12/28/24 - Nosferatu (2024) 7+/8-/10

A gothic symphony of bloody beauty, shadowed sensuality, and feral fantasy. Production design is extraordinarily exquisite - a vision from the imagination of a man in love with history and craft.

A tad long in the tooth and a story aged & stifled, but the bite is absolutely worth the bit. Eggers conducts a version of the Dracula that is on par with any put to celluloid before. An absolute dream of maladies and melancholies, that is meticulous and melodic. He takes a tale near timeless and refreshes it and reinvigorates while staying as grotesquely archaic as possible.

In a strong year for Hoult, he gives possibly my favorite performance of his. Bold and human. Lily-Rose Depp rekindles my faith in her with an inspired portrayal, enthralled in pain and pleasure, but all personal. Skarsgard melts into Orlok, completely unrecognizable, while the likes of Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Willem Dafoe paint the background with aristocratic asphyxiation and mesmeric mania respectively. But one undersong performance that deserves a doff of the cap is Simon McBurney’s Renfield analog who is deliciously devilish and lays it all out in delightful derangement.

The costumes, sets, and cinematography are all worth not just acclaim but absolute applause. And though visually masterful, the score is fabulous and oppressive. Technically resplendent and nightmarishly reverential.

A nod to the discourse - Our chastened cinematic cages had colored this film's virtues as wanton and laid bare, but I must protest. It lacked the lust and the profane that I had been promised - not to a disagreeable degree, I just found it misrepresented. It does invoke a stir in the gut - a presence that subtly writhes in the primal and plants fertile seeds provocative vagaries. Perhaps this subtle kiss of the wit toward a heaving rutting breathy shadow is what stirred so many so into a debaucherous dilemma. I say my good chaps and lasses - prostrate yourself and open your bosom wide to the libidinous leer and libertine lap of your “movie” lover.