Speaker 1: Worrying.
Speaker 2: Today's episode contains spoilers for twenty twenty four's Nus far
Speaker 2: to a film.
Speaker 1: Bye the fuck is his name, Robert?
Speaker 2: I guess a film, but I always want to call
Speaker 2: him David. I would always want to call him David Edgar,
Speaker 2: David Energy. So if you have not seen nus Feritu,
Speaker 2: you are completely unaware of the over century year old
Speaker 2: story of Dracula by Bram Stoker, then please go watch
Speaker 2: any one of those films and including this one, and
Speaker 2: then come back, because you're gonna be one.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 1: My name's Jascons Epsion and.
Speaker 4: I'm droasday Night, and.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the extra remage of.
Speaker 2: The podcast where we've dove deep into your rear and
Speaker 2: shows those comics of pop culture.
Speaker 1: We're coming to you from my Art podcast.
Speaker 2: Where we're bringing you one two three episodes a week.
Speaker 1: Every Tuesday and Thursday, and an extra episode every Wednesday.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, we are concluding our Eggs retrospective by
Speaker 3: talking about his latest.
Speaker 4: Film, her Nospheratu.
Speaker 3: A remake of the nineteen twenty to f Man Now
Speaker 3: movie kind of and a remake of every other Dracula
Speaker 3: movie definitely, And so we're gonna be breaking down the
Speaker 3: creature design. Is it scary? Is the cost good? Is
Speaker 3: it sexist?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: And a lack of atmosphere that kind of plagues Egger's
Speaker 3: latest work. And then in the Omnibus, we're going to
Speaker 3: be taking a little journey through our favorite versions of
Speaker 3: Dracula and the more classic Dracula origin stories over the years.
Speaker 1: But first.
Speaker 3: The Children of the Night, The Child of the Night,
Speaker 3: The Children of the Night.
Speaker 2: All right, twenty twenty fours Christmas film for the ages,
Speaker 2: Bring the whole family.
Speaker 4: What a year it's going to be at the Where's
Speaker 4: your Cinema?
Speaker 3: With this?
Speaker 4: And Baby Girl, Baby Who I told you? What was happening?
Speaker 1: The musical sing along on top of it.
Speaker 3: I will be there on the first day. I will
Speaker 3: be there on Christmas singing along to the Wizard and
Speaker 3: I don't come to my screening.
Speaker 1: I can't sing.
Speaker 2: We are here, of course, to discuss Robert Erger's newest film,
Speaker 2: his latest film that's fair to a universal production, universal
Speaker 2: of the Monster Verse?
Speaker 1: Where is it? Is it?
Speaker 3: Is it coming back like any time?
Speaker 1: Is this the soft launch to the Monster Verse? Is
Speaker 1: this the way?
Speaker 2: Stay tuned, Stay tuned. Okay, we have seen the film, Rosie,
Speaker 2: you have recently seen the film. I did see a
Speaker 2: film in foggy London town. I did see it there
Speaker 2: where this story is sometimes told, Yes, what do we
Speaker 2: think of this movie?
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it? Should we recap it? Bit? It
Speaker 1: feels like if okay.
Speaker 3: Let's do like, let's do a speed one where we
Speaker 3: can just both interject, because really, if you've seen any
Speaker 3: Dracula movie, you have seen this story. Actually, you know
Speaker 3: what we should start with, no Sperratu. The nineteen twenty
Speaker 3: two original version of Nosperati now s Manow's version, was
Speaker 3: a bootleg version of Bramstokers Dracula because they could not
Speaker 3: get the rights to make the movie, so they made
Speaker 3: a silent film where they changed all the names, filed
Speaker 3: the serial numbers off, but it is Dracula. They redesigned
Speaker 3: the character. His name was Count Dracula, change to count
Speaker 3: or Locke, and they made the movie and then they got,
Speaker 3: you know whatever.
Speaker 4: The nineteen twenties version of Seas.
Speaker 3: And Desisted was, and all of the versions of the
Speaker 3: movie were bun and one miraculously survived, and the silent
Speaker 3: film became the kind of scene as the masterpiece. It
Speaker 3: is today through that one reel that survived. So that
Speaker 3: is the origin of Nosferatu, which you may be confused
Speaker 3: about if you didn't know that when you go and
Speaker 3: see this movie and realize it is just Dracula but
Speaker 3: by any other name.
Speaker 2: So the years eighteen thirty eight were in Germany. A
Speaker 2: gentleman who named Thomas, who has just got a job
Speaker 2: at a real estate agency and is recently newly married
Speaker 2: to his wonderful wife Ellen, has been given the task
Speaker 2: of going to Transylvania and meeting with this mysterious Count Orlock,
Speaker 2: of an ancient royal lineage excent count. He's an exten
Speaker 2: trick man. He would like to retire. He's he's sick
Speaker 2: of the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, in this whole area,
Speaker 2: and he wants to spend his sunset years in sunny Vienna.
Speaker 1: Or somewhere in Germany.
Speaker 3: Yes, Germany, I have Germany, but they say Germany right.
Speaker 2: Unbeknownced to Thomas, his wife but not his boss at
Speaker 2: the real estate industy, Count Orlock is a demonic vampire.
Speaker 1: Who has been.
Speaker 2: Seducing women at long range for a long time using
Speaker 2: some sort of magical mystical ability to sense these people
Speaker 2: who are sensitive themselves to the occult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like Charles Xavier of seduction correct sensing a sexy.
Speaker 4: Woman who has second science.
Speaker 1: And that's right.
Speaker 2: He uses his like vampire cereubros to reach out to
Speaker 2: these women and seduce them. And he's found Thomas's wife Ellen,
Speaker 2: played by Lilly Rose Depp. And so that's why he
Speaker 2: wants to move into their town, into some dilapidated old
Speaker 2: mansion whereby he can at close range seduce Ellen, suck
Speaker 2: her blood and the cycle continues.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and kill everyone in the town with the plague.
Speaker 2: He can't wait to do that. Thomas goes out there.
Speaker 2: He eventually gets to the castle, where he has a
Speaker 2: series of very very troubling encounters, like terrifying encounters with
Speaker 2: count Orlock. Meanwhile, his wife back in Ursberg is having
Speaker 2: a series of of terrifying nightmares, waking nightmares, night seizures
Speaker 2: for which the medical professionals of the day can find no.
Speaker 1: Reason. And she's ysthetical class and it fix it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, too much blot, here's a leech, too much blood
Speaker 3: in her system.
Speaker 1: Mind, heir, we must bleed her.
Speaker 3: That will you will have that line many times, when
Speaker 3: many times Mistame watched this movie.
Speaker 2: So count Orlock seals the deal with Thomas, signs the deed. Thomas,
Speaker 2: in a fit of the waking fright, realizing that he
Speaker 2: is face to face with something he doesn't understand, flees
Speaker 2: the castle and washes up somewhere in Transylvania, Romania wherever. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Orlock boards the ship a Russian ship sails for Germany.
Speaker 2: In his pride that because that's how true, because at
Speaker 2: some point he escapes the casket of dirt when he
Speaker 2: sends his danger around him. The ship washes up in Germany.
Speaker 2: Plague spreads through the town. People start dying, and this
Speaker 2: sets up the final confrontation between the ancient doctor van Helsing,
Speaker 2: who is to consult.
Speaker 3: Who in this is called doctor van Franz.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, doctor.
Speaker 2: Van Franz played by William Dafoe. He comes to consult
Speaker 2: with Thomas and his family through his former student, doctor
Speaker 2: Wilhelm Savor, who runs the local asylum, and they have
Speaker 2: this confrontation and Ellen lures count Orlock in. They Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: her husband and doctor von Frantz are destroying his coffin
Speaker 2: so he cannot return magically to the dirt of his homeland.
Speaker 2: The sun rises, and count Orlock just turns into desiccated,
Speaker 2: disgusting bones while getting busy atop young Ellen, who then perishes.
Speaker 1: Because of because she has that.
Speaker 2: She sacrificed herself in order to save Germany in the
Speaker 2: world from the ravagers of count Orlock.
Speaker 1: And there it is your movie, do we feel you know?
Speaker 3: I just want to start by saying right yes, that
Speaker 3: I hate that ending so deeply because it is the
Speaker 3: biggest diversion from basically every Dracula law where Mina always
Speaker 3: survives and Jonathan Harker always dies aka Ellen or Thomas.
Speaker 3: I don't have some aversion to women always dying, but
Speaker 3: Mina is one of the most fantastic, storied, brilliant final
Speaker 3: girls essentially. And I did realize while watching this version
Speaker 3: of the movie, how many early tropes for horror this
Speaker 3: story does set up, like that feeling of wanting to
Speaker 3: yell at Thomas and say, hey, don't go in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this is I was sitting in.
Speaker 3: This cinema is like a three hundred people's cinema in
Speaker 3: Piccadilly Circus in England, where definitely everyone was taking the
Speaker 3: movie really seriously, and I was just dying to be
Speaker 3: at like Burbank AMC, where I feel like there would
Speaker 3: have just been a lot more people who were willing
Speaker 3: to be like, bro, what the fuck are you doing
Speaker 3: or at least like do like a some kind of
Speaker 3: voice reaction. Like I was sitting there the whole time,
Speaker 3: just like, oh my god, Thomas, please and yeah. I
Speaker 3: just the ending of this movie is really at the
Speaker 3: crux of what I think it doesn't understand about Dracula
Speaker 3: and Nosferatu and also like the nature of vampirism and
Speaker 3: women and sexuality, which is something that even like Bella
Speaker 3: Lagosi understood in the thirties when he's talking about you
Speaker 3: know his really famous quote where he's like, horror is
Speaker 3: for women, like they are the ones who like live
Speaker 3: with blood and violence. And I'm paraphrasing, but like that
Speaker 3: is so missing from this story. And it's just like
Speaker 3: that ending that was when I knew. I was just like,
Speaker 3: this isn't for me, even though generally beautiful gowns, beautiful
Speaker 3: production design, like it look, it does look nice. Like
Speaker 3: I thought that Nicholas Holt was really really fantastic. I
Speaker 3: loved Willem Dafoe. He knew he was essentially an howm
Speaker 3: a horror movie and did what you should.
Speaker 1: Do in a movie like this.
Speaker 3: I always love Aaron Taylor Johnson. He always shows up
Speaker 3: in a weird role, and in this role he literally
Speaker 3: is a necrophiliac, So like, good for him, Like you
Speaker 3: got your weird role. But just yeah, that ending, I
Speaker 3: feel like, no, it's that that's wrong. I just I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't vibe on that ending. And what did you
Speaker 4: guys think?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm really with you. I think okay to
Speaker 1: expand on what you were so beautifully laying out about
Speaker 1: the ending and a lack of understanding of what makes
Speaker 1: the story special, Like if you think about his only
Speaker 1: change being like the woman sacrifices herself to save everybody,
Speaker 1: it's really a daunting experience. And then have to turn
Speaker 1: around to be like, how do I break down and
Speaker 1: talk about this movie in a way that sort of
Speaker 1: honors the intent? Like I can't understand why this story
Speaker 1: is being told this way?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Now, I will just say like in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty two, when they made the original version
Speaker 3: of Nos Fratu, it does have an ending where Ellen
Speaker 3: essentially like gives her blood to Orlac he dies and
Speaker 3: then she kind of like faints and seemingly dies, but
Speaker 3: she also doesn't have to like have sex with like
Speaker 3: a rotten monster. There's like a lot more dignity in
Speaker 3: that sacrifice and a lot more agency than what I.
Speaker 1: Feel like we see thing.
Speaker 4: But in this version.
Speaker 1: That thought, like the idea of like what is a
Speaker 1: sacrifice and why even is Again, if you're sacrificing, then
Speaker 1: there should be like all of this love left behind.
Speaker 1: Everybody's pretty much dead at this point, so you're like,
Speaker 1: what are we? Who are we doing this? That's a
Speaker 1: great points. Like if you think about the original Dracula,
Speaker 1: the book comes out like it's talking about a plague
Speaker 1: that has hit England and people are literally wasting away
Speaker 1: and they are so young, and it's very tragic, and
Speaker 1: what if in all of this horror there was some
Speaker 1: way to preserve this person and they actually lived on forever.
Speaker 1: It would be horrifying, horrible, But you could also understand
Speaker 1: the seduction too, Like that back and forth. An element
Speaker 1: of reflection on society is sort of an essential element
Speaker 1: of Jacula, and all of it is gone here, and
Speaker 1: then on top of that, you have a if Mina
Speaker 1: is your main character, and the opening scene certainly seems
Speaker 1: to set that up. You completely abandon her for about
Speaker 1: a third of the movie and then come back and
Speaker 1: there is no arc for this is a flatline story
Speaker 1: for this girl. She starts aw seduced. She ends maybe
Speaker 1: not fully under the spell, maybe sort of recognizing that
Speaker 1: she has a choice. But the choice is awful. It's
Speaker 1: not well thought out, it's not discussed with anybody, so
Speaker 1: you kind of feel like she just took the first
Speaker 1: like this is what yees to do. She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is what I have to do, and then she
Speaker 1: and then she dies and you're like, why am I
Speaker 1: watching this movie?
Speaker 4: I would also say as well, like the nineteen twenty.
Speaker 3: Two, Like we said, it was a bootleg, right, so
Speaker 3: there's a lot of really funny, like just really brief,
Speaker 3: unthought out stuff that they were doing because A it
Speaker 3: was like an hour long silent movie, and b it
Speaker 3: was being done to avoid copyright. So like in that movie,
Speaker 3: the reason that she decides that she's gonna do that
Speaker 3: is because like somebody's like if a pure hearted woman,
Speaker 3: like if he drinks from the neck of a pure
Speaker 3: hearted woman, like he will die and all this that
Speaker 3: stuff is so outdated. I'm like Robert Eggers, like, could
Speaker 3: you not have considered new way? I like, I like
Speaker 3: this notion of Ellen as like somebody with a second sight.
Speaker 3: But if you're gonna I think that oftentimes with this movie,
Speaker 3: there are moments when it could be subversive, and instead
Speaker 3: it just leans on already established tropes like the hysterical woman. Yeah,
Speaker 3: or there was no exploration of the notion of a
Speaker 3: hysterical woman or mental health in that time or anything.
Speaker 3: And really, and I will say this was my letterbox review,
Speaker 3: and I do think this is the big takeaway head
Speaker 3: from this movie. This is just more proof that the
Speaker 3: most influential movie of twenty twenty four is Possession, movie
Speaker 3: from like thirty years ago that they once again, you know,
Speaker 3: we saw it with the first omen, we saw it
Speaker 3: in multiple like religious horror, the Sidney Sweety movie, Immacula
Speaker 3: and now here where it's very clear that they're showing
Speaker 3: these actresses Isabella Johnny's performance, especially when she's you know,
Speaker 3: going through the funnel and Possession and they're saying to
Speaker 3: them like can you recreate this and honestly, I will
Speaker 3: say Lily Rose Depp does insane hysteria, Well, she's me.
Speaker 3: I have to say, I was not expecting that. I
Speaker 3: I to.
Speaker 1: Branch off what y'all have said.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I think part of the problem of
Speaker 2: the len character for me is that Joelle put her
Speaker 2: finger on it. It's a straight line arc. Not only
Speaker 2: is it a straight line arc at a certain point
Speaker 2: in the story, to me, it feels like a straight
Speaker 2: line from before you even meet her, because as you
Speaker 2: eventually find out that this she's got, this sensitivity to
Speaker 2: the occlultiness has been going on a while, maybe since
Speaker 2: she's been a kid, and the fact that she has
Speaker 2: I'm fine with her sacrificing herself behind. My issue is
Speaker 2: that throughout the film it felt as if she had
Speaker 2: no agency, did nothing.
Speaker 4: She always knew she was gonna die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, had had almost no impact on events. Is just
Speaker 2: kind of hearing what her husband and the men are
Speaker 2: plotting to do, and hearing what he's planning to do
Speaker 2: and just decides, Okay, here's my part to play, and she.
Speaker 1: Just accepts it. And I felt, and that was along
Speaker 1: with the.
Speaker 2: Pacing, is she's just really made for a very frustrating
Speaker 2: second half of the movie. I thought, like, listen, Edgar's
Speaker 2: visually stunning. I've been calling him desaturated. Terrence Malick, I
Speaker 2: love looking at his pictures. I think the first I
Speaker 2: think everything from the beginning to the Castle is amazing.
Speaker 2: I really liked it. I love the journey of it.
Speaker 2: The scope right so well, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Terrifying to be in the castle before you really get
Speaker 3: to see the monster, and it's that fear of the
Speaker 3: imagined and and that stuff is really good.
Speaker 2: And it felt like the color palette really worked in
Speaker 2: that section of it.
Speaker 1: And then it just.
Speaker 2: Becomes a slog ping ponging back between scenes that are
Speaker 2: just way too long. And unfortunately that part of the movie,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, Rosie, the horror tropes begin emerging, and
Speaker 2: when they're happening at that pace good. The thing about
Speaker 2: a good horror trope is that you got to slide
Speaker 2: it by me, you.
Speaker 1: Know, you gotta fasten it by.
Speaker 3: Me so hard that, yeah, you're making a statement because
Speaker 3: we all love genre film, so this is more like
Speaker 3: trying to present them as original when there is no
Speaker 3: twist and there is nothing new.
Speaker 2: And when the trope is unfolding over the course of
Speaker 2: a fifteen minute scene or something there it becomes a song.
Speaker 2: And so I think this movie's fine, but like Joelle,
Speaker 2: I'm a bit confused as to why it exists.
Speaker 3: That was my biggest that was I actually put that
Speaker 3: in our group chat when I got out of it.
Speaker 3: Like the movie's fine, I actually didn't hate it.
Speaker 1: It's I it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's higher up for me than some of his
Speaker 3: other movies because just visually I kind of enjoy a
Speaker 3: gothic story, So this like hit a bit harder for
Speaker 3: me than say The Northman. But I did come out
Speaker 3: and I did text you guys and just go why
Speaker 3: did he make it? Like I've seen not only have
Speaker 3: I seen the nineteen twenty two on and this is
Speaker 3: so similar. He did not really make many different choices
Speaker 3: apart from this kind of interesting twist of the occult,
Speaker 3: which I did enjoy, and Willem Dafoe does a great
Speaker 3: job with that version of Van Helsing or Van Franz.
Speaker 3: But I've seen the Bernerherzog noos Ferrari, which is one
Speaker 3: of my all time favorite movies that I'll talk about later.
Speaker 3: But like, I didn't understand the need to remake this
Speaker 3: other than just it being something he wanted to do,
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily know if it has a reason for existing.
Speaker 4: And also, I will say one of the biggest issues I.
Speaker 3: Think here, and one of the reasons why there was
Speaker 3: ping ponging back between the two spaces doesn't appeal in
Speaker 3: the same way as other movies is in the original Dracula,
Speaker 3: you have the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, which is this
Speaker 3: very wild, very incredible or inspiring space that many people
Speaker 3: had never really seen before, and then you have Whitby,
Speaker 3: which is like a cozy British seaside town. I think
Speaker 3: the problem here is Whisper and then Transylvania. They don't
Speaker 3: look very different, Like there is not a huge scale
Speaker 3: of difference between where Thomas went, but.
Speaker 4: She was able to get really easily.
Speaker 3: On horse in like a couple of days or something,
Speaker 3: and then where we are, So there isn't this kind
Speaker 3: of dichotomy or juxtaposition of esthetic or even really vibe
Speaker 3: like visperg fucking sucks and the Kapathian Mountains fucking suck,
Speaker 3: like if you live there, not visually visually. I love
Speaker 3: a little wintry space, but yeah, it was definitely in
Speaker 3: that kind of like beautiful gowns kind of space, like, oh,
Speaker 3: it looks nice, but am I feeling anything like I did?
Speaker 3: And also I did see a really good meme that
Speaker 3: somebody had made where they were like, I'm sorry, Robert Eggers,
Speaker 3: but this casting doesn't work for me, referring to Lily
Speaker 3: Rose depth because they were like, I know those eyes
Speaker 3: have seen an air.
Speaker 1: On and I was like, you know what, They're not wrong.
Speaker 1: Like every time I saw the one.
Speaker 3: Thing I do I love something, I will say that
Speaker 3: I loved about the way they dressed her and did
Speaker 3: her costuming and her wig. She has a very high
Speaker 3: forehead and when they would shoot her from the side,
Speaker 3: she kind of has this peeking forehead with this very
Speaker 3: severe black hair. And there were moments where I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I get it, like this is kind of new Gothic,
Speaker 3: like you're leaning into the tropes but showing more. But
Speaker 3: in the end it did feel to me like more
Speaker 3: of a kind of an experiment for him that didn't
Speaker 3: have anything to say, and also like didn't really reposition itself.
Speaker 3: In the case of how Ellen was treated in the
Speaker 3: original Nosferatu or in the context of how women understand
Speaker 3: Dracula now and how like a movie even for example,
Speaker 3: like nineteen ninety two is another movie I'll talk about
Speaker 3: Bram Stokers Dracula Francis for cople of picture, but like
Speaker 3: also as well, like yeah, that is a movie that
Speaker 3: deeply innately understood the relationship between like vampires and sex.
Speaker 2: The subduction, Yeah, the seduction. We'll be right back after
Speaker 2: a quick break and we're back.
Speaker 3: What did you guys think of that? Because I felt like, here,
Speaker 3: there's no seduction.
Speaker 2: I thought that there was a cool early in the film.
Speaker 2: I thought there was this really cool dynamic that was
Speaker 2: emerging that was like almost this was almost a class story.
Speaker 2: This is a story about a working class guy who
Speaker 2: needs money. He's borrowed money from his rich friend. He
Speaker 2: desperately takes this job where he encounters this rich lord
Speaker 2: who wants to fuck his wife, and he's gunnap no
Speaker 2: matter what, no matter what.
Speaker 1: This guy's really interesting read.
Speaker 3: I like that indecent proposal gothic site.
Speaker 2: And so there was a there was a an hour
Speaker 2: or so where I'm like, oh, this is actually kind
Speaker 2: of interesting, like that take, and then that just kind
Speaker 2: of goes away, and it does become this really ham
Speaker 2: fisted seduction story that feels as if it just didn't
Speaker 2: it didn't work because one, there's there's none of the
Speaker 2: sexiness or the sensuality to your shooting overlock in shadow
Speaker 2: the whole time in the side of frames, out of
Speaker 2: the corners of.
Speaker 1: Characters get detail.
Speaker 3: He is like rotting.
Speaker 2: So it's like, what is the thing? What is this?
Speaker 2: Where is what is the thing? Obviously he's got a
Speaker 2: magical power, I get it, but like, take me into
Speaker 2: that what is that?
Speaker 1: What is that? What is that thing?
Speaker 2: And I and it's and it's completely not there are.
Speaker 1: Supposed to be. Okay, let's let's hybrid Rosy's point with
Speaker 1: Jason's point. There should be a dichotomy between the men.
Speaker 1: If you're if you're our main female lead, you got
Speaker 1: two choices. I mean, let's let's be real. Okay, Listen,
Speaker 1: the romanticy is here where it's in full effect, and
Speaker 1: to not tap into it at all in this storyline
Speaker 1: is like bananas, Like she is so in love with her,
Speaker 1: Like Jason, your point, the opening is so like their
Speaker 1: relationship is so cute. Immediately, like I root for this couple.
Speaker 1: I really want them to win.
Speaker 3: He is so supportive of her troubles and want to
Speaker 3: know their new root for them. And there's also the
Speaker 3: one thing I do think is interesting is there are
Speaker 3: these moments of impropriety, whether it's between Thomas and Ellen
Speaker 3: or whether it's between the harding that Aaron Taylor Johnson's
Speaker 3: character and his wife played by Emma Correy, who we
Speaker 3: recently saw as a As soon as I saw her,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's Cassandra Nova Paul Wolverine. But
Speaker 3: they have these moments of great impropriety where they're they're
Speaker 3: lust sort of. They're out in public and they're not
Speaker 3: supposed to kiss and they go, oh, but I can't
Speaker 3: resist you. And her and Thomas we get these moments where.
Speaker 4: They are actually she's sexually attracted to him. She pulls
Speaker 4: him back into bed like there isn't that I feel
Speaker 4: like usually like Jonathan Harker is this safe, sensible choice
Speaker 4: and he will victory for Victorian era man obviously played
Speaker 4: by Keanu Reeves very repressed.
Speaker 1: The longing, the no touching, the propriety in society, all
Speaker 1: necessary element missing.
Speaker 3: Dracula repris sense this man who will go to the
Speaker 3: end of the Earth for you? Who is this who
Speaker 3: is exciting? He's Heath Clip exactly. And this movie sets
Speaker 3: up the Thomas and Ellen relationship really well. But then,
Speaker 3: like you say, Joelle does not have that dichotomy, and I.
Speaker 1: Thought, for and like I knew, to be fair, I
Speaker 1: knew we were sort of in trouble from the get
Speaker 1: go because I was like, if this is a story,
Speaker 1: if you're modernizing the story, I thought, for a second,
Speaker 1: we'd be like, there's this old, creepy dude grooming this
Speaker 1: young woman and offering what looks like liberation, but there's
Speaker 1: really a trap to live under his thumb that gets
Speaker 1: abandoned so fast, and it's it's not presented in maybe
Speaker 1: the best way or like in reality, like this is
Speaker 1: a real thing that happens to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stories out there about it that
Speaker 1: you could tap into, and none of that sort of happens.
Speaker 1: And so because there's not that dichonomy between your two
Speaker 1: leading dudes, and because it's all sort of just like,
Speaker 1: there's no element of you that is like, oh nos,
Speaker 1: forrat too is a space that I want to be in.
Speaker 1: I would want to live internal life like that, like
Speaker 1: he's rotting, engrossed as opposed to like Regal and Swab.
Speaker 1: But even that rounding grossness could have effect, like this
Speaker 1: is a monster movie. It could have been like so
Speaker 1: creepy and like Ghoulie and stuff. But really it's just
Speaker 1: kind of gross, And I don't really for somebody who's
Speaker 1: so tapped into the history of these narratives and how
Speaker 1: they impacted people in the day, like it seems like
Speaker 1: that's a huge thing to like a swing and a
Speaker 1: miss on, like how this movie is going to connect
Speaker 1: to audiences and it it didn't really work for me.
Speaker 2: If it's a ninety minute movie, I think, I think
Speaker 2: it's a much better movie.
Speaker 3: I agree, I think I think if you shorten it,
Speaker 3: I think it's a lot punchier.
Speaker 4: I also think that the creature design for.
Speaker 3: All Lock needed a few more it was. It did
Speaker 3: not work for me, especially because I think we've seen
Speaker 3: Bill Scarsgard do such incredible creature work prosthetics work in it,
Speaker 3: you know, and to see him here, he's almost he's
Speaker 3: lost under the prosthetics. There's not a lot of facial expression.
Speaker 3: The best prosthetic at creature work is all on his back.
Speaker 3: Which is when we kind of see that he's rotting
Speaker 3: and gross and maggot filled. And the truth is, I look,
Speaker 3: there are a huge contingent of monster fuckers, right, and
Speaker 3: there are people who want to fuck every kind of monster.
Speaker 4: And I am inspired and think it.
Speaker 3: Is a cool idea to do a truly horrific monster
Speaker 3: fucker where the monster is really monstrous. But there is
Speaker 3: nothing here that shows us any reason why she would
Speaker 3: want to be with him. There's a moment early on,
Speaker 3: again like talking about that good first hour, there's a
Speaker 3: moment early on where she tells Thomas about a dream
Speaker 3: she had where she gets to the altar. She thinks
Speaker 3: they're going to get married, but it's not him, it's
Speaker 3: death and she should be horrified and she turns around
Speaker 3: and everyone she knows is dead, but instead of being horrified,
Speaker 3: she is so excited and happy than she's ever been.
Speaker 3: I thought that was really interesting. I'm like, is this
Speaker 3: an exploration of depression? Is this about the freedom of
Speaker 3: wanting to not be in this world where she is
Speaker 3: not understood in her powers, as seen as a cuss
Speaker 3: and she is always being thrown with institutionalization. I thought
Speaker 3: that was so many interesting threads, but I did feel
Speaker 3: like by the end of the movie they were more
Speaker 3: of a fluke than anything intentional.
Speaker 1: Something definitely was missing because the lass romantic interaction we
Speaker 1: have between husband and wife is so bizarre, Like I
Speaker 1: was really trying to understand, like it's somewhat violent, it's
Speaker 1: like they're missing each other emotionally. You're just like, why
Speaker 1: what has led to this interaction between these two characters.
Speaker 1: And I think that maybe there was something they we're
Speaker 1: trying to say that just got lost in the translation,
Speaker 1: because I don't think that there's a sexual repression around her,
Speaker 1: like we see that she's sort of allowed to just
Speaker 1: be who she wants to be and run around. I agree,
Speaker 1: I hear's the thing.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing I think it was Joelle to your point,
Speaker 2: and Rosie you mentioned that really rose up as a
Speaker 2: face that's seen in Arowon. I think that to me
Speaker 2: what they were I've picked up on that as well.
Speaker 2: And to me, the thing that Eggers I think was
Speaker 2: trying to show was that these people in the past,
Speaker 2: they're as smart as us, they have the same emotions
Speaker 2: as us, they have the same problems. Here is this
Speaker 2: couple that would have been right at home in Silver Lake,
Speaker 2: going to Arowon but here in eighteen thirties Germany. And
Speaker 2: they relate to each other in the same way that
Speaker 2: a modern communicative couple that is a partnership would relate
Speaker 2: to each other, only in this context.
Speaker 1: And see how different it is.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was kind of where it was going, because, yeah,
Speaker 2: the way they communicate, the way he listens to her
Speaker 2: and her troubles and is concerned and is trying to find.
Speaker 1: A solution with her, not like outside of her, like.
Speaker 2: It's very modern in that that relationship is extremely modern,
Speaker 2: especially when contrasted with Aaron Taylor Johnson's marriage, which is
Speaker 2: just like keep having the kids.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to work and.
Speaker 3: Call your hair up for four hours.
Speaker 2: I'll call on you when I need sex, and that's
Speaker 2: about it, you know. And so and then that was
Speaker 2: that part of it was very interesting and kind of
Speaker 2: worked for me before they kind of went away from that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because now we're talking about it, there's
Speaker 3: all these different threads, Like you were talking about Jason,
Speaker 3: like the class aspect and then Joelle the grooming aspect
Speaker 3: and these kind of explorations. But it was almost like
Speaker 3: the ideas were all there and then eventually it kind
Speaker 3: of went away.
Speaker 4: And I look, I get it.
Speaker 3: Some people are going to say, well, why does it
Speaker 3: need to be about anything other than a vampire who
Speaker 3: is like killing people because this story has been told
Speaker 3: five thousand Actually, like, I love a thoughtless horror movie.
Speaker 3: I watched so many slashes. I watch so many bad movies.
Speaker 3: I watch so many movies that have a straight down
Speaker 3: the line plot, but you know what, they don't proclaim
Speaker 3: to be any kind of artistic achievement. And also, even
Speaker 3: though sometimes they definitely are, also like often they do
Speaker 3: have a twist or something different, something they're trying to do.
Speaker 4: And I think that with this, I don't feel like it.
Speaker 3: Achieves a new reading that makes it that proves its
Speaker 3: reason for existence when there are literally, like so many
Speaker 3: other remakes of both Dracula and Nosferartu. Yeah, so I
Speaker 3: think that it's interesting because there are so many cool
Speaker 3: ideas that are seeded in that first hour, but by
Speaker 3: the time you get to the second hour, I don't
Speaker 3: think they pay off.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask if this is Egger's worst cast film.
Speaker 3: I actually don't know. I think this is actually I
Speaker 3: think this is a well cast film, and I like
Speaker 3: the cast I like.
Speaker 1: I just think for me, I felt like.
Speaker 4: Everyone was in a different movie. That was the issue
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 3: But I felt like most of them they were pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll be a directing issue if you cast not harmonious. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Willem Dafoe, he's in like a campy hammer horror movie
Speaker 3: and I love that film. Aaron Taylor Johnson, he's in
Speaker 3: like a Jane Austin Pride.
Speaker 1: And he's a villain, you know.
Speaker 3: And you know, Thomas and Nicholas Holt and Liley rose
Speaker 3: Deep are in this more kind of progressive modern reading
Speaker 3: of like what would it really be like to exist
Speaker 3: in these times? And are these people just the same
Speaker 3: as us? But I don't necessarily found that it gelled
Speaker 3: well together. My biggest casting issue I think that Renfield or.
Speaker 4: In this who is the they make him the kind.
Speaker 1: Of real estate her not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that for me was a miscasting just in or
Speaker 3: a misdirection. There was something about it that didn't hit
Speaker 3: when usually that, to me, is such a powerful and
Speaker 3: terrifying character.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Stories, Joe al tell us, what was wrong with the
Speaker 3: cost in your mind?
Speaker 1: Okay, so a lot of people really love what Lily
Speaker 1: Rose dep did. I think that she is giving her
Speaker 1: all to these moments, but that does not a performance
Speaker 1: make maybe this she's a very young actress. This is
Speaker 1: not a well written part. But just from a choices perspective,
Speaker 1: I think she doesn't lend a lot of opportunity to
Speaker 1: give like a second layer of just performance, and that
Speaker 1: to me is difficult when ostensibly she's the lead. Although
Speaker 1: you could argue this is actually Nicholas Holt's movie.
Speaker 3: I would say he is the lead, like honestly, because
Speaker 3: we leave her behind for so.
Speaker 1: Long, and we do spend a great deal of time
Speaker 1: with him, but to be fair, then we leave him
Speaker 1: behind for a long time, and so it's just it's
Speaker 1: kind of a hot mess all over the place with
Speaker 1: just whose story is this and who are we following?
Speaker 1: I also think as good a job as Aaron Taylor
Speaker 1: Johnson does, this poor costume designer was working her ass
Speaker 1: off trying to hide that body. She was like, this
Speaker 1: body does not belong in Victoria Times Giant.
Speaker 3: This man's been he's walking on the MCU diet. Baby,
Speaker 3: he's been lifting five hundred pounds a day. Like it
Speaker 3: is so huge.
Speaker 1: It's huge in this movie, Like you do not look
Speaker 1: like the I mean you work at the shipyard, but
Speaker 1: you're not the one lifting the crates to own it,
Speaker 1: like what's happening here?
Speaker 3: The truth is I did. I did really like the performance,
Speaker 3: and I thought him and emmacuren was an interesting counterpoint.
Speaker 3: But if we're talking about that ninety minute movie, you could.
Speaker 1: Have just caught them out.
Speaker 4: They actually really needed in any way shape.
Speaker 2: Or for especially if you're not going to dive into
Speaker 2: the redive into the class aspect, because you know that
Speaker 2: has some juice. The fact that that Thomas owed Aaron
Speaker 2: Taylor Johnson's character so much money I thought was interesting.
Speaker 2: I will say that all of to me, I could
Speaker 2: I think that Lily Rose Up was good, and she
Speaker 2: oppressed me a little bit. I will just say that
Speaker 2: I think for somebody who's maybe not there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of story here for people to bite into. And
Speaker 2: I think that to me is like a lot of
Speaker 2: the Eggers. Thing is great vibes, incredible visuals, but always always,
Speaker 2: always just a little thin on story. Obviously, I think
Speaker 2: the Lighthouse is.
Speaker 3: Like on like hot, not hot, like oh it has
Speaker 3: to be nice, but like layers, like there's there's a
Speaker 3: complexity that is missing in most of these films.
Speaker 1: The which nothing happens. Some people like it.
Speaker 3: I'm saying it, Jason.
Speaker 1: Disagree, hard disagree, but respect. I'm that's okay. Nothing happens.
Speaker 2: The Lighthouse Good The Northman adapted from Hamlet nos Feritu
Speaker 2: adapted from one hundred and two year old movie, which
Speaker 2: is in itself adapted from a novel. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: story is really his strong point. And Joelle like he
Speaker 2: has said things to that regard, where it's just like
Speaker 2: you get got a cool idea and just shoot it.
Speaker 1: Up pretty much. He was like, you're your sound should
Speaker 1: be passable. You're you know, He's like, other than that,
Speaker 1: as long as you have a haltycent story, you're pretty
Speaker 1: much ready to go. So that's that's sort of like
Speaker 1: where he's at in his bag. Wise and listen, I
Speaker 1: think that's okay. I really I have a theory. Okay.
Speaker 1: So Egress has this idea of a dollhouse, which he
Speaker 1: talks about in The Witch. He builds this really intense cabin.
Speaker 1: They spend a lot of time just looking at the
Speaker 1: cabin and making it feel like really impressive and and
Speaker 1: sort of showcasing how these people are out castking. Okay,
Speaker 1: lighthouse is self explanatory. That's the dollhouse. It's the lighthouse.
Speaker 1: It's all kind of set up. You get the full
Speaker 1: of the for opening, like two minutes of that shot
Speaker 1: in the Northman, suddenly no dollhouse. You're just open in wilderness.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of different stage sets here, but it's
Speaker 1: so open, so nebulous, so many additional people. And that's
Speaker 1: I think where he starts to lose his footing. I
Speaker 1: think he's in his bag and knows s Faratu in
Speaker 1: that freaking castle. And we mentioned it a lot, but
Speaker 1: what makes that castle scene so good is maddeningly disorienting,
Speaker 1: like you're going up the stairs or following somebody and
Speaker 1: then somewhere completely different. He can't get out. Well, the
Speaker 1: angles are strange.
Speaker 4: The lights are only firelight. But he is always in shadow.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Another thing I will say that I loved, and obviously
Speaker 3: this is taken from that very famous moment in the
Speaker 3: original Nosferatu, but he does this thing with shadow where
Speaker 3: like at the beginning especially he shows well act like
Speaker 3: it's like he's the shadow behind the curtain, but when
Speaker 3: the curtain blows away, he's there. So it's like you said, Joel,
Speaker 3: I think you're right. The intimacy of a scene or
Speaker 3: a space can really work in his favor with that
Speaker 3: dollhouse technique. But when he spreads it out and you're
Speaker 3: suddenly in five six different locations, you don't necessarily get
Speaker 3: that magic all the time. It becomes very spread out.
Speaker 1: There's a layer of creating an atmosphere that's just gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so let's do it because we've already had
Speaker 3: the disagreements have already begun, Joel, what are you rank
Speaker 3: Robert Eggers movies?
Speaker 1: Okay, and give them a letter grade? Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: including uh no to me, the Witch is in a
Speaker 1: I disagree that nothing happens. I think you're watching a
Speaker 1: family completely turn on an individual member, and it's haunting
Speaker 1: and horrifying and I love it. Okay. My next favorite
Speaker 1: is The Northman. I'm gonna give it a C plus.
Speaker 1: Here's why I like The Northman better than The Lighthouse.
Speaker 1: Lighthouse is so disgusting. It's really a challenge it. It's
Speaker 1: so disturbing to watch. It's very disgusting. Also, watching people
Speaker 1: fight gives me anxiety belly, and I'm like, I just
Speaker 1: don't know if I can do this. I will say
Speaker 1: The Lighthouse is a better film than The Northmen. I
Speaker 1: would give it a B plus maybe actually maybe like
Speaker 1: a low A like the cinematography that movies off the chain.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, my least favorite is No Saratu. I
Speaker 1: just found it really challenging to connect with the story.
Speaker 1: I don't like the creature design work at all, complete
Speaker 1: waste of Bill Scar's guard icon and makeup total total,
Speaker 1: and I just don't think it works on the horror
Speaker 1: or romance or a creepy seduction factor or stylistically, We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about our favorite jacque Is coming up, but
Speaker 1: all of them have such an intense visual style that
Speaker 1: I really think that if your style is I'm want
Speaker 1: to be grounded in reality, doesn't it work for this story?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Also as well, like a style that has also
Speaker 3: been done in the past by having like this just
Speaker 3: replicate kind of old movie aesthetics.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So that's that's my ranking. What about you, Rosie?
Speaker 3: Okay, So Lighthouse for me, that's an A plus movie.
Speaker 3: I think it's like a masterpiece.
Speaker 4: I love it. I saw it on the big screen.
Speaker 3: It's fantastic, unbelievable performance is incredibly strange.
Speaker 4: Just nothing else like it.
Speaker 3: A cosmic horror that isn't from Lovecraft, which is so rare.
Speaker 3: It's an A plus movie for me. This is going
Speaker 3: to be very controversial, but honestly, I actually think like
Speaker 3: the drop off is so big for me after the Lighthouse,
Speaker 3: the next three are probably like interchangeable. I would say
Speaker 3: currently probably recently biased because I do think it looks nice.
Speaker 4: Nosferatu is like a B minus for me.
Speaker 3: Yes, so nos too is probably actually currently my second
Speaker 3: preferred Eggles movie, though I do think the Droppers that
Speaker 3: I think the drop off for me is just too big.
Speaker 4: I really disliked The Northman.
Speaker 3: It just didn't work for me at all. But I
Speaker 3: did enjoy this movie to a point. Then I would
Speaker 3: say The Witch, which I love the last thirty minutes
Speaker 3: of the Witch, but I don't love the Witch. I
Speaker 3: don't disagree with Jason that the Witch has issues with pacing.
Speaker 4: I think the best part.
Speaker 3: Of the Witch is Black Philip. I also have a
Speaker 3: fantastic friend. Black Philip's incredible, and I obviously ANNIEA. Taylor
Speaker 3: Joy is also incredible. I love that line. I am
Speaker 3: that Witch. But I also have a really brilliant friend
Speaker 3: who's a cultural critic who I worked and a comic
Speaker 3: book historian who I worked in Orbital Comics within London
Speaker 3: called Adam Karena and the Sheriff. And when The Witch
Speaker 3: came out, Adam was like, there an inherent misogyny in
Speaker 3: making a movie about a time when women were persecuted
Speaker 3: for made up crimes, essentially being witches. And they were
Speaker 3: across the globe which just like wiped out, like they're
Speaker 3: being tortured, they're being burnt at the steak. And then
Speaker 3: nowadays men make movies and they're like, oh, actually they
Speaker 3: were witches. And I was like, I was like that ship,
Speaker 3: it's so fucking deep.
Speaker 1: That's a really poignant thought. My counter to that is
Speaker 1: you drive us to madness, like these crazy things drive
Speaker 1: people to do insane shit. But I also hear, I
Speaker 1: hear that.
Speaker 3: No, No, I agree with that, and so yeah, The
Speaker 3: Witch for me is probably like a C plus, and
Speaker 3: then The Northman for me is a D. Even though
Speaker 3: I love I love Nicole Kidman and I love Mother
Speaker 3: Alex Scott's God, but it just did not work for me.
Speaker 3: I've seen Conan the Barbarian before, guys, like I've read Ambler.
Speaker 4: It just it just wasn't enough for me. Jason, how
Speaker 4: about you?
Speaker 2: I am going to go the Lighthouse, which I think
Speaker 2: is in a minus. I think, you know, my biases
Speaker 2: are going to show here. But it's the one Eggers
Speaker 2: movie that's funny and and I like that. I think
Speaker 2: it's two wonderful performances in like an all hander for
Speaker 2: the Age is visually so crazy and weird. I feel
Speaker 2: like Eggers should consider more black and white work, since
Speaker 2: he seems to hate colors so so much. Think about
Speaker 2: it like this was the grayscale. The richness of the
Speaker 2: black and white was absolutely compelling. Then I am going
Speaker 2: to go, and I agree with Rosie. I feel the
Speaker 2: same in that after the Lighthouse it drops off pretty
Speaker 2: precipitously for me. I am going to go. Uh Nos
Speaker 2: fair too as a C minus. First half of the
Speaker 2: movie I enjoyed. I think there are some interesting ideas
Speaker 2: here that just ultimately don't that it needed to stay
Speaker 2: in the oven for like another hour and a half
Speaker 2: and come together more. Then I am going to go.
Speaker 2: You know, I've slagged it a lot, but I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: I'm going to say The Witch as a again, he
Speaker 2: hasn't really made a bad movie. It's just also like
Speaker 2: a C minus, but like somehow a C minus below
Speaker 2: the C minus of The Northman. You know, Anya Taylor
Speaker 2: Jory gives a mesmerizing performance.
Speaker 4: She's fantastic.
Speaker 1: There is.
Speaker 2: There is real value to be had in creepiness, and
Speaker 2: I think this is a movie, along with like The
Speaker 2: Baba Duck and other movies from that era, that brought
Speaker 2: creepiness back.
Speaker 4: And I think that an atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Atmosphere and creepiness is really important in horror movies. And
Speaker 2: to capture that, even though to me the pacing was
Speaker 2: not there, Like there is that creepiness and I think
Speaker 2: that was cool.
Speaker 1: Then I'm going to.
Speaker 2: Go The Northmen. It's like a D plus C minus.
Speaker 2: Great performances again, and I was troubled by the decision.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like weird to me. White supremacists love
Speaker 2: this movie.
Speaker 3: Also historically inaccurate to actually have a movie with the
Speaker 3: white vikings.
Speaker 1: Just saying.
Speaker 2: I have also seen Conan the Barbarian. You know, I've
Speaker 2: seen many adaptations of Hamlet, and.
Speaker 1: It was one of those movies that left me feeling
Speaker 1: like what are we trying to say here?
Speaker 2: Which is often the thing I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 2: with Beggars, like well, okay, what's.
Speaker 1: Going to that? Like other than like Vibe and Alexanderscard's
Speaker 1: cards looked hot fighting on the side of a volcano
Speaker 1: of hot correct, his lats were fucking incredible.
Speaker 3: When he's like doing the opening shot when he's like
Speaker 3: half naked with the acts, ye.
Speaker 1: Throws it back. Yeah, And that was a movie too.
Speaker 2: Where like similarly to some of my critiques about Out
Speaker 2: That's fair too, I think that there was like a
Speaker 2: really interesting thing about cycles of trauma in this movie.
Speaker 2: Here is this young man who is traumatized, and in
Speaker 2: so doing his tormentors have created the next generation of
Speaker 2: traumatizers and tormentors. You know, this cycle continues again in
Speaker 2: an idea that's there and seed form and then is
Speaker 2: kind of abandoned. And so you know, I would give
Speaker 2: I would give the Viking like a D plus. D
Speaker 2: D plus is like a passing price, right, like a
Speaker 2: D Yeah, excuse me, the Northman, So I would give
Speaker 2: that like a D plus. But the but the Lighthouse,
Speaker 2: to me, his best movie.
Speaker 3: I just think it's it's like a masterpiece. I think
Speaker 3: you're right. I think the humor actually, I'm glad you
Speaker 3: brought that out, because the humor in the Lighthouse I love.
Speaker 3: I quote it all the time. I'm always talking about
Speaker 3: people eating the lobsters and like and all that kind
Speaker 3: of funny ship. But also it's not in this movie.
Speaker 3: So often I was just like, is there no jokes?
Speaker 3: I was like, is there not a single joke in Nosferatu? Like,
Speaker 3: is there not snuck in a couple of he comes
Speaker 3: in at the end. Then suddenly they're like, Okay, this
Speaker 3: is the kind of ship that I'm looking for. Like
Speaker 3: I'm a horror lover, I'm a bram Stokers Dracula lover.
Speaker 3: There could be moments of levity, doesn't have to be
Speaker 3: full on camp, but this was like so stone called
Speaker 3: severe that I think when Williem Defoe came on, he
Speaker 3: just like bright and the screen. I just I couldn't
Speaker 3: the version of this where it's one France.
Speaker 1: You know that interesting house in space is more interesting
Speaker 1: visually than almost everything else we get in the film.
Speaker 3: Very short backstory where we learn he was essentially pushed
Speaker 3: out of scientific circles because he was seen as an occultist,
Speaker 3: Like that is so interesting.
Speaker 1: Even when in the visual details like when we first
Speaker 1: see him like strange I was coat and there's like
Speaker 1: a puff of dust rises off of it. You're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And also he's like literally they walk in and he's
Speaker 3: trying to do alchemy, like he's literally trying to make gold.
Speaker 3: That is so interesting and complex and strange. And I
Speaker 3: think that is where Eggers is so strong. And I
Speaker 3: think also that's that moments of Thomas in the Castle
Speaker 3: with Orlac, Like there is that strangeness, that scariness, that horror,
Speaker 3: that weirdness. He's so great in those moments, and I
Speaker 3: think some of the other period aspects they just don't
Speaker 3: hit for me in the same way that they hit.
Speaker 4: For other people, like with the Witch or with with this.
Speaker 3: Because i'ms my gut says, this is probably going to
Speaker 3: be another kind of scene as a return to form
Speaker 3: after The Northman, which didn't necessarily perform in the way
Speaker 3: that studios were expecting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well, let's take a break to you know,
Speaker 2: send out our magic sensory feelers to any of the
Speaker 2: sensitive magic sensitives out there so that we can suck
Speaker 2: their blood and their life essences and steal everything from them.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we are going to talk about
Speaker 2: our favorite Draculas, favorite Tracula stories, favorite Dracula films.
Speaker 5: You're right back after this, and we are back.
Speaker 1: We're back.
Speaker 5: Here we go.
Speaker 1: Dracula.
Speaker 3: Yes, Dracla.
Speaker 2: We're talking Dracula origins. No, you know, no son of Dracula,
Speaker 2: no bride of Dracula.
Speaker 1: And none of that Twilight like centric.
Speaker 3: This is Dracula specific, based on the Dracula book by
Speaker 3: Bram Stokers Dracula.
Speaker 2: Here are our favorites, Joel, would you like to go first?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna say one. That's probably all of ours.
Speaker 1: Bram Stoker's Dracula nineteen eighty version isational. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: this in production design, I mean productions. Off the chain.
Speaker 1: There is a shot where there's like the chain train
Speaker 1: in the foreground and like the map of London in
Speaker 1: the back and the hand outstretching and oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: But then when you get to Jacco's cats, it's all
Speaker 1: red velvet and sensual women. The bisexual energy is off the.
Speaker 3: Charting, the costume, the uh, the armor that he wears
Speaker 3: that looks like it is the inside of his muscle.
Speaker 4: It's so good, so red, Oh my god, so good.
Speaker 2: Everything about this movie slaps in his you know, in
Speaker 2: his old form where he's looking like a like a
Speaker 2: regal like vampire mister burns, like yeah.
Speaker 3: They never forget that, the instantly unforgettable bot hair where
Speaker 3: it's like yeah, still talk. My nephew was literally talking
Speaker 3: about the other day because we watched the episode of
Speaker 3: How Simpsons you know Treehouse that's so so good.
Speaker 1: And prime Keanu reeves classic right and went on a writer,
Speaker 1: this is wonderful.
Speaker 4: You want to go one for one or just do
Speaker 4: all of the miner row.
Speaker 1: Let's do all of them in a row. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: three three three, just three controversial opinion. I'm going okay
Speaker 1: two thousand and four Van healthing Hell.
Speaker 3: You know what, people come here for the unexpected takes.
Speaker 3: They look Jason might be a classic. They know they
Speaker 3: know that if I'm on the show, there's gonna be
Speaker 3: some weird picks, So don't absolutely.
Speaker 1: I will say that, I will say that I love it.
Speaker 2: I will say that I think before I before you
Speaker 2: continue that I think this is one of the ugliest
Speaker 2: films ever made.
Speaker 1: But I can go.
Speaker 3: Like Nightmarriage Zero's horror Estate.
Speaker 1: But us, why tell us? Why I speak to you? Okay,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen Van Heusing, imagine Hugh Jackman in
Speaker 1: a cowboy slash musical esque variety show chaos an inscription
Speaker 1: it is Jacula from Van Housing's POV. So you're getting
Speaker 1: like we're unting the vampires. It feels like a set,
Speaker 1: like like a time not in the classic way of
Speaker 1: like the nineteen thirties style movies where you're like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is beautiful. It feels like those are some extra
Speaker 1: sets at the MGM lot and they made it work.
Speaker 1: But it's so funny and I really like part of
Speaker 1: it is absolutely nostalgia. But there's just a part of
Speaker 1: me that in two thousand and four was like, how
Speaker 1: was I then? I would been fifteen. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: just very into this movie. I was like, the vibes
Speaker 1: are immaculate. It's kind of creepy, it's kind of goffey,
Speaker 1: it's kind of romantic. There's a lot of hot people here.
Speaker 1: It's fun, but it's also kind of true to the narrative.
Speaker 1: They don't take that many liberties with the story. So
Speaker 1: if you're about it, like maybe their weaponry is a
Speaker 1: little more advanced, you get like bow shoes. It's very dark.
Speaker 1: It's very dark. Soul's in fluence.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like there's gonna be a Van heusing
Speaker 3: like recon reconsideration soon because I feel like, aesthetically this
Speaker 3: looks like what Universal used as the inspiration for that
Speaker 3: new park they're doing. That's like dark yeah us, and
Speaker 3: it's very like you're on a film set of eighteen
Speaker 3: hundreds Germany, but it's a little bit modern and there's
Speaker 3: a little bit of like a little bit more edge
Speaker 3: and a little bit more like cool design. And I
Speaker 3: really feel like immediately when I started to see the
Speaker 3: designs coming out of Dark Universe, which is going to
Speaker 3: be part of the Epic Universe parks, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I feel like somebody watched Van Housing, so I love
Speaker 3: that picture.
Speaker 4: Oh that was incredible.
Speaker 3: What's your last ing?
Speaker 1: I'll just go with the classic Nosperrato. If you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, it's man, it extremely holds up lighting wise,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be It's like watching Cabin of Calgary,
Speaker 1: where you're just like, yeah, this is uh, I can't
Speaker 1: believe someone made this so long ago, while filmmaking must
Speaker 1: really be inherent in our blood, Like what could I
Speaker 1: be doing with this level of just like basic skills
Speaker 1: in filmmaking to make something this tightens and this artistic,
Speaker 1: in this beautiful and truly like I wasn't sure how
Speaker 1: I was going to receive silent fills. My dad found
Speaker 1: like ripped a copy of the Internet when I was
Speaker 1: thirteen because I was like, I have to see this
Speaker 1: movie everyone's talking about, and I was blown away by
Speaker 1: it remained blown away by it. So I would highly
Speaker 1: recommend watching the original Astrauato. What about Rosie? You want
Speaker 1: to go next?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so one of mine was going to be
Speaker 3: Brown Stoker is Dracula. I just I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3: I think it's fantastic. I rewatch it all the time.
Speaker 3: It's way too long in the best way. The costume
Speaker 3: designs are like impeccable, the Oscar winning costume designs, and
Speaker 3: I mean I even have a hat that celebrates the
Speaker 3: costume designs winning an Oscar. So I have a hat
Speaker 3: from Superachi that says and the winner of best costume
Speaker 3: design is Eco Ishioca for Bramstoga's Dracula. And I have
Speaker 3: actually visited her Oscar that is in the Academy Museum
Speaker 3: because I just think they're so perennial.
Speaker 4: I didn't commit to buying the three hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Full size armor bag that I saw a place made
Speaker 3: recently that was super cool, So that was gonna be
Speaker 3: one of my I'm also gonna go for Dracula nineteen
Speaker 3: thirty one, but not the bell Lagosi version, which I
Speaker 3: do love, but because the secret of the nineteen thirty
Speaker 3: one Dracula made by Universal is that at night they
Speaker 3: filmed a Spanish language version, same script, completely different casts,
Speaker 3: same sets or Spanish language.
Speaker 4: It was very hard to find for a very long.
Speaker 3: Time, but now it just plays constantly on the Universal
Speaker 3: Monsters channel. They have a great rip of it. And
Speaker 3: I've just been completely obsessed with this kind of duel
Speaker 3: movie making history that they chose to do there to
Speaker 3: just you know, appeal to a wider audience, something they're
Speaker 3: not even doing now, you know. And they were doing
Speaker 3: that in nineteen thirty one. So that movie is incredible.
Speaker 3: The guy who plays Dracula is like, so not Bela Lagosi.
Speaker 3: It's incredible. That's definitely worth checking out. I love that version.
Speaker 3: I love the bel Lagosi version too, I'm a big
Speaker 3: bell Lagosi stan But my favorite version probably no surprise,
Speaker 3: as it's well known that I love Verna Herzog, but
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventy nine Verna Hazog version of Nosferatu, which
Speaker 3: I do think is the best version of Dracula or
Speaker 3: nos Faratu, with klaus Kinski as Nosferatu and Isabella Johnny
Speaker 3: actually in the Mina Harker role, and that sticks to
Speaker 3: the more classic Dracula ending where it's about Jonathan dying
Speaker 3: and Mina surviving, and I just think it's such a
Speaker 3: beautifully rendered movie.
Speaker 4: It's so tragic.
Speaker 3: Even though the design of klaus Kinski's Nosparatu is very
Speaker 3: similar to the classic design, very ugly, very horrifying, not
Speaker 3: the suave bel Lagosi version, he still is sensual and tragic.
Speaker 3: He emost so hard. There are even just photographs from
Speaker 3: that film where you can feel this kind of wrenching
Speaker 3: sadness and heartbreak. And also something that came to me
Speaker 3: a lot during watching nos Ferratu twenty twenty four was
Speaker 3: like there's no color, There was no It was this
Speaker 3: idea of like bleached out everything, which can work in
Speaker 3: certain ways. We talked about Sleepy Hollow, the Timberton movie.
Speaker 3: There are ways you can use gradients of gray and
Speaker 3: white and blacks that can be very affecting, and obviously
Speaker 3: just shooting black and white is one of those options,
Speaker 3: like Eggs did.
Speaker 1: With the Lighthouse.
Speaker 3: But Herzogs Nosferatu is actually incredibly colorful, and I feel
Speaker 3: like that adds to that kind of the surreal nature
Speaker 3: of when Nosferatu arrives and the difference between daytime and
Speaker 3: night time. Egg's Nosferratu is like, when she's out in
Speaker 3: the daytime, it's horrible and bleak, and when it's nighttime
Speaker 3: it's horrible and bleak. I think there's a duality and
Speaker 3: that kind of juxtaposition with Herzog's Nosphratu that is just
Speaker 3: so fantastic, And obviously every time him and Kinski wack together,
Speaker 3: it's a masterpiece because they were like the ultimate for enemies.
Speaker 3: So those of mind Jason wore about.
Speaker 1: Yours mine are.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go first with Dracula nineteen seventy nine. Dracula,
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you love the story so starring Frank
Speaker 2: Langella as the extremely suave handsome and charming Count Dracula,
Speaker 2: incredible cast, Lawrence Olivier is how crazy, aging Van helsing,
Speaker 2: Donald pleasants doing this now now Donald Pleasant's thing, and
Speaker 2: just a operatic romantic like you feel like Dracula kind
Speaker 2: of falls in love in this movie and he is
Speaker 2: a monster, but like you, it's this depiction of Dracula
Speaker 2: as like this basically less love bomb monster who really
Speaker 2: does fall in love with his victims. Tremendously, such a
Speaker 2: stylistically pleasing movie too, Like every time you watch it
Speaker 2: you just want to be that, you want to.
Speaker 1: Be Yea, it looks great.
Speaker 2: The castle is creepy but looks great, and just a
Speaker 2: wonderful movie with wonderful performances.
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna go I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Echo Joel here the original nus Fair two nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: F Now, I mean, like it's just stunning.
Speaker 3: Still best boot like ever made. So proud of him.
Speaker 2: It is incredible. You can't believe. It's not like a
Speaker 2: technical achievement on the level of like you know, Citizen
Speaker 2: Kane or anything. But you can't believe that they created
Speaker 2: these effects, They created this atmosphere. There is no sound
Speaker 2: like it is immensely, immensely creepy and a wonderful achievement.
Speaker 2: And then next TI, I'm gonna go this is we
Speaker 2: all got one cheat version, and this is my cheat version,
Speaker 2: two thousand, Shadow of the Vampires. Love William Defoe, legend Williams.
Speaker 1: So this movie, which is super super fun.
Speaker 2: It's like a it's like a behind the scenes of
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: Two nos Feratu.
Speaker 2: You're watching FW Murnau create this movie and all the
Speaker 2: issues and troubles he's got trying to wrangle the actors
Speaker 2: and get everything to work.
Speaker 1: And he's got this star who.
Speaker 2: Played by Willem Dafoe, who is very mysterious and is
Speaker 2: maybe a real vampire, like it's unclear, And it's such
Speaker 2: a fun take on it.
Speaker 1: John Malkovich plays the director.
Speaker 2: Did John Malcavinci as like an absolute terror of a director.
Speaker 2: Is a wonderful film and a really cool twist on
Speaker 2: the Dracula origin story. A great movie that's worth your time.
Speaker 1: Such a good great list, guys.
Speaker 2: So yeah, wonderful lists all around.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be back again this week Tuesday for a
Speaker 2: recap of Skeleton Crew one oh five, and then Thursday
Speaker 2: We're looking ahead at the films, the TV shows, the
Speaker 2: video games we're most excited for.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode, Thanks.
Speaker 3: For good bye.
Speaker 2: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kenseepsion and Rosie
Speaker 2: Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive
Speaker 2: producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer
Speaker 2: is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurn and
Speaker 2: Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 3: and Heidi on Discoll Moderata