nosferatu is absolutely horrible

[u/thatreader24]

saw nosferatu tonight and i'm not even close to a regular movie critic, but i don't know if i've ever seen a worse movie. i walked out of the theater with my mind absolutely blown, (and possibly destroyed). how did this even make it to theaters, and even more importantly, how does this movie have 87% on rotten tomatoes?? it was disgusting to say the least. wish i could bleach my eyes and my brain.

spoiler alert

edit: i will say that i had pretty much no problem with it until she's possessed and says something about her husband not being able to please her like the vampire could, and then in what seems like an attempt to prove a point, they start aggressively banging? like...who had that idea? at that point the whole movie was pretty much ruined for me, and then it somehow managed to get worse as the movie went on, which ruined it even further. i do think that it started off strange, alluding to her as a child allowing this vampire to come into her soul or whatever, it's pretty weird. but up until that specific scene, and the many ones that would soon follow, having any chance of liking this movie was gone for me.

[u/FlakyImportance9529]

It was absolutely delicious. Appreciate you not feeling the same but I thought it was a treat start to finish. Beautifully shot and arranged. Excellent use of lighting and music. Shakespearean script wonderfully acted.

It was a bit grotesque but it comes with the genre.

[u/Max_Cherry_ → u/FlakyImportance9529]

OP barely explains why they didn’t like it and just calls it disgusting. Worthless critique. Feels like bait to me.

[u/InteractionSilent268 → u/Max_Cherry_]

They didnt like it...because theres a sex scene? I didnt love the movie, its beautifully made though and i can articulate why i didnt love it. This guy wrote a few paragraphs of nonsense.

[u/Max_Cherry_ → u/InteractionSilent268]

I actually appreciated everything they said in contrast to the OP of this post. At least they were detailed.

Their first point about Eggers making a movie about X but the movie proves the opposite makes sense. But if you can only apply that idea to 2 of the last 4 movies he’s made I don’t think that’s a strong point of n terms of criticizing his film making. It’s like, yeah I guess being a religious zealot was the preferable outcome compared to everyone dying and becoming a witch-hag. It would be a different movie if the message or the way the events played out showed that being a religious really wasn’t the best thing. Are we even meant to infer a message from The Witch? From Nosferatu?

Saying the characters were hatable is not a very strong point either. Are we supposed to love every character? All the reasons they list are just saying things that happened in the movie and saying I didn’t like that. She let her friend die. Ok, well, there’s some crazy vampire possession ritual happening. I’m not sure if Helen is really expected to just fall on the sword and sacrifice herself to save her friend.

In terms of rooting for a character in Nosferatu, it was Dafoe for me. While I’m fine with it, I see how this me could say most of the characters were weak. I thought the acting was good, but none of the characters were particularly strong or interesting. Except Dafoe IMO.

I’m not sure what they mean by wokeness. I thought it was un-woke to portray these men basically treating their women like a lesser class of human being.

The film barely showing the Count makes sense. I almost never like “reveals” and I prefer the Count being kept in shadows most of the time. I thought it was creepier and more menacing. The times we could see him in his entirety I didn’t enjoy as much because he wasn’t all that scary to me when fully visible. If you prefer being able to see the monster frequently and in full visibility, that’s cool. But in my opinion they go on to conflate visual visibility with sense of presence. The way they explain what they mean makes sense and I can’t say I disagree. I might have liked the movie more if the alternative they described was true. From watching the film you have the knowledge and some sense that Orlok has sort of omnipotent occult powers and is in control, but I guess it wasn’t this weighted feeling of helplessness.

They apparently have a problem with the mixed messaging of lust is bad but then people giving into lust is such a heavy theme. Or rather if lust is so bad why have so much lust in the movie? This nitpick feels so contrived. As much as I appreciate their critique and even agree with some of what they said, I feel like they’re eventually writing negative criticisms out of contrarianism. This is supposed to be a retelling of an unofficial retelling of Dracula. I haven’t seen Coppola’s Dracula or 1920’s Nosferatu, but is lust leading to downfall a consistent theme? If so, how is this even a complaint?

They say it wasn’t scary and I agree. I’m fine with that. It didn’t diminish anything for me. In fact I appreciated that it wasn’t scary in the sense I think they mean. I liked that it was graphic, creepy, and unsettling even if it wasn’t scary the way movies like Hereditary or Sinister are scary. At least to me.

They nitpick over the mustache but I think they’re misunderstanding Egger’s explanation. I read it as Orlok had a mustache because Lords of his time commonly had one.

All in all, if these are the reasons they don’t like it, that’s fine. I do think they’re trying hard to criticize it though.

[u/InteractionSilent268 → u/Max_Cherry_]

People are looking for messages in the most straightforward stories. A witch terrorizes a family of religious zealots and the witch wins! Whats the message?! No message, its just a scary story.

[u/Max_Cherry_ → u/InteractionSilent268]

Exactly.

[u/BaewulfGaming → u/InteractionSilent268]

That would be great...if the director himself didn't specifically state that this was a theme in his film. So, per the director, you are incorrect.

And if his statement is that religious zealotry is actually the horror of these times, then why make this sentiment lesser by having the ending be that the devil is real and the main girl goes with him? Because that then lessens the impact of his theme, by making their worries and paranoia true.

[u/Cap-Mindless → u/InteractionSilent268]

And what is the point of a story, oh ya, to communicate an idea which is the delivery of a message. Think deeper sometimes, and maybe you won't judge others for doing so.

[u/BaewulfGaming → u/Max_Cherry_]

I could bring up all of Eggers others movies and why I believe this is a trend of his, but as others have stated, my critic was already wordy so I kept it simple with that part and just stated the two most obvious to me (The Witch and Nosferatu, which was under discussion). Plus, the theme of the Witch was that religious zealotry and paranoia were the horrors of that time, which then as your point proves, became the lesser evil once she became a witch-hag. So his theme was lessened by his writing at the end. Which I feel Nosferatu did with the acceptance of lust, by making lust throughout the film something that consistently brought negativity or bad outcomes to the characters. Stories, like movies, are meant to have themes and meaning, messages if you will. Each of Eggers films has a meaning or theme he puts behind them. Lust is not a theme of Copolla's Dracula or of Nosferatu, but one that was for some reason added to Nosferatu.

I think good movie making has relatable or likeable characters, otherwise why would the audience sympathize with them and therefore, why would we care about their outcome? If a character is not likeable, I believe the story may fall flat because of these reasons. I thought if she cared so much about her friend that she should try and save her, especially if she knew what would happen and already what she had to do. I think good people would try to save the ones they love, which is why again I didn't like the character.

I agree, none of the characters were amazing. The acting was alright, I'm a big Dafoe fan so I'm bias when it comes to him and Skarsgard, so I enjoyed seeing them on the screen.

I don't recall the men treating their women like lesser beings. I thought it was woke because of the elements that I stated, that a woman has to accept her sexuality to become strong and kill the bad thing. One of, if not the main theme of the film is about lust. That's a political belief to me that is put into the film but not needed. I think the political beliefs that that theme is coming from would be beliefs on abortion, birth control, and people having the ability to sleep with whomever they want whenever they want. Im pro choice, pro birth control, and pro idk, screwing? Lol, but I just dont think politics needed to be in a film about this era. But it's interesting to me that you did think the men treated the women poorly. Perhaps the fact that most people think that the men were doing this, would underline in some way, a wokeness to the film. Like, an attempt to make an outcry on how horrible men are to women.

I just didn't think the Count had much of a presence. Visually or not. He did not seem scary to me, he did not seem like an ancient presence that could not be killed, that was seemingly all powerful and the prince of darkness. And unfortunately, the look of a character will greatly impact the characters own impact. The visual portion of the Count reduced the presence of the character even further for me, because he did not look or feel scary.

I could have misunderstood Eggers comment on moustaches in which time period, I'm not sure that I did, but that may be true. If he was saying that though, I just think there could have been a better way to give him some facial hair then what we got in the film. Especially since the hair on the Count's head was almost non-existent due to his corpselike state, but he had a full, strong moustache. Plus I think again it detracted from his visually and made him look less scary. I couldn't stop looking at the damn moustache and going "my god i wish that was not there".

I went into this film hoping for something great and actually thinking it would be. I'm no contrarian, I'm not just saying negative things for the fun of it. Why would I do that just for people in the comments to tell me I'm imbecilic? I'm dissecting the work of art that was presented to the world and giving my opinion on it. I did not think the movie was good, and I stated my opinions as to why. Most people are attacking my character instead of coming up with actual counterarguments, so I appreciate your response, hopefully this clarifies my original statement further.

[u/Agreeable_You8769 → u/Max_Cherry_]

Tedious wordy nonsense.

[u/BaewulfGaming → u/Agreeable_You8769]

Honestly I think you're a bit defensive because someone has a bit of a difference of opinion than you. Maybe take that to your next therapist visit and work on it babe. It's quite unbecoming and shows a lack of intelligence, and a lack of actual concrete beliefs on your end, if they can be rattled so easily

[u/Cap-Mindless → u/Agreeable_You8769]

Just because YOU can't make sense of it does not make it nonsense.

[u/Max_Cherry_ → u/Agreeable_You8769]

Amazing analysis.