Nosferatu (2024)

Director: Robert Eggers

Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Brand new movie. First episode of a new season of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods. Interesting enough, a day before actually sitting down to watch the movie, I was volunteering at the theater and had to help somebody kick out some pathologically disruptive kids from a screening. So, I can cross that one off my bucket list?

Did I Like It: There’s probably not a whole lot new one can do with an adaptation of Dracula. The tentacles of that story seep into so much that if you’re alive in any way, you could probably guess where the story is going. There’s not even that much new anyone can do as a riff to Nosferatu (1922). Nothing will ever be quite as unnerving as the sight of Max Shreck as Count Orlock, especially when it was abundantly clear that there was no special effects as we understand them to convert a man into some kind of unspeakable creature of the night.

That all being said, Eggers immediately makes the case for his version of the story to need to exist. It is filled with atmosphere and the kind of concerted visual filmmaking that made up the best of the silent films, and is almost uniformly not on the menu for newly made movies.

Much has been made of the film’s disinterest in offering a riff on the original Orlock. Some say that the character as he appears in this film has little to do with what we have traditionally come to imagine when presented with vampires, but honest to God those people aren’t thinking things through very much. This Orlock is the first—with the possible exception of some early scenes with Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)—that looks like he might have once lived as Vlad the Impaler. That would be enough to consider the film something of a fascinating experience, but I also can’t get over Skarsgård’s performance in this film. There is no trace of Pennywise or any of his other performances here, so much so that I honestly didn’t realize it was Skarsgård until the end credits. Even Karloff and Lugosi ended up playing mild variations of a static screen persona in their varied careers. We may have found a new master of horror, who can disappear so completely into a role. What can’t he play?

Renfield (2023)

Director: Chris McKay

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz

Have I Seen it Before: Well, sure. Scenes of it have been pulled directly out of Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931), and Lammle knows I’ve see that one plenty of times.

Did I Like It: And that’s one of the points where I’m a bit stuck on the film. The original Dracula is a tragically… and it really pains me to say this… boring film. It’s not its fault, it;s barely a sound film, so can’t rise too far above a recorded stage performance. You can read all about my thoughts of that film in the review for it, but as charmed as I am by inserting Hoult and Cage into the scenes from that film, it is another example of a film lionized beyond what it had earned on its own merits.

The film’s other flaws to tend to be its most memorable parts, unfortunately. There are a number of pleasantly diverting jokes throughout, but as I type this, I am having pronounced difficulty coming up with any that weren’t already in the trailers you’ve already seen. Worse yet, those gags are about the only thing propping up. an organized crime subplot that exists only to make sure that the film fills a feature-length runtime.

And yet, there are a few things to make this a moderately worthy weekend diversion. Cage is having so much fun chewing—often literally—the scenery that it becomes even more of an unfortunate tragedy that he never ended up playing a Batman villain, and that the mere prospect of him playing Superman was doomed to fail before it ever began. Beyond that, the makeup work on Dracula himself is genuinely fun, taking him from an injured animal all the way through to his “full power” as it were.

House of Dracula (1945)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Cast: Lon Chaney, Jr., Martha O’Driscoll, John Carradine, Lionel Atwill

Have I Seen it Before: As with the rest of the Universal monsters, I viewed everything in that canon just before I set about writing these reviews. This one lives interchangeably in my memory with House of Frankenstein (1944).

Did I Like It: Which doesn’t exactly bode well for a review. 

The charms of the monster mashup on spec exist, but there is something diminished here. Maybe the war had just ended and America was in too good of a mood to create grand horror entertainments just yet. Maybe it’s that Karloff has moved on from the Universal horror canon after the previous film. Just as much as I missed the presence of Karloff in the role of Frankenstein’s Monster in that previous film, I now miss him altogether. Ah, well. There’s always the chance to go back to the James Whale-directed Frankenstein films to relive the glory days of the series.

Ultimately, the films scant runtime ensure that it can’t wear out its welcome, even if it doesn’t quite make a case for its own existence. To say that it is slightIndeed, I’m finding it a challenge to come up with the necessary 300 words to fill an entire review. It is nice to see Dracula (Carradine) even briefly reckon with his own monstrous quality, even it is mostly used as grift for a B Sci-Fi plot. It’s also good that Universal kept making these films, as it will eventually begat the superlative Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), and contribute to the enjoyable The Monster Squad (1987), and create a framework that has allowed Marvel Studios to create largely engaging (if occasionally exhausting) entertainments for the foreseeable future.

House of Frankenstein (1944)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Cast: Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, J. Carroll Naish

Have I Seen it Before: As with nearly the entire canon of Universal Monsters, I marched through an entire box set of the films a number of years ago, just before I started these reviews.

Did I Like It: There’s a pulpy quality to these later Universal horror films whose charms can’t quite be denied. It also gives the pretext for what would one day become Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), one of the great films not just of the series, but of all time. Each of the individual properties in the Universal Horror canon have maybe grown beyond the point where they could sustain their own films, so we engage in big-time meetups. At the time, it was the province of B-movies. Now, it’s one of the governing commercial principles of the movies.

This film is slight, befitting its status, but there are charms beyond just the the idea of a monster mashup which keep this individual film lively. Karloff is here, which is good, but he’s sadly (if understandably) not playing Frankenstein’s Monster. The most ubiquitous version of the monster is not actually from Karloff’s depiction of the character in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), or Son of Frankenstein (1939), but instead Glenn Strange’s portrayal here and throughout the rest of the series. It’s one of those strange bummers of film history—and this film in particular— which I wished I didn’t know.

Oddly enough, the cell-animated bats used for one of Dracula’s (Carradine*) other forms are—while not good—somehow better than the dangling puppets used all-too regularly during Lugosi’s original film.

*We thankfully don’t have to suffer through Chaney’s mumbling attempts at the Count from Son of Dracula (1943) from a year prior. Chaney sticks to The Wolf Man, what he does best.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves

Have I Seen it Before: I’m sorry, I got distracted by the question. I heard a voice whispering for me to see him, whatever that means.

Did I Like It: At this point, I may be burned out on the Dracula mythos (for any number of reasons). But even so, this movie is interested in doing a lot things not necessarily seen before in Dracula films, that I think it all holds together.

First of all, this movie is a marvel of casting. Between Cary Elwes, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Richard E. Grant, and Billy “The Motherfuckin’ Rocketeer” Campbell, the call sheet is like a mid-90s party and everyone is invited. 

Even Keanu Reeves, who history and assumption assumes is miscast in the role of Jonathan Harker equates himself well in the proceedings, if his British accent is occasionally wavering, but not in a Kevin Costner sort of way. Gary Oldman is a well-oiled acting machine, bringing vivid life to all of the dread count’s various shades. The only member of the cast who seems in over their head is Sadie Frost as the ill-fated Lucy Westerna. One can’t help but wonder if a bigger star, like a Michelle Pfeiffer* or Julia Roberts** might have offered a more memorable performance.

The movie that surrounds these performances feels a little long, even though it comes in at just a little bit over two hours. This may be a byproduct of the Coppola aesthetic. Still, there is a playful quality about the film. Beginning with an aesthetic pulled directly from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1992), slowly but surely transitioning into a more modern (or at least, modern for the time) monster movie with sumptuous photography and makeup work meant to startle more than inspire dread. Coppola loves movies so dearly, and he wants us to love this one too. His efforts at seduction are mostly, if not entirely successful.

*Although in that universe, we would have likely been deprived of her performance in Batman Returns, and I don’t think that is a Faustian bargain I am willing to make.

**Which I’m not that in favor of, mainly because Julia Roberts has been and always will be a frightful bore. Prove me wrong.

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Director: Terence Fisher

Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It feels like a glaring omission in my cinematic diet.

Did I Like It: I felt like I was going to like it immensely because, Hammer, and because I tend to like anything more than I would normally, as long as it features Michael Gough.

As I begin to venture through a litany of Dracula films for my duties on Beyond The Cabin in the Woods, I had no idea that I was starting to get cynical, but I most certainly was. I could probably at this point write a pretty passsable Dracula film in my sleep. Harker (or whoever) goes through the Borgo Pass to Castle Dracula. There, he is greeted warmly by the count. From there, spooky happenings transpire. Mina is at the center of things. Rinse. Repeat.

And yet, I’m pleased to report that Horror of Dracula managed to surprise me. I did enjoy the trappings of the Hammer aesthetic, but when it became abundantly clear that Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) has arrived in our story to kill-not assist Dracula—matters are sufficiently flipped upside down that the film never wavered in carrying my attention. While the film doesn’t feel the need to carry on this flipping of the script beyond the first half an hour, it didn’t matter. I was already hooked. Filmed with an almost timeless quality, I often had a hard time beleiving it was filmed in the late 1950s and—sight unseen—I would have placed it in the late 60s or maybe even the early 70s.

Filled with all of the barely-restrained British camp, flowing red paint*, and slyly apt cast you would expect from Hammer, this film—against all of my expectations—has leapfrogged its way into my favorite adaptation of the Stoker novel so far. If you haven’t seen it—as I shamefully hadn’t—take heed of my example and correct your error.

*Including in the first shot, where I almost dared to think it might be too much.

Dracula (1931) (English-Language Version)

Director: Tod Browning (the poor man’s James Whale, but we’ll get to that)

Cast: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners*, Edward Van Sloane

Have I Seen it Before: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Did I Like It: I just said, “Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

Look, I love the classic Universal Monster movies. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is one of my all-time favorite movies. I could watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)** on a loop forever. I even kind of liked The Mummy (2017) because—for all of its faults—it was trying to recapture the original shared universe that these films initially inhabited.

However, not all of the Universal classics—even A-list ones made before they were relegated to the neglected b-side of the Laemmle production empire—are created equal. So, in that spirit, here’s a confession about this granddaddy of all vampire films.

It’s frightfully dull.

Like, it should be a controlled substance, because it’s chemically indistinct from an aggressive, possibly habit-forming sleeping pill. I’ve watched this movie probably a dozen times over the course of my life, and not once have I avoided feeling drowsy by the last half hour. It works like a charm, every time.

Even on this viewing, amped up with a little more caffeine than I perhaps should have consumed, by the time the lady in white starts offering some local children chocolate, I can feel my eyes starting to grow heavy. I persevered through sheer dint of will power, but it was a struggle.

Now “coma-inducing” doesn’t feel like high praise for a film, and on it’s face that is probably correct. On the cutting edge of talking pictures, cinema really hadn’t figured out how to do anything more advanced than a filmed performance of a stage play at this point. Indeed, the film is rather a slavish adaptation of the stage play by Hamilton Deane and John L Balderston, rather than the original novel by Bram Stoker. Every time I see a bat hanging by a string, or an awkwardly blocked scene, I can’t help but think of a stage production that could have used a little bit more time. Also, it should be mentioned, Tod Browning may not have been up to the task of adapting the film. The Spanish-language version of the film—produced using many of the same resources and at the same time as this film—is actually far more striking in its artistic flourishes. To imagine what James Whale could have done with this material. Oy.

But, also, it’s flaws can become kind of endearing. That it lulls me into such deep comfort, that my mind and body thinks its time to sleep may be a virtue. It’s probably not the virtue that the filmmakers would have hoped for, but to be the cinematic equivalent of a warm blanket is at least something.

And then, I can’t help but wonder if the film—and, by extension, Dracula himself—have managed to gain a thorough thrall on me… What have I done while I thought I was sleeping during this movie? Oh, Master… I’ve been loyal. Please don’t kill me!

Ahem.

* Has there ever been a more contract-player-leading-man name than David Manners? Honestly, if you had to guess which b-level milquetoast would eventually become the President of the United States, I wouldn’t have gone with Reagan; this guy would be my pick. Doesn’t matter if Manners is Canadian.

** The only other movie in which Lugosi played the role Count Dracula (and not some vaguely Dracula-ish figure). Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Nosferatu (1922)

Director: F.W. Murnau

Cast: Max Shreck, and a couple of boatloads of hapless Germans

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah…? Or maybe I just saw Shadow of the Vampire (2000). Time is making memory quite fuzzy in some ways.

Did I Like It:  You know… It doesn’t hold up, and I wonder if that has anything to do with a concept I’ll get to here in just a moment.

Not all silent films are created equal, I suppose. I immensely enjoy the works of Chaplin. Fritz Lang certainly has some game that stands the test of time. D.W. Griffith has done plenty for the art of cinema, especially when you ignore what his films are actually about. And yet, Murnau’s Nosferatu feels disjointed.

But why is that? Maybe its the distinct German-ness of the film that causes things to unravel for this audience of one nearly 100 years later. The music that is attached to most prints you’ll find is all over the place; baroque in bright, idyllic scenes, and flute-heavy for what I imagine were supposed to be the scariest parts. It’s also long winded, when I didn’t think that was possible before the dark wizards at Vitaphone placed their magic on Al Jolson. Don’t even get me started on the day-for-night problems throughout the movie. Maybe Murnau hadn’t grasped how to depict night on film, but ever time one of the inter-titles makes a reference to the phantoms of twilight, the scene looks like it was shot shortly after lunch.

Beyond all of this, I have a theory. Ultimately, I wonder if films—like Nosferatu—that eventually slip into the public domain receive less love than films wherein a still extant copyright holder can profit from their preservation and restoration. For every remastered and polished Blu Ray we get of films like Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), there are a litany of poorly scored, badly edited, and blotchy copies of films we all own. It’s a shame, too. I do wonder if there is  breathtaking film buried within all of that neglect. It’s reputation seems to think so, I just wish I could get that sense.