This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
A Symphony of Horror
Plot Overview
In early 19th century Germany a
little girl opens herself for an unknown spirit to,
“Come to me.” She grows up suffering
somnambulism and intermittent hysterical
fits. Doctors are no help, but in 1938 when Ellen (Sarah Carter)
meets the love of her life Thomas Hutter (Emrhys Cooper,) her
spells subside. Nevertheless, she's still gifted with
second sight, and when he her new husband goes in for a meeting at
work, she sees him accepting an offer and traveling.
His employer the realtor Knock (Eddie Allen) engages this
expendable employee to travel overland to the Gunevelt
manor, east of Bohemia in the Carpathian Alps, i.e. Transylvania, to transfer a local derelict
property to a party too ill to travel himself. On the way he
meets a band of Gypsies conversant in vampire lore, but they mock
him rather than help him. As married men sometimes do when
away from home, he beds a wench in an inn. He signs a contract at
night with the intimidating Count Orlok (Doug Jones,) whose ancient
language he can't even read. The count boards a death ship for
Ellen's home of Visburg while Thomas is locked in the castle,
guarded by mastiffs.
Suffering and death accompany the
count, and the town can expect more of the same unless Ellen
consents to consummate her relationship with him at
her own bloody expense. This she might be prepared to do, as
described in one place by author Friedrich Dürrenmatt:
“His experiments were not outstandingly cruel in the way of physical torture; there were others under whose care Jews died of pain, and not of their own medical art. His devilry was he did all of this with the consent of his victims. Improbable as it may be, Nehle only operated on Jews who volunteered, who knew exactly what awaited them, who even, this was his condition, had to watch operations to see the full horror of the torture before they could give their consent to suffer through the same thing.”
“How was this possible?” Barlach asked breathlessly.
“Hope, … Christian.” … “Faith, hope, and charity, these three, as it says so beautifully in [I] Corinthians, thirteen—” (127–8)
Ideology
There's a special section in the
middle of the Bible called the wisdom books. They're layered by
perspective. First comes the book of Job, a long dispute that
concludes God's wisdom is above man's and he doesn't tell us
everything. Then comes the book of Psalms presenting wisdom
lyrically. Proverbs is next, for the most part the wisdom a father
passes on to his son, but the next-to-the-last chapter (30) is
street smarts that one's friends may convey, and the last chapter
(31) is the wisdom a mother passes on to her son. Then comes
Ecclesiastes preaching wisdom got by experience. Finally, there's
the Song of Solomon, the wisdom spouted by someone in love.
"Nosferatu" presents the street smarts one guy might pass on to his buddy. As, (Prov. 30:1) “The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, even the prophecy: the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucal.” Agur is hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer. (Prov. 30:2-3) “Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.” This movie will acquaint us with some low-hanging fruit, a warning to avoid opposite extremes. (Prov. 30:7) “Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die:”
(Prov. 30:8-9) “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” Vanity is encountered by Thomas when he accepts a queer assignment out of the blue and signs a contract without being able to read it.
One also wants to avoid positions
where he is required to lie. Thomas is hardly going to come clean
to his wife about his tryst in the inn.
Avoid extremes; “give me
neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for
me.” Thomas had work with income enough to give him
confidence to get married. He was able to pay the nervous
innkeeper double board. He had enough.
“Lest I be full,
and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD?” He received a bag
of gold for commission but was barely able to escape the castle by
jumping into the river, to be washed up on shore and rescued by
some nuns. Nevertheless, he disregarded the safety of the
sanctified convent and proceeded on his way though he was not healed.
“Or lest I be poor,
and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” The idea
here is that a poor man driven to theft will swear up and down in
God's name he didn't take it. Thomas had nothing but the clothes on
his back to suffice him for his journey home, so he stole a horse
from the nuns when he left.
Production Values
“” (2024) was a remix of the classic 1922 film. It was directed by David Lee Fisher. It was written by F.W. Murnau and Henrik Galeen. It stars Doug Jones, Sarah Carter and Emrhys Cooper. Doug Jones was great. Eddie Allen did well playing the role of Knock. Most of the cast were adequate having to stoop to such a movie as this.
I heard an interview with the director in which he explained that he researched the actual vampire legends rather than go with expected Hollywood tropes. I've read that the vampire myth likely stems from an illness caused by a lack of iron in the diet. The sufferers being photosensitive avoid sunlight, and some of them will imbibe blood to get at its iron. The director doesn't go this far back; there's no money to be made filming sick people.
Rather than debunk the undead, he
portrays the unfed feasting on live sheep and a pigeon. Where I
live there are anecdotal reports of the homeless eating roasted
squirrels. It would be in the government's best interest to call
those reports debunked without much or any investigation,
but the scientist who wrote Never Cry Wolf
experimented to see if he could be sustained on a diet of mice as
were the wolves in the off season. It was a healthy diet
as long as he et the whole carcass. People will eat critters if
they have reason to.
This one wasn't rated as of this writing, but children would be horrified. The film was retro in its dark Gothic mood. The dialogue was clunky and hard to understand. If you're prone to frights, have at it. As far as I'm concerned any vampire is frightening, young or old.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
I thought this was a
great horror flick, but tame enough for my viewing. The denouement
takes place at Christmastide, in a year when only the Germans
had a tree, and modern celebrations would have been a pipe dream. In this
movie they had other things on their mind—like the plague.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Well done action flick. Suitability for children: Not rated, not kid-friendly. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich. “Suspicion.” Originally published as Der Verdacht (1951) in Der Schweizerische Beobachter (1951/52), and revised by Benziger Verlog, Einsiedeln, Zurich (1953). Reprinted in The Inspector Barlach Mysteries. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print.
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