931), starring Peter Lorre.

This period of innovation and landmark filmmaking ended upon the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party, which subsequently turned the film industry into a propaganda machine for their twisted goals.

As an unofficial film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s famous novel, Nosferatu was accused of copyright infringement by the Stoker estate. German courts ruled all copies to be destroyed, but several prints survived. It remains one of the most influential horror films of all time.

2024’s Nosferatu embarks as a tribute to the original silent film and Expressionist filmmaking. The familiar story of Dracula is told through a landscape of dreamlike visuals, fantastic settings, foreboding doom, and grotesque imagery. Unfortunately, it fails to realize its potential as a memorable Gothic horror film.

Director Robert Eggers delivers grandness to this obvious passion project. There’s no doubt he’s a talented filmmaker. His eye for authenticity in set design, costumes, and dialogue is admirable and immersive. I liked The Witch (2015) but never saw The Northman (2022). And I’m not a fan of The Lighthouse (2019).

Ultimately, I was taken with Nosferatu’s style, atmosphere, and darkness, but something didn’t quite add up. Its deliberate pacing and attention to detail should have left little room for confusion, whereas Eggers does exactly that.

His attempts to bring something new gloss over pivotal details and turn Nosferatu into a tale of possession, obsession, and psychic connections. Aside from muddled character motivations, the plot unfolds conventionally in the fictional 19th-century town of Wisborg, Germany.

Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), newlywed husband to Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), is summoned to a remote castle in Transylvania by his employer Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) to finalize a real estate transaction with the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Herr Knock (aka Reinfeld) is actually a devoted servant to the Count, aiding him in his menacing quest.

After an arduous journey, Hutter finds himself captive in Orlok’s castle unable to warn his wife of impending doom. The Count purchases property in Wisborg after seeing a small portrait of Ellen on her husband’s locket. He then travels by ship with coffins of cursed earth and unleashes a plague of disease-ridden rats upon the unsuspecting town.

Hutter escapes, returns home, and finds his wife in the throes of demonic possession. A sympathetic doctor, Dr. Wihelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson), can’t determine what’s wrong with her. They then enlist the aid of disgraced Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) to save Ellen and stop Count Orlok before it’s too late.

Hutter and Von Franz are, of course, based on Jonathan Harker and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing from Stoker’s novel, and the film reuses most of the names from its 1922 predecessor which changed them to avoid similarities to Stoker’s novel. Dafoe also naturally stands out, bringing some much-needed warmth and humor.

Perhaps the greatest treat is the depiction of Count Orlok famously played by Max Shreck in the original. Skarsgård’s portrayal may be polarizing, but it completely worked for me. His deep, menacing voice, thick accent, labored breathing, and guttural growls were jarring and fascinating to behold.

Largely shot within shadows, Orlok looks the part of a repulsive and immortal recluse from the Carpathian Mountains, replete with decayed skin, long, claw-like hands, and a thick mustache. Keeping his appearance a secret from the trailers and movie posters was also a genius stroke in advertising, as his brooding, mysterious presence carries the film.

This is no romanticized vampire tale either. As an ominous prophet of doom, Orlok embodies pure evil and leaves behind a wasteland of apocalyptical horror in his wake. Scenes of a desolate, disease-ridden Wisborg are chilling and harken back to the profound bleakness brilliantly captured in Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake, Nosferatu the Vampyre. There are also lots of rats, so consider yourself warned.

Nosferatu’s tragic tale of sacrifice lives on in an effectively dark and sinister reimagining. Though it’s not a movie without flaws. Those expecting a conventional big-budget horror experience might be disappointed. Random jump scares employed throughout worked on the audience but mostly annoyed me.

The results make one long for the visual splendor, excitement, and coherence of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), which remains a modern-day classic, in my opinion.

Conversely, the movie’s trappings could also be its strong points. If Eggers had simply remade Nosferatu, emulated Coppola’s vision, or modernized the story to make it more accessible, it would be something else. It wouldn’t be art in all its confounding glory.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Film Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (The Geffen Company/Plan B Entertainment/Tim Burton Productions/Domain Entertainment)

By: Jesse Striewski

Many moons ago, my Aunt Sharron took me to a video store (couldn’t tell you if it was a major rental chain such as Blockbuster, or simply a mom and pop type of place), where we picked up a “new release” for the night called Beetlejuice from Director Tim Burton, whose Pee Wee’s Big Adventure a few years earlier I was already a huge fan of.

I was in awe as I watched in the dimly lit room full of ’80s decor (I definitely recall there being plenty of furniture with wood paneling surrounding us), partially frightened, yet fully intrigued. There was no doubt about it, I was falling in love (and in more ways than one…Winona Ryder as goth goddess Lydia Deetz was actively stealing my heart as one of my very first, and very real crushes).

Fast forward more than three decades later, and Burton finally returns to the unique world that is Beetlejuice. Upon initially hearing this, I instantly knew I had to be there in the theater with the family as soon as possible, even if so many long-awaited sequels, reboots, etc…in recent memory have only tarnished once-great franchises (ahem, the Halloween “requels” are the first things to come to mind).

But much like the more recent Ghostbusters entries, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the exception to the rule, even if there may be a hiccup or two along the way. All these years later we find Lydia (Ryder) has (most appropriately) become a ghost-hunting TV show host. When her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) informs her that her father Charles (played by the now-disgraced Jeffrey Jones in the first movie) has died in a horrific plane crash, she brings her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) and Producer boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) home to Winter River for the funeral.

It doesn’t take long before the “ghost with the most” himself, “Betelgeuse” – who is dealing with problems of his own in the afterlife when his ex-wife Delores (played by Monica Bellucci, who oozes on the screen with massive sex appeal) – rises from the grave seeking revenge on him – starts becoming a factor in their lives again.

Like the original, there’s twists and turns around nearly every corner, with just enough side/back stories thrown in without any of them becoming overwhelming. Willem Dafoe stands out as one of the films unsung heroes Wolf Jackson, a former action movie star who in the afterlife thinks he’s a legit detective, and even the often overly-exposed Oretga does an admirable job here.

The only real complaints are the way several other aspects are handled; the quick glossing over of the Maitland couple (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis in the 1988 original), and the disappointing treatment of the Charles Deetz character is admittedly in pretty bad taste.

But I digress; like the first film, I found myself getting completely lost in the world Burton has created here. As a follow-up to a movie like Beetlejuice, it’s a perfectly suitable continuation; I’m not really sure what else audiences could really expect from such a film.

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Film Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home (Columbia Pictures/Marvel Studios)

By: Jesse Striewski

Aside from Batman, Spider-Man has always been one of the few superhero characters that I don’t mind watching on screen. But as just a casual fan, these newer films with Tom Holland as the titular hero have been much harder to enjoy than the early 2000’s films starring Toby Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi.

I’ll try to sum up No Way Home (what’s with all of the “home” references in the title of every one of the Holland flicks, anyway?) as simplified as possible for fellow outsiders such as myself; Spider-Man/Peter Parker is basically hated by the world for the events in the last entry, Far From Home, and enlists the help of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase everyone’s memory of it. In doing so, it allows other previous foes from other dimensions into his world.

It does allow for some exciting moments, and it was interesting to see some of the actors and characters from the Raimi films appear on the big screen again, such as Maguire, Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, and Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus. But eventually it just became as clunky as all of the other ridiculous superhero films these days that I could care less about (like the Avengers or Wonder Woman), and the plot was far too similar to the 2018 animated feature Into the Spider-Verse. And I get there are people really into these movies, but it’s lost on me how they possibly maintain the time and energy to know all of the ins and outs of all these countless characters and storylines (I’d be exhausted if I tried).

I also made the mistake of taking my kid to see it in 3-D, which is the most absurd and shameless gimmick by Hollywood these days, and not only completely pointless for most films (such as this one), it has completely taken away any magic from the concept entirely. But look, it’s not that No Way Home is a bad film per se (it was still better than that new Matrix film, something so disappointing I elected not to even review it at all), it’s just not what someone like me is looking for from a Spider-Man movie. I think I’ll just stick to the simplicity of those old Raimi films next time I’m in the mood for one.

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars