'Nosferatu' Movie Review | Robert Eggers | Lily-Rose Depp | Bill Skarsgard

0:09 Welcome to a Bite of We're Talking about notes for R2. I'm don't. You didn't say your name. No, that's fine. Oh, hi. I'm Derek. That's Noah. Noah Speratu. Good job. Yeah. Wow. OK, So yeah, let's let that be the intro. Why not? We've had coffee and it's way too late to be having coffee, so that's probably what was happening. Nosferatu or Nosferatu? How was people saying it? I feel like it's a Thanos, Thanos type thing, you know? This almost sounds the same, but to the trained ear there's a difference.

0:59 Bill Skarsgard should know what that is. Yeah. So we're talking Robert Edgar's newest entry into his dark gothic verse. I should say Nosferatu. We're kind of making up for our holiday break because all of these movies decided to come out. Yes. When we're on break, award season is upon us. So keep an eye out for some award pods coming up. But before we get into the episode, make sure you are subscribed. What is it? Following us Patreon discord insert thing here we have all. Of those things. We're on it. It's all down below. That's right. We would love to talk to you guys more or just see your face would be nice. Yeah, because I we're just talking to each other, but we're talking to you.

1:46 We just want to know that you're happy, hopefully happy. We're also continuing our trend of not typical holiday movies that have come out. So we had horny holidays and now we have. Horror holidays. Different kind of horny, that's true. Also sexy. And of course, spoiler alert. I would say spoiler alert and trigger warning, right? This does heavily deal with sex and abuse kind of. So warnings ahead, we're going into the darkness. Let us officially take a bite of Nosferatu. Written and directed by Robert Eggers. Haunted by visions of a deathly shadow, Ellen has recently found happiness with her new husband, Thomas.

2:29 On the hunt for his first property sale, Thomas is tasked with selling a home to a mysterious buyer in Transylvania. Once he arrives, he is warned of an ungodly creature that lives in the castle. He unknowingly releases a plague on his home and his wife. Sorry, Thomas. So what did you think? OK, general thoughts up top, it's Robert Eggers. He's one of the best in the industry right now. I think with immersion, with really taking care with what he has on every single shot and screen. I'm a huge fan of Robert Eggers. Ever since the Witch, I have been sold. I will, I want to live deliciously. I will succumb to the darkness.

3:13 I will go to that lighthouse. Anything he wants me to do or in transport me into I will be there. Yeah, this is definitely a Noah film, right? You love gothic horror. You love new takes on old properties, especially done by masters of the craft. So this was 100% of Noah film. Yeah, I was really excited to see what he was going to do with Nosferatu because as we know, Nosferatu is a kind of, it was, let's say, a copyrighted version of Dracula. Like it wasn't supposed to come out and they made them, destroyed the copies. So the only copies we have were illegal copies.

3:54 Oh my gosh. Which is crazy. That is crazy. It's a version of a story and he's doing the version of kind of both of them together. I was curious to see how he was going to do it. I will say for his kind of stories and him doing AI guess retelling a remake. It was very by the book for those stories because I wasn't sure where he was going to go. And I was like, oh, he did all the beats of Nosferatu slash kind of weaving Dracula in there as well. So I was happy with that. I liked it. I I thought it was really well done. Well. Crafted. Yeah, I, I feel like I learned a lot from this film. I think I learned not to sign documents that are in a different language. I learned that if I travel to a place and an entire town of people are saying don't go to that creepy place, maybe I shouldn't go to it.

4:47 Also, if I'm feeling uncomfortable in a situation, leave. This is all Thomas. Thomas really needed to learn a lot. He didn't learn enough soon enough. But other than it's educational factors, it was really good. I mean, I was thoroughly entertained. I kind of feel like lately I've been going into viewing things blindly and enjoying the experience, not really expecting anything. I mean, I think on some level I was expecting something really scary. And I think it was creepy. I think it had moments of scare. I think the scare really came from the jump scares. But the story itself was kind of like eppy creepy tingly wingly creepy crawly. Yeah.

5:33 So I mean, I think a a good place to go next in the conversation would be the not performances, but more like the feeling of the movie. Because something that Edgar does with his film is that he can really tell that he cares about what is it the the emotion that you feel when you see a scene or see a shot or see a frame, how the camera moves and what's going on or not going on in that shot. You can tell he really takes care in that. There was moments of this where I was like, that shot alone is a painting. Like that is a beautiful shot. Specifically the one I think if you haven't seen the movie, but it's in the trailer where Thomas is walking to the carriage and the snow is falling. So you have a lot of silhouette shots, but the way they play with lighting and not lighting in this, it's just beautiful. Yeah, I think that he played a lot with the feeling of being trapped, being enclosed, light, dark, I even a lot. I, I, I thought a lot about what he did with the sets in a way or, or who he worked with to create that. Because you see Thomas, you know, Thomas is very much feeling like he's at the start of his adult life. He's just got married and now he's going to make his first big sale and he and his wife, they're going to be able to buy a home and they're going to kind of have this extravagant life that they've always wanted to.

7:00 Of course, it doesn't go that way, but we see them existing in that realm, right, with their best friends, Friedrich and Anna. And when you're in their home, it's super opulent, it's colorful, it's lush. The clothing is very big and bold and colorful and just even the textures and how much is packed into one space. And then completely opposite of that is when he gets to count Orlok's castle in Transylvania. He is in a barren place. Yeah, it's definitely the way they played with colors and lighting and lack of lighting really didn't just show you kind of each color or character's emotional state at the time, but who that character is. And I, I did like that.

7:44 I like when we got to see their friend's house and it's like that's the life that they're going to go to. Unfortunately, it didn't work out for them. This horse had little girls. That was terrifying. So you mentioned the the scare factor, which I don't think it was scary in the traditional sense. It was definitely unsettling and it was more Gothic. Horror is a feeling and it's a an atmosphere and an aesthetic and all the senses, right? It doesn't necessarily have to be jump scary. But like that scene with Orlok having those little girls and then dropping, I was like, I would flip the fuck out. Yeah, flip out. But so I like that. I think that's a good point to see. This is Orlok's home.

8:28 This is like the life that they're trying to get, but that's where they're going. Yeah. And I think, and we see this throughout the movie, you see this a lot with Nicholas Holt. You see this a lot. You see this with Emma Koren. There are these moments when they are facing or lock and they are petrified and the camera pulls in so close to their face. And the fear that is reading on their face is it If you're looking into their eyes as the viewer and you let yourself go over to the head, you can feel that fear as well. Yeah, there there's a lot of moments of playing with sound, playing with light, playing with the camera work where it really does again, immerses you into this and you you're really you're not trying to feel what they're feeling, but you can like you get that wave of like despair, scared, ecstasy, kind of what is going to happen.

9:24 And it it was a really, I don't, it's an interesting way to do a movie because in the span of 1 scene, a character can go from being completely happy to petrified. And sometimes you think like, oh, it's a different scene. It's not the range that these characters can go through. Specifically with a Lily Depp. I just let's get into performances like because I feel like we keep trying to like get to it without getting to it. But performances wise, should we start with a Lily? Yeah, I think Lily, star of the show. Lily Rose. Lily Rose Depp played Ellen. I think I'm going to try to say that's like I don't really have any like critiques about this movie. There's like a silly one where I think Emma Corn's wig is like really bad, but like that's like the silliest critique I I have. The only other one that's like slight is I think Ellen's character or Lily.

10:21 Her acting was so good when she was doing body work and expressing whatever emotion that's really coming over her. Some of the the the dialogue and lines I didn't believe until she like convulsed. Does that make sense? Like it's not bad on her part. I just I think, 'cause she was so animated that I was feeling more on those moments then when she was. Monologue, the delivery felt stronger in those moments when it was met with action. I mean, I will say as far as some of the dialogue, I mean it sometimes they would, it would feel like I couldn't understand them. And, you know, I don't know if it was because they were just speaking quickly anyway.

11:04 And but sometimes like there was that part where they were talking to each other, they were kind of like out on the Moors when Thomas was away. They couldn't find him. And I was like, what are they saying to each other? It was like, it almost felt like a lot of mumbling. So I agree. And some of those just regular conversational scenes, it felt like it was a little lost. But I agree. You know, a lot of the kind of unsettling nature was in her body contortions and what she was doing. And Speaking of levels, I mean, she had a very interesting line to toe, right? She had to do someone who was having nightmares and delusions and was supposed to be frightened but also getting like having moments of ecstasy. As well.

11:48 So that was an interesting thing to watch because you're watching it going like, I'm scared, no wait, it's weird now. And Oh no, wait, I'm scared. And it's sort of sexy, like So it was all over the place in that way. Yeah, I like, I mean, I think she did a fantastic job. And I think some of the horror or the uncomfortableness came from that performance of her because I mean, that moment with her and Thomas in the room where she. It's like the infamous image going around, like the meme, but like, well, yeah. Well, it is funny when you take it out of context in the scene itself because I had seen that meme going around before I watched it. I was like, oh, this is going to be so silly. I didn't feel that way in the movie. There are sometimes where the movie does feel kind of jokey or, you know, like, oh, was that supposed to be serious?

12:34 I didn't feel serious. I think it's doing that on purpose. Like it is. It feels like the 1922 version of Nosferatu sometimes where it's like kind of silly. Why is he standing like that? But that performance with her, even though I know it's a joke on the in the real world, in it, I was like, I don't like what's happening. Like I feel very uncomfortable. Well, that whole scene was very uncomfortable because. She does things with her body. She does things with her body also. She's there with her husband. They're finally reunited and she's being torn between these two worlds of the world of where she gets to be happy with Thomas, and then this other darker world where, I mean, for lack of a better term, she sort of belongs to Count Orlock, right? And so she's the demon, she's the Angel, she's the demon, she's the Angel.

13:21 And we're we're seeing her go through both of those. You know, I'm still trying to work through what the movie is trying to say, but specifically with Ellen because I she is the main focus of this movie. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot to do with like desire, possession, contract in in the literal sense and not literal sense, but also like agency and consent. I think is there's something there that I don't think that I've been able to really pinpoint. So I'm curious if you or even just a listener slash viewer is there like, because it feels very much like any time she started talking about like, this is like my desire. This is the thing that I've had like he was able to fill a part in me that my husband hadn't been able to fill before I met my husband.

14:11 You know what? It's so like there's, it very much seems like this is her nature and everybody around her kept trying to stop her from doing that. So what you're saying is that this is actually the original baby girl? Yeah. Let her be a freak, yeah? Totally. Well, I, I, I I don't know if I'm able to pinpoint it either, but I see the theme that you're talking about at. Least trying to. Yes, yes. And I think that even when you see how she's being treated, when she's having these bouts of delusion or whatever they're calling them, right? They put her in a corset, right? They knock her out, give her more ether she they tie her up, you know, so it's like she's losing all of her autonomy in all of those moments. And then, you know, Willem Dafoe comes in, he's like, you morons. I'm tired.

14:58 I loved his character. I mean, Willem Dafoe obviously coming in and he's a Edgar's regular, so it was really fun to see. His He's a regular. So it it was fun to see him bring that comedic relief a little bit. I mean, he's an eccentric on cultist, right? He, he believes in Nosferatu. He knows about the thing, but doesn't actually know about the thing. He was right, but he's wrong. So it it was fun to see him in it. I liked what he brought to the table. I really think Nicholas Holt did a fantastic job as Thomas. He just has that quality about him where it's like he can be formidable, but a lot of times you just want him to be OK to like the Menu, this one journal #2 all of these movies are just like he has that sad face when he's in trouble.

15:49 He. Brings like a naivete to like everything that he does. And I agree. I thought he was really good. And you know, I this character is, is so interesting, right, because the character of Thomas is so powerless the entire time, but yet he's the one that is able to sign his wife over to the count, right? So it's, again, this is kind of on the theme of like a woman having autonomy in all senses where, you know, ultimately at the end she's the one that has all the power, but throughout the whole thing, she's the thing that they're all playing with. Yeah, she she just had to be able to make a choice one way or another. She was the only one that could have made it. You know, there there's other people in this movie like Ralph Ennis, who is obviously the dad from the witch, the name I couldn't remember last time I was talking, but also is going to be playing Galactus.

16:42 I'm very excited. He has that voice. So he's in it. Emma Corrin, who we mentioned is in it. Fantastic. Oh OK, we have to talk about Pill Skarsgard as Ortlock. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I think if I didn't know he was in this movie, I wouldn't have known he was Orlok. And I think that's a testament to those cars Guard's ability, and also the costuming and makeup artists, because they did stuff with his face where it's just unrecognizable. Not even the eyes. No, because I think when he played Pennywise, we knew it was him because it still had his eyes in a way. Yeah, this one, no. No, not at all.

17:23 And you know, he's a, he's a towering figure in this and all the prosthetics. I mean, I, I, I, I was thinking about how long he must have spent in the chair to get ready for this, because in some scenes it's full body makeup. I I kind of love for some reason the addition of the mustache. I love it I. Think, you know, it adds to his thirst and his unquenchable thirst for blood because it stays in his in his and his mustache and just like lingers there, you know, So I think it like added almost like a soaking quality to him sucking their blood. I Oh my God. So one of the things that was the thing that I was missing as I was saying, like what was like, what was the scary parts of this?

18:09 Like what did it make you feel? The this movie, what I like that it did is it returned to form for vampires. Like, this is like, you know, there's the Twilight, there's the underworld, there's all these things that kind of glamorized vampires and made them sexy and made them like superheroes. But it made leather. Right. And what this does is it takes it back to like Vlad the Impaler, right? It takes it back to Brom Stoker's Dracula. And even just the way the sound and the the act of sucking blood, how it's particularly like right on the heart, right, But just the noises and the the way his body would move when he's sucking the blood. I just like so uncomfortable and you could feel it. At least I did.

18:52 I like felt it when he was doing that. I was like, this is like, I this scares me. And he's not really doing anything. I don't know. It was just, it was so well thought out to be like, let's bring vampires a little like back. Like he's disgusting. Yeah, make it more like primordial or something, you know what I mean? It's like, when you think of like Interview with a Vampire. It's sexy, right? It's biting your neck. It's sexy. It verges on, you know, sexual desire. But when he's like mounted on top of Thomas and drinking from his heart, it's animalistic. Yeah, I didn't even make a gay joke like, because it wasn't sexy.

19:36 No, we were not hoping for a threesome in this movie. But no, I mean, it's to your point that it wasn't sexy because I was like, oh, yeah. And I I want him to stop doing that to Thomas. Yeah. You know, like please stop. Yeah, and his clothes were not finely tailored Victorian garb. It was like what he had sitting in the closet for centuries. And I like the reasoning behind the mustache because one a lot of people that time. At that time had mustaches, you know, especially those long kind of big, almost mutton chops looking mustaches. And I like that. It's like if you look at Gary Oldman's Dracula and you look at some of the other Draculas, it's like his Dracula stands out because it's like it's different. He has the hair, he's white.

20:18 He's kind of like burnty looking. And I like that Edgar's wanted to give him something to stand out from the Nosferatu that we know from either SpongeBob or 1922. So it's like, add the mustache. Yeah. And it oddly really worked. I definitely think it did. It made him very much, I don't know, there's there's this thing about this character in that in a way he has to blend in, right? So it's like he could blend in, but really underneath it all, he's still a blood sucking beast. You know, I do want to also talk about the character Knock, played by Simon Mcburney. Our Renfield stand in. Yes, he was wild.

21:01 I mean, I think he got to have the most fun on set all the time. Well, he just acted bananas. Like he I love the scene after he gets out of the jail I think he was in and he's just like like runs. He runs on the street laughing. So, so good. I mean, you can see it too, like if you're watching this and you're like, I've seen this movie before. It's it's because it's Dracula. Like that's it was a an illegal version of Dracula that was made. But I did like in the credits for this that it shows that Bram Stoker was also a writer. Yes. So it credits both of them, yes. So it's like Edgar's kind of like put it together, which is nice. Yeah, and why now? It is interesting though.

21:44 You had said this before, and there were parts in it that like, we're a little silly, we're a little funny. Why do you think Edgars put that in there? Well, I think he was just, I, I think he's not. There's no wink to the camera, you know what I mean? I think they know what they're doing. And it's like, that's just almost what you expect. Like, it is goofy in a way, but not like goofy, ha ha, just goofy. And like, yeah, there's this dude that literally his skin is peeling off of his skull, has a mustache and he's on a ship with a bunch of rats brain in the plague. Like it, it is like fantastical. I think what this movie does is it brings like romanticism back to vampires because even the way it was shot was very much in that scope. So I think that's why he might have done that. Yeah.

22:35 You he again, he's the he's the type of person that like, takes care and like even just how people speak for that time. Like he coaches those people. It's like very ingrained in his process. And so I think he wanted to make sure I'm not going to diverge too much from the story, but I'm going to give it my, my I, I guess, flair, if you will. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think he it, it never felt out of place to me. I think because if it was all blood sucking mayhem the entire time, I think that it would have been almost oppressive, right? And so we were able to kind of every once in a while, like, yeah, when you walk into a room and it's filled with thousands of rats, just like the characters, you're gonna be like, you know, and the amount of. Rats in this movie, Oh my gosh, If you look at any of the behind the scenes, I think Edgar's actually did a It might be New York Times interview Heilergerman watching that. It's very good.

23:37 He goes really into depth with what the process was to make this movie, but he also talks about the rats and just the amount of rats that they used, like most like not CGI like those were all real rat actors. Ractors. Ractors So in the, in the scope of the story, so we talked about performances, we talked about the blood sucking and the feel of it. The story itself. I it's very interesting because it's almost like with the if I'm trying to put it into words, it's like, almost like an abuser trying to come back into somebody's life. You know what I mean? Setting those ultimatums, setting like, I'm going to ruin your life if you don't let me back in. And again, this is Orlok to Ellen. So it was, it was interesting to see that kind of monster be like, I if you don't do this in three days, I'm going to like, release a plague.

24:31 You just have to love me. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there are certain things in this movie where I kind of, I tripped over them a little bit. They made me stumble a little bit. One of them is that there really isn't a clear origin to Orlok and Ellen, right? There's this scene in the beginning of a voices calling out to her and she kind of is like, oh, there you are. Something I've been missing. Yes, I give myself over to you. That's all we get. We don't know how it necessarily started when she first heard him, why she would really want to give herself over to him. So it's kind of like, OK, so that thing happened, which is the starting point for this entire movie. Then I don't know, he moves away to Transylvania, and he's like, you know, I've been thinking about Ellen. You know, he's like, he's just coming back out of nowhere. Yeah, I think there was a line.

25:19 I I believe we either missed it or something. But he says that he was pretty much like locked away for a little bit. So whatever reason it was, I mean, I'm, I don't know if it was those, that village that was outside of the castle that kind of put him in his place for a little bit. He has, he always has to return to the ground, which he came from at night, hence the coffin. Yeah. I think it just kind of threw you into the story. I I like that, though, about particularly Edgar's type of storytelling and this type of storytelling where it doesn't give you a lot, like, it just, it puts you in it like, yeah, infer what you want, but like, this is the story going forward. That's fair. It's kind of like the witch, you know what I mean?

26:01 It's like, oh, the family was kicked out of their community for practicing this type of religion. We have no idea who that witch was, you know, but that's what the story. He just lived in the forest. I also realized that this is his only movie so far without the in the title. The Witch, the lighthouse, the Northman dude. Where is the Anna Anya Taylor Joy? True. They brought the Aaron Taylor Johnson he. Was in the last one or she was in the last one. Oh, I forgot about Aaron Taylor Johnson and this. He was fine. Yeah, I know he he didn't. It wasn't Craven. Bad. And it was like craving. Good, no. You weren't craving his craving. No, they think he was fine, Yeah. I mean, that character in itself is just kind of like he's the antithesis to all of the mythological things that they're trying to explain.

26:50 And then at the end he was like, oh, OK. Oh, you're right. The vampires ate my family and then ate him. He got the plague. Something, yeah. All right, they had to burn him alive. Not alive, Not alive. Dude. Oh yeah, he, he, he, he did stuff with his dead wife. I forgot he did to get burned alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what? Did you think about the story? So the story itself, I think, is, as you're saying, sort of a typical vampire tale, right? It's Twilight in the sense of 1000. Year old vampire becomes obsessed with a young woman with dark hair. He leaves for a long time. Italy, Transylvania.

27:31 Only this one doesn't sparkle. I don't like that I reject that comparison, but it is true. You mean Twilight is like this? Not this is like Twilight. I don't know. 1922. Yes, but this is the Edgar's version which came out in. I'm kidding, obviously I'm kidding. They all have the same source material in some sense. Stephanie Meyer. Exactly. She had a dream of a vampire. If you want to go back and listen to our first episode ever, we talk about the origin of Twilight. Don't ever go back. I'm going to delete it after this episode. I can't believe we did that. That's quarantine may have.

28:13 There's nothing coming out. We there was a book that was it that we had. But as far as the story itself, I think what are we talking about? That's right. This Nosferatu I do think you know as as a person who loves seeing a woman in power, I think it was upsetting that spoiler spoiler spoiler at the end she has to make the decision to give up her own life for everyone else. Well, she, but she was, she did that decision like the, I mean, I think part of it is like she should have the bodily autonomy and the ability to give consent whichever way she wanted. I that is a good point.

28:58 And I did like that. It wasn't like a man was convincing her to do it. She looked at the professor and she was like, bro, I know what's up. It was more like she this entire time without being able to put into words and feelings of what is going on because she's being haunted and, you know, possessed with these like, I don't know, glamorous nightmares, I guess you could call them of this figure of. This figure stop. The amount of times that Derek has been doing that in the house, but she hasn't been able to put it into words. But I think when she was finally able to understand or when Dafoe's character was like, somebody has to, like, make the decision. She's like, that's what I have to do. Like she's like, that's.

29:47 I know that that's me. Yeah. But I like that she was able to, again, like, yeah, girl, like, you probably shouldn't have given your life up for Nicholas Halt. But like, she knew the man she loved would die if she didn't make this decision. But she got to make the decision, which I liked. The whole ending scene was beautiful and terrifying and disgusting and sad, but so good. Though when it ended, I went, what? It's ending there. I did like that it ended there. That I loved, actually. There was no like, extended epilogue scene to see how Thomas, you know, made well for himself. It was like, no, we started with this relationship. We're ending with this relationship one.

30:28 Fun fact, and I think it really helped the movie was that it was originally going to be set in London, but they moved it to the actual like typical place where these old vampire stories took place, which I think helped out a lot. Yeah. So that's the last fun fact I have to say about this. I. Loved it. Thank you for that little, little egg. You're welcome. Stop. You're like trying to make puns with his name a little. Easter egg. So let us know what you thought of no swaratu. Did you like it? Did you not like it? Did you get scared? Would you say no swaratu or yes, swaratu? I'm getting it tonight.

31:12 I feel like, I feel like I'm, I'm in the basement apartment again. I feel like I'm really, I'm really, really nailing it, nailing it, nailing it. All right, so till next. Nailing it. Oh, look who's back. I should have worn my witch. Finger you should have those are orloc fingers at this point. OK, so till next time, bye.