Nosferatu (2024) and Year in Review I Suppose

So I'm gonna go ahead and stop adding the date to the post titles. I think it's redundant as you can see when it was posted anyways.

So in the last days of 2024, I saw Nosferatu (dir: Robert Eggers, 2024) with my core group of friends as a little treat before doing a Secret Santa gift exchange. I really enjoyed the movie. On semi-immediate reflection, I felt the movie was quite creepy and legitimately scary at points.

Visually I thought the movie looked fantastic. As for what immediately comes to mind, the camerawork as Nicholas Hoult's character, Thomas, arrives at Count Orlok's castle gets pretty freaky with some quick dolly (or trucking in) shots. When it comes to shooting something to inspire dread, it may seem immediately obvious to do a slow pan or dolly-in, but the aforementioned shots to me give a sense of urgency that had me tense. Like I was not prepared to for the movie to get a move on, if that makes sense? Anyway, one of my friend's stated that he liked how many of the night shots were graded as though they had a bluish tint going on. I would have to agree and I wonder if that was an intentional nod to the 1922 original, or to German Expressionist films in general as some of them, despite being black and white, used film tinting to achieve a surreal dreamlike effect. Thinking out loud, I suppose I'm not too off-base from that observation, as this new film does feature quite a few disturbing dream sequences.

Performance wise, I think the whole cast did a stellar job, even if I think Bill Skarsgard can sound a little goofy at times as Count Orlok (that could just be me though). Speaking of which, the movie can also get pretty funny at points too. Humor has been present in Robert Eggers' previous films, The Lighthouse (2019) comes to mind, but I think I found myself chuckling and full out laughing the most here. There is an exchange between Willem Dafoe's professor character and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character, Friedrich, as Dafoe is about to do a procedure that sent me. Additionally, there are times when the script and the editing play along with each other for a few laughs. I should stress that the bits of the movie that I found funny seem to be intentional and did not take away from the horror elements; I just think that a horror movie, even if it's not explicitly a horror comedy, can still have moments of levity.

When it comes to ratings, I'm not gonna do the whole 5/5, 7/10, or letter grade shit. Between Best Movie Ever, Worst Movie Ever, or Just a Movie, I'm gonna give Nosferatu (2024) a Best Movie Ever. Please go see it, although perhaps don't bring immediate family along as this movie can get a little freaky with it, and I don't mean that in a gore or violence way. Let's just say this ain't your grand or great-grandparent's Nosferatu.

When it comes to looking back at the movies I've seen in 2024, and I mean movies that came out this year, it's a little tough for me to pin down what I've watched. It certainly seems like I have watched more movies in the theater this year compared to last year or even 2022 I believe. As I'm writing this, I got a Wikipedia list of American 2024 movies on my second monitor to remember what I watched. When it comes to the big-budget and / or highly promoted movies, I saw Dune Part II (dir: Dennis Villeneuve), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (dir: George Miller), Alien Romulus (dir: Fede Alvarez), and Challengers (dir: Luca Guadagnino). I'll give special marks to Challengers and Alien Romulus. Even though Dune Part II was one of my most anticipated movies for 2024 (not to mention a great theater experience), I saw Challengers on a whim and enjoyed it quite a bit; as for Alien Romulus, I thought Alvarez and his team did a great job making the franchise feel fresh and scary again in a way that it's 2017 predecessor didn't quite achieve. I also recently saw The Wild Robot (dir: Chris Sanders), which was a visual treat that totally did not make me almost cry on three separate occasions.

In regards to the smaller more "indie" films that I've seen this year, my top picks would be Monkey Man (dir: Dev Patel), Longlegs (dir: Osgood Perkins), and In a Violent Nature (dir: Chris Nash). Special Mentions go to Late Night with the Devil (dir: Colin Cairnes) and The Substance (dir: Coralie Fargeat). It's funny because I got a lot of enjoyment from Late Night and In a Violent Nature, but I seem to be the only one in my core friend group that does. Both of these movies, as well as Longlegs, get points from me in the "vibes department", although that's not the only thing these movies have going for them. As for The Substance, I think it is a great body horror whose concepts and themes I enjoy the more I think about them. As for other movies that sort of fit this category, I didn't feel that Love Lies Bleeding (dir: Rose Glass) and MaXXXine (dir: Ti West) quite lived up to what I hoped. That's not to say these are bad movies; Love Lies can be a little forgettable at worse and MaXXXine, while good, has some structural issues that makes it not as strong as the other films in the X Trilogy. Maybe I'm just over modern movies that take place during the 80s, are heavily stylized to the time period, and don't go further into tearing down the nostalgia surrounding the decade.

There's still some 2024 movies that I have yet to see and want to. Sometimes I Think About Dying (dir: Rachel Lambert), Kinds of Kindness (dir: Yorgos Lanthimos), I Saw the TV Glow (dir: Jane Schoenbrun), Heretic (dir: Scott Beck), and Young Woman and the Sea (dir: Joachim Ronning) come to mind. I'm totally not a Daisy Ridley stan I swear. There are also some older movies that I have seen for the first time this year that I enjoyed: Trainspotting (dir: Danny Boyle, 1996), A Face in the Crowd (dir: Elia Kazan, 1957), Real Life (dir: Albert Brooks, 1979), and Poor Things (dir: Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023) to name a few. Moreover, films like Paper Moon (dir: Peter Bogdanovich & Polly Platt, 1973), Joint Security Area (dir: Park Chan-wook, 2000), and El Mariachi (dir: Robert Rodriguez, 1993) were bangers that I first saw in college and had the pleasure of re-watching after so many years.

If I had to pick an overall favorite, my mind keeps going back to Monkey Man. I've only seen it twice this year, but I continue to think about it. Perhaps it's been the shitty things that have been happening, are happening, and will continue to happen to folks here at home and overseas, but honestly this movie gets me hyped. It's hyper-violent and can get pretty dark at points, but I love seeing Dev Patel's character become more than an angry violent guy out for revenge and take on something greater than himself. But I did just re-watch Shark Tale (dir: Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, & Rob Letterman, 2004) with friends, so I have to give the crown to that instead.

Good night. Next time I post, it'll be in 2025 bby!