Nosferatu

Nosferatu

Director ~ Robert Eggers

Writers ~ Robert Eggers, Henrik Galeen, Bram Stoker

2024, United States - United Kingdom -Hungary

Stars ~ Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, Willem Defoe,

Aaron Taylor-Johnson

 

And with the greyscale and cinematography of the first few minutes, I was hooked, wondering if it would continue. And it does: Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is exceptional, and the layers, the depths of the darkness and shadowplay captured are stunning. (The shot of the forest crossroads early on is a favourite.) It’s a lush and gorgeous-looking film throughout, although Eggers’ visual command has never been in doubt.

 

F.W. Murnau’s 1922 original has an uncontested legend and influence as a visual horror tone poem, and so there will always be that “remaking is sacrilegious” and “Why??!!” objections, as if remaking hasn’t always in cinema’s DNA. So that aside, the criticisms I have noted are: there’s no colour; it’s boring; it’s just a ‘Dracula’ rip-off (!); and for Robin from Dark Corners, it’s laughable with bad dialogue and acting, and he’s not the only one. None of which landed with me or challenged my enjoyment and sense of being impressed. (Robin is more chastising Eggers’ film for being not the film he wanted rather than what it is, which is a starting point that rarely gets off the runway for me: his summary is that the film is bad, unnecessary and laughable. I enjoy Dark Corners, but we disagree here) 

 

The performances stand out. Nicolas Hoult is great at conveying a man out of his depth but trying to fall back on patriarchal constructs to convince himself he’s in control, especially with his wife. Willem Defoe is reliably ornate, but not as gung-ho as Simon McBurney as Knock, biting off pigeon heads and scenery with equal gusto. Lily-Rose Depp gives it her all, certainly giving Ellen Hutter an agency, with the moment where it all goes ‘The Exorcist’ both a high-point with her physical contortions and most groan-worthy when it goes all Demonic Voice.

 

Speaking of voices: Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok provides a most thick and mannered accent. Skarsgård trained to lower his voice an octave and speaks a likeness of the dead language of Duncian, and where I was left in wonder at the topography of his pronunciation, others apparently found it ridiculous. The look is daring in that Orlok looks exactly like the corpse of a period nobleman, neither as monstrous as Max Schreck – a true otherworldly nightmare that makes you wonder how he would convincingly move in the real world – or as seductive as many others. Manuel Batencourt says that “In choosing to make Count Orlok repulsive, you sap it of both the metaphorical potential and the effect you want on your audience.”, but Schreck is the yardstick here rather than Lugosi or Reeve, and the effect is to present something more probable than either: a regal strigoi, if you will. It is obsession and decay rendered here rather than temptation and ravishment and the reeking charmlessness is all to the point.

 

In performances, the hidden treat here is the impressive turn by Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Friedrich Harding, providing as a character a touchstone to the normality under siege by the supernatural, and losing. In many ways, he does as much to carry the baggage as Depp, chapping at the bit as his domestic bliss is increasingly under siege.  

 

It is a pretty, lush film, full of nuance, a few shocks and a pleasing depth of Craig Lathrop’s set design and period detail. The altitude of Gothicism and melodrama here falls between Eggers’ meticulousness of ‘The Witch’ and the plunge-ahead romp of ‘The Northman’, a taste both sombre and ripe with hints of black humour. It’s almost as if Eggers has found the balance now to be both mainstream and true to his esotericism. A labour of love for a project that seems to have defined his career from the very start when he put on a theatre production of ‘Nosferatu’, Eggers says he saw this as a chance to tackle the weaknesses of Bram Stoker’s novel. Indeed, by the second half, it becomes not only an allegory for the pestilence and pandemics of the era but reads like the upper-class male fear of foreign seduction of English women in which the men bond almost homo-erotically to fend off immigrant brutes. By the time the novel gets to Van Helsing’s effusing about male camaraderie, any melodrama conveyed by the films are totally in situ. Eggers speaks of using this as an opportunity to accentuate female agency, and certainly his ‘Nosferatu’ is the Ellen Hutter show with Van Helsing conceding patriarchal authority to her self-sacrifice for the greater good. Also note that it is ultimately Count Orlok that comes across more as an addict.

 

All these facets are agreeable, searching explorations of the original, and if adaptions of well-worn text are to probe weaknesses and a few nuances instead of being comforting facsimiles, then ‘Nosferatu’ is a noble effort. Not least, it is full of arresting imagery and accumulating to an unforgettable final horror portrait. If it speaks to you, it’s just very enjoyable and the artistry makes it just a bit special. 

 

Fright Night (1985 & 2011)

Fright Night

Writer & Director – Tom Holland

1985, USA

Stars – Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse

 

A quintessential, trend-setting horror of the ‘80s, with this and especially ‘The Lost Boys’ bringing the John Hughes sensibility to the genre and making vampires teen-friendly and a rites-of-passage ordeal. The other one: ‘Near Dark’ was for the counter-culture kids. This may be the lesser of the three but Holland, though nowhere near as distinctive as Bigelow or Schumacher, nevertheless exhibits a sure grip on tone between genuine horror treats and the slightly tongue-in-cheek/satirical leanings. This was true of Holland’s ‘Child’s Play’ too.

 

Sarandon is sinister, seductive and svelte as old-fashioned Gothic vampires tend to be when they move in next door, and yet also assuredly modern; Roddy McDowell gives a little of retro-horror class; and Stephen Geoffreys manages to bring pathos to the Annoying Friend role, its excessiveness becoming a tragedy of loneliness. The link between death and sex sets it off – losing virginity is interrupted by spying the neighbours disposing of a body – and the obsession with this inspires our all-American boy protagonist’s neglectful behaviour towards his girlfriend. He needs to overcome this association to get on with his life; and/or he must overcome his voyeuristic fascination with the somewhat queer-coded neighbour and his “live-in carpenter” to get on with his sexuality.

 

There’s also an agreeably tendency towards the kinds of practical effects showcases that were defining 80s horror, dipping into werewolf transformations. It’s all very entertaining and enjoyably dated and silly, if nothing more, and features just the most 80s soundtrack.

 

 

Fright Night

Director – Craig Gillespie

Writers – Marti Noxon (screenplay) Tom Holland (story)

2011 – USA, India

Stars – Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Tony Collette

 

If you’re going to do a re-mix, an updating, this version of ‘Fright Night’ does many things right. The cobalt blue of the Eighties has been contemporised for Twenty-First century blue-green night and the vampire certainly has more modern serial killer trimmings. Farrell is mostly menace over charm. Here the vampire called Jerry doesn’t have a “live-in carpenter” and his house is modern chic. In fact. It’s the charlatan/illusionist Peter Vincent who has all the Gothic décor (and in one of the film’s chief gags, a whole armoury of antiques); and in this version David Tennant’s Vincent is crude where Roddy McDowell was hammy.

 

Starts with a good home invasion. Like the original, doesn’t waste too much time with Charley’s nearest-and-dearest disbelieving him: in fact, it’s his disbelieving Ed that is a plot-point, although Ed is probably the most unconvincing portion here. The film finds its own set pieces, the most impressive being when the vampire starts digging up the garden and it escalates from there. The script is savvy enough to have neat touches like when you can’t ride the bike, just hurl it at the escaping car. There’s some under-impressive CGI. There’s the sensation, around this time, that this may actually improve on the original… but it doesn’t quite get there. Nevertheless, it’s decent undemanding horror fun with an above-average cast.

Grimmfest Day 5: 'Death Ranch', 'Urubú', 'Fried Barry', 'Ten Minutes to Midnight', 'Revenge Ride'

 

DEATH RANCH

• Director and screenwriter - Charlie Steeds

·        2020, USA

 A blaxploitation homage where the homaging provides a pass for some retrograde exploitation as well as some modern ultraviolence. In passing, there are so many homages now that I wonder where nostalgic cinema will be given twenty years time? Homages to homages?

On the run and holed up in a disused barn, three black characters find themselves under siege by a small army of KKK animals. Charlie Steeds’ film is a crude, righteous and ultraviolent unapologetic revenge fantasy, with funky music and a subtext about bettering yourself. Of course, it’s all informed by a very contemporary anger and awareness: in the Q&A Black Lives Matter came up in the first question, and Grimmfest’s Miriam Draeger brought up the word “integrity” in regards to ‘Death Ranch’: that wouldn’t  be the first word I’d associate with it (it’s an unapologetic revenge fantasy, after all) but it’s sure nice to have worthy zombies at the end of the retribution.

Although the film makes them cannibals too, there isn’t really any need for elaboration – i.e. a prolonged prerequisite torture scene as justification – because the redeemability is inbuilt to the KKK. When director-writer Charlie Steed chose the defining line calling the KKK “dumb cunts” as justification for all the silliness, etc, it’s obvious that he knew exactly what he was doing. When Steed spoke of how hard this was to get greenlit, and how the Q&A panel discussed how rare it is, comparatively, to have the KKK as an obvious villain, it’s obvious we shouldn’t take this for granted.

 There are other pluses too, such as the vulnerability in Dieandre Teagle’s performance (he takes punishment that no one could get up and kick ass from, but he doesn’t forget to wince, limp and look tired from his injuries) and Faith Monique written as more than just as sexy love interest (she’s a caring sister).

 

Urubú

• Director - Alejandro Ibáñez
• Screenwriters - Carlos Bianchi, Alejandra Heredia, Alejandro Ibáñez
• 2019, Spain

 So I went into this completely blind, thinking it might be a creature-feature in an exotic location. The set-up is long, with a photographer going into the Amazon to hunt a picture of a rarely seen, mysterious bird. The music swells with majesty over the aerial shot of the river and forest: Arturo Díez Boscovich’s score is deliberately old-school to create a ‘70s feel. And then, of course, things get odd and dangerous. As we got deeper in, I was thinking of ‘Vinyan’. And then, of course, it became obvious what this was. And if I didn’t recognise it, a character says the name outright, which was a moment of unintentional humour.

 

Of course, had I read Grimmfest’s blurb, I would have been forewarned: “Writer-Director Alejandro Ibáñez Nauta, is the son of Narciso  Ibáñez Serrador, and describes this as a “tribute” to his father's work. A ferocious, visceral reimagining of Serrador's most famous – and notorious – film, WHO COULD KILL A CHILD?” So if anyone can get away with having that line spoken out loud, it is surely him.

The central pull is going to be the exceptional location work, out in the jungle under undeniably taxing conditions. Ibáñez spoke of how they had to improvise according the weather and conditions. The central agenda of ‘Who Can Kill a Child?’ is that children are so abominably treated historically that the whole adult world is guilty by association, and that’s why the youngsters turn vengeful. ‘Urubú’ follows that line of thinking, and nothing has truly changed: there are still plenty of appalling and heart-breaking statistics to be had.

It’s beautifully constructed and intriguing enough, although one could argue that the jungle setting mitigates some of the sinister familiarity of the children. But this is posed as just the start of a larger picture and the jungle provides a different kind of mystery and panic, as well as alluding to those Italian Seventies exploitation pictures, etc. (And it is notably better than Makinov’s ‘Come Out and Play’ (2012).)

And I’m going for the piranha death, even if it is offscreen.

 

FRIED BARRY

·        Director & Screenwriter - Ryan Kruger

·        2020, South Africa

Scumbag Barry is abducted and replaced by what seems to be an exploratory alien who is dropped into a multitude of crazy and/or sleazy South African scenarios. Or maybe it’s the alien’s holiday? We never know.

 Filmed without a script, ‘Fried Barry’ has elements of ‘Under the Skin’, ‘E.T.’, ‘Starman’, and ‘Being There’. I say ‘Being There’ because Barry is a blank slate that people and the scenarios impose their expectations upon. It’s crazed, kinetic, unpredictable, darkly funny and just skating around on the possibilities with no agenda other than to be thoroughly entertaining. Which it is. The abduction and experimentation/cloning sequence is trippy and a highlight. Gary Green – who has experience as an extra – has such a distinctive face and his expressions are treats in themselves: he won Best Actor at Fantaspoa International Fantastic Film Festival. It’s beautifully filmed: Gareth Place won Best Cinematography at RapidLion Film Festival. It’s crazed, impressive, unpredictable and dynamic right the way through. And an obvious instantaneous cult hit.

10 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

• Director – Erik Bloomquist
• Screenwriters – Erik Bloomquist, Carson Bloomquist

Another character study using genre to address the personal. ’10 Minutes to Midnight’ uses vampirism to interrogate one woman’s confrontation with aging and potential obsolescence. Genre staunch Caroline Williams is Amy, a veteran rock DJ facing her last night on the job, being replaced with someone younger and turning up already with puncture wounds on her neck. The film relies on symbolism, surrealism, 80s veneer and folding in on itself to convey Amy’s difficulty with dealing with this phase of her life, as played out as a transformation into a vampire. Williams is great and the genre-bending and mind-games wavering in effectiveness.

REVENGE RIDE

• Director - Melanie Aitkenhead
• Screenwriter - Timothy Durham

An old school biker girl revenge flick with fine performances and capturing of a sub-culture. The girl bikers are all survivors of abuse and are triggered when another girl is the victim of being drugged and gang-raped by frat boys. The school covers up and the women feel betrayed: it feels relevant, post-#MeToo. It’s one of those revenge flicks that wants to dwell equally on the consequences: Trigga (the marvellous Pollyanna McIntosh) can’t let go of her trauma, has never been properly treated for it, giving further layers of tragedy. The film makes sure it is evident that in all of this, it’s always the innocents that ultimately pay the cost. There are no real winners.

It hits all the obvious beats, but it’s well played and looks good.

 

Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary

Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Wydmyer, 

2019, USA

A generic loving family buy a huuugge piece of Stephen King real estate, which means their land also includes an old Indian Burial Ground that brings the dead back to life. Within minutes, they’re experiencing jump-scares – a passing foreshadowing truck – and are quickly alerted to the “Pet Sematary” when a procession of horror kids marches through their land for a burial. It seems the estate agent missed out mentioning the “semetary”. These horror kids wear creepy masks and are all over the trailer, but actually, once they have proven their worthiness as memes and Halloween dress code, they disappear from proceedings. The burial ground has a wall of fallen trees that looks just as fake as the “scary tree” from ‘The Conjuring’, and beyond this is where the true zombie-making dirt lies, in the immense misty swamp and Native Land beyond.

Another remake (surely “reboots” are for reviving old franchises?) of a middling favourite, but it seems redundant to complain when Horror has always been the most cannibalistic genre, constantly reviving and regurgitating old titles. The trailer is, in fact, one of those that tells you everything and kind of misleads at the same time. We know it’s not Gabe as the zombie-kid this time because of the trailer and the poster, so the fake-out in the film that puts him peril is made somewhat redundant. In fact, there’s an underlying feeling that the whole enterprise seems to be ticking points off instead of getting under the skin. It’s a fair distance from the condescension of the aforementioned ‘The Conjuring’, but it’s on the same post code. The theme of grieving-leading-to-horror doesn’t feel more than a trope being perfunctorily marked so we can get on with the horror set-pieces. The only truly chilling moment is the bath-time corpse staples, and that’s in the trailer anyhow. Oh, and also the final moment and its implication, even though any chills are subsequently blared out with a cover of The Ramones' ‘Pet Sematary’.

With a little more emphasis on theme the horror would have been deepened. This is how films like ‘Hereditary’ and ‘A Hole in the Ground’ create more resonance and praise. For example, the death of a student and Amy Seimetz’s flashbacks and visions of her dead sister are almost affecting but give way to just being horror jump-scares. Being brought back from the beyond apparently makes the dead – who are seemingly an interconnected resentful mass – metaphysical and homicidal and therefore potentially intriguing, but this avenue also gets stunted. For a spook-kid given a low horror-voice to angrily lament and goad, there is the sense that Jeté Lawrence is capable of far more and therefore underserved: Jeff Buhler’s screenplay seems to be giving her generic horror kid dialogue but Lawrence’s performance seems far more soulful and insidious. The adults are solid but unremarkable. (But Peter Bradshaw is more positive.)

Kölsch and Wyndmeer’s previous film, ‘Starry Eyes’, is far more convincing in its psychology and, of course, there’s plenty of room to argue if Mary Lambert’s 1989 ‘Pet Sematary’ is better. There is a sense that a more troubling and vivid film is trying to emerge. And, just like King’s novel, it bails on truly expanding on the consequences of all this (it’s nasty but where does it go?).

The Jungle Book

John Favreau, 2016, USA-UK

Of course the trouble with remakes is that they are always going to be compared to an original. In the case of John Favreau’s ‘The Jungle Book’ despite there being many versions this will be compared to Disney’s first animated adaptation, this being the second. The tightrope apparently needed to be walked for audiences is to tick all the right boxes from the predecessor, to just trace it over enough but also to offer something new. So of course good writing helps, but remakes can be mostly validated by using contemporary tricks that weren’t available at the time of the original. I am thinking here of Franck’s remake of ‘Maniac’ but this Disney remake of the well-loved ‘The Jungle Book’ fits that mould too. Not as if analogue animation, as it were, was ever lacking, but here we are.  (I should mention that I have not seen the original since I was a kid so came to this without any real demands.) 

If you were dazzled by Richard Parker in ‘Life of Pi’ – and I was – then there is plenty here to amaze. This is a time where talking animals are everywhere – apes; racoons; everything else - but the CGI variety on display here goes some way to making the human dream of anthropomorphising animals complete. Only Neel Sethi as Mowgli is live-action but everything else onscreen is artificial but this CGI moves with such convincing heft and nuance that it’ll be hard for anyone not be dragged in and persuaded. In this context, it should be noted how winning Sethi is, since he was mostly acting to puppet heads and blue screen; if he couldn’t hold the attention it would all collapse. Yes, he has some of the attitude we know from other American kid’s flicks, but he is just the right side of bratty. 

It’s immaculately conceived and frequently very beautiful but what is remarkable is how dark this version is, and not just that it’s often quite sheathed in shadows. The animals are realistic as can be which means – without any cartoonishness to mitigate – there is a constant tension of dread and threat that is barely relieved (it’s rated PG). When Sheer Khan kills, it is striking in its suddenness and cruelty; when King Louie pursues Mowgli by swinging across his city and then, gigantic as he is, crashing through its pillars, it reminds of the gargantuan threat of the dragon Smaug in ‘The Hobbit’. There’s quite a lot of reading ‘The Jungle Book’ as ‘The Revenant’ for kids, and that’s a good way of conveying the relentless peril in this version. We have a brutal rendering of Sheer Khan (Idris Elba), of course, but there is also the hypnotic seduction by the snake Kaa (Scarlett Johansson); even Baloo is all about conning Mowgli at first: of course he’s benign but he follows the trend of manipulation that both Kaa and King Louie (Christopher Walken) use. Oh, I’m sure Baloo is never meant to be seen as a dilemma, but duping Mowgli is initially his thing. King Louie is a mixture of the selfish conjob Baloo tries and the physical threat of Sheer Khan and as voiced by Walken, he’s all gangster. Shere Khan who is nearby trying to seduce and manipulate young wolf cubs. In this jungle, there is always a threat for youngsters, both physical and psychological. And in this way, the atmosphere is persistently dark in tone. Only the wolves and the panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) – as the surrogate family of the man-cub – are straight with Mowgli.

So maybe the funny stuff doesn’t really land so much but that doesn’t capsize things. Then the film, although it’s not a musical, lurches into song to lighten things up; and when Mowgli is floating on top of Baloo dueting ‘The Bear Necessities’, it’s quite exuberant to see such an iconic animated moment come to life. If you are expecting a musical, you would have to refer to the original animated feature, and what favoured songs it can’t squeeze in initially it saves for the extensive end credits.  (Scarlett Johansson does a great version of Kaa's 'Trust in Me'.)

In the end, Mowgli stays with the wildlife and although this may be seen as a cynical way to make sure there’s a ‘The Jungle Book 2’, it can also be seen as his choosing multiculturalism whilst keeping his man-“tricks” and as a rejection of man as a destroyer of nature. Although Kipling has a reputation of a Little Englander, it always seemed to me a little more complex, that Mowgli and ‘Kim’ sided with mixing up cultures, favouring democracy and rejecting a single, dominant civilization. It’s in the animal meetings and truces around the drinking hole, for example (this is even more in evidence in the short stories). When the animals all band together to take down Shere Khan, it’s a rejection of fear and fascism. So, yes, it does end on a Disney positive note, but the bullying of society and nature have been well established by then. It’s quite meaty stuff.