this movie absolutely captures the lynchian horror of Literally Just Being A Child. things happen, mysterious and confusing people alter the course of your life indelibly, and largely you will never get an explanation of how or why. you grow up, narrativize your memories in whatever way allows you to cope, and you move on.
we see both seth struggling through those stages as a child and the effects of that same struggle on the adults around him. maybe burying…
an endless parade of misery, violence, and absurdly funny dialogue.
as a long-time sicko it's remarkable to watch something from the 70s that genuinely makes me gasp with surprise. you're telling me this evil guy is going around raping and killing innocent young virgins with the son he got hooked on heroin in order to aid and abet his abuses? far out, man!
the jarring shifts in tone and narrating-the-scene-we-just-watched-through-lyrics songs had me laughing in disbelief every time, but as…
a beautiful, nightmarish fairy tale that could've benefitted from a stronger lead than lily-rose depp. she did a serviceable job, but when you've got bill skarsgard and willem dafoe playing it up for the cheap seats, a serviceable job will get lost in the dust.
some genuinely funny moments - the drily delivered "now why would you do that, sir" as orlok's little madman bites the head off a live dove, orlok himself intoning "now we are neighbors" in that…
