Snooze-feratu

Quickview: There are two camps of film buffs. Those who love old movies because their old movies, and those who have taste. I belong to the second camp, Camp Rational. Now I REALLY want to belong to the first camp, but I don’t. I cannot like a movie simply because it is old, or because an actor is good and creepy (hell, if that were true, I’d like everything Willem Dafoe was ever in, even that movie he played the vampire from this movie in - Shadow of the Vampire), or because it birthed a genre. But I tried to watch this move four times. The longest span I made it before falling asleep was about 20 minutes (so in total, I did make most of the way through). I even tried watching it in the middle of the day, but that didn’t help.

Now, I will admit that if I were to stick myself in the time period that the movie came out, I may have liked it more. But I can’t physically do that, and I don't know how to downgrade my standards and perception enough to actually enjoy it. I see what they did, I see why it was good for then, but it doesn't work for now. Cinema has evolved and this movie has gone the way of the dodo. It is now laughable, instead of creepy. And the actor’s, especially Harker (in my version the names were actually Dracula, Harker, etc.) look like foppish mimes instead of proper heroes and villains. I can admire it for what it did at the time, but cannot force myself to enjoy it now.

Overall: 1.5 out of 5 Vampiric Mimes
Direction: 3 out of 5 Vampiric Mimes
Screenplay: .5 out of 5 Vampiric Mimes
Acting: 2 out of 5 Vampiric Mimes

Breakdown

Direction: Once again, for the time period it was okay. I can see what they did, and how it set some precedence that are found in modern scary movies. The look and feel of the movie were easily the strongest attributes of the movie.

Screenplay: Awful. Just awful. I realize some things get lost in translation, but it must have been a whole lot that was lost if people weren't giggling like school girls when they saw it. Wait, do German school girls giggle? Do Germans giggle period? Or even smile?

Acting: If the dude who played Dracula was alone in the movie, It’d have been okay. He was good. He could have even been the German Boris Karloff. But unfortunately, everyone else was so spastic and silly, it ruined it for me (and hurt my head after a few minutes).

Overall: When someone asks what your favorite movie or actor is, it makes you sound so much cooler and sophisticated to list old movies and dead actors. The older and deader, the cooler you are. As such, I was excited to get to include Noseferatu, the first vampire movie ever into my pretentious repertoire. But alas, I cannot.

The best I can do is to equate it to my viewpoint on tribal paintings found on cave walls. I think it’s cool that they figured out a way to express themselves and to tell their history in a non oral fashion, but it doesn’t mean I like it and want to hang it on my wall. This movie had amazing special effects for the time, and Dracula was hardcore creepy for the time, but it just didn’t have the longevity that some older films (anything Buster Keaton was in comes to mind) had.