Love me some Gothic horror and god damned if I wasn’t satisfied. Gorgeous, had a bit of fun addressing some of the more problematic trappings of the genre in how it treats women.
Remade some of the amazing shots from the original film, maintained a fantastic creeping horror and dread, lots of truly disgusting practical effects, and some original and well realised additions.
Absolutely fab.
The movie was entertaining enough, and I liked the director’s previous work. I watched the Extended version on the Blu-Ray and I liked his commentary as well. The guy who played Orlok was great, I think all the actors did a good job, great atmosphere. My issue is with the ending. The group goes to destroy Orlok’s crypt and only kills his henchman Herr Knock in his coffin. But that was all a distraction really. Orlok ends up dying because he simply lost track of the time while seducing and having sex with Lily-Rose Depp’s character. That’s it! He’s a vampire who will die if he’s up past daybreak and he simply is so horny that he forgets to leave before sun-up and dies as a result, along with Depp’s character. He wasn’t being chased by the vampire hunters or anything. Just forgets to keep track of the time. I thought that was anti-climactic.
He doesn’t lose track of time. They are spelled together. He looks to the rising sun and she pulls him back to her breast.
They explain that 4 times in the film. Once Orlok says they can’t resist each other and she will be his, once diagnosis? demon! doctor reads it in the big book, he mentions that to her when explaining he will keep her hubby at bay with a false hunt (and she has already figured out she must die which is why she asks to walk him to his door), and then at the end diagnosis demons explains it to the hubby after they watch her die.
That’s a fair point, but I still find it an interesting choice that an entity as powerful as Orlok who has been haunting her dreams for years is as susceptible to being beguiled and completely helpless to pull himself away as a mere mortal. More so actually, since a man could have the presence of mind to pull out mid-stroke and run if his life depended on it.
It’s literally magic. Her calling out resurrected him, from being “buried in darkness”. He isn’t like a vampire like idk lestat from Anne Rice’s novels, he is more like a force of nature, devourance, plague, death made by Satan from a fell sorcerer to go do evil shit.
It’s like fairy rules, he was killed before by a maiden’s sacrifice, a maiden called out and awoke him again, they are magically bound and her sacrifice puts him down again. Presumably until some new sensitive person awakens him.
He doesn’t have a choice in his desire for her.
This is why I love it so much. I’m from the Balkans, we birthed vampire lore. This movie took care to include so many elements of traditions and tales. I loved it so much.