Nosferatu

It is boring. The acting is way too much and ridiculous overacting. The crying, the terrified faces and behaviour all felt so overplayed and unnecessary. The scenes, images and costumes are very impressive but that's about it. I didn't like any of the characters, Lily Rose Depp and her husband are not my definition of beautiful or handsome. The count's "breathing" is very annoying too.

The scenes as individual images were really well-made. I like historical settings in movies but overall, the film felt pretentious and self-indulgent, trying too hard to impress without delivering real meaning or a real story.

The movie doesn't quite live up to the hype it has built over time. While the cinematography, costumes, and sound design are impressive, the film falls short where it matters most-delivering real horror. Lily shows promise as an actress, but her tendency to over-exaggerate certain scenes takes away from the immersion. The slow pacing and lack of genuine scares make you double-check if you're even watching a horror movie. Despite a few good moments, it ends up feeling underwhelming and forgettable. Nosferatu felt less of a creepy vampire but more of a old man with a deep and weird voice. Not the worst, but definitely not memorable.

Don't get me wrong the film is sumptuous and filmically stunning. But that I am afraid that for all this the film is simply dull.

The protagonist Orlok looks like Jim Carrey in Lemony Snickets, with a moustache. He just doesn't fill the film with menace.

The acting is hammy and trying far too hard to be a work of art rather than a slice of entertainment.

Miss Depp however died come out of it with some credit and is definitely one to watch for the future.

Willem Defoe is simply Willem Defoe mar as a box of frogs but always madly watchable.

So as a New Year commences I am hoping that the other films I am waiting for don't disappoint like Nosferatu today.

This film did nothing that Coppola's 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula didn't already do. Coppola's film both thematically, and visually broke ground (costumes, creature design, set pieces, etc.), and had a far more expository, but also sinister and apprehensive feel. Not to mention it was also far more carnal. Nosferatu on the other hand, just felt like a tamer, "nothing new to see here" re-make, with nothing remotely original in any depictions. Maybe if Nosferatu looked scarier than a bald Vlad Teppish ("The Impaler", "Dracul"), that might've helped. I give it a 5-6 with a "I wouldn't watch it again" rating.

F. W. Murnau's (illegally adapted) 1922 film Nosferatu presented the vampire as a sickly, batlike elf. In the new 'Nosferatu,' Robert Eggers introduces an off-putting new look for Count Orlok, but Nosferatu (2024) is an unnecessary retelling of Murnau's original film wrapped in mediocrity. It reflects a trend of nostalgia and reboots. Innovation takes a backseat to reverence in the foreground. This is an exercise in indulgence that only the MMXXV Generation will enjoy. Visually, the film is overblown in its impressionistic palette. Coppola's Dracula was visually more imposing, combining opulent gothic imagery with operatic intensity. Herzog's Nosferatu (1979) had more haunting, austere beauty. And Carl Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) was more dreamlike.