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Eric J

@ericj@neodb.social

I like movies and music in probably like a 65/35 split. I like food of all kinds but have no desire to learn how to cook.

neodb.social keeps a catalogue of its own, so what this account watched shows here. Only films and series do: anything else it logs stays on its server. It hands out only this account's most recent posts, so the counts below are what has reached this server, and they fill in as the account logs more. Open the original profile

Renfield 2023

1h 33m Comedy Rated 2.5 out of 5

I'm not usually a "voice over narration is lazy writing" type of guy, but I am here.

Having just watched Tod Browning's Dracula (1931), where Bela Lugosi is the Drac we all know and love, and which is Renfield's jumping-off point, I really dug the beginning where Nic and Nick recreate a couple of the scenes, but this device is quickly abandoned and the movie becomes a sort of crime action self-help comedy mish-mash that is only okay at all of those things.

I'm not mad that I watched it, but it could've been better (especially when Cage starts off with a pretty good Lugosi that devolves over the course of the movie to just a Cage being Cage-a-thon; I'm fine with that in short bursts, but it became a bit played out by the time things wrap up).

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 1976

1h 57m Horror Rated 4.0 out of 5

Nothing about this film is easy. Watching it. Talking about it. Thinking about it. Writing about it. It's uncompromising. It's a struggle and that's the point.

How brave were all involved to bring such an unflinchingly atrociously powerful piece of political work to life? How harrowing it must've been and yet how horrible to know that things much worse have happened, are (terrible to think) happening, will (worse to consider) happen again.

Gut-punch cinema that feels like a necessity, but such a challenging one to endure.

Dracula 1931

1h 14m Horror Rated 3.0 out of 5

There's a part of me that feels like this would've worked better as a silent movie, but then I think "Well then we wouldn't get to hear Renfield's utterly insane laughter or what would become the standard for how a Count of such renown should sound," and so I'm left feeling mixed.

Pretty to look at, though, and props to Lucy for being kinda into Drac's whole thing.

Shadow of the Vampire 2000

1h 35m Drama Rated 4.0 out of 5

Everyone knows that Max Schreck played Count Orlok in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu. What this movie presupposes is: Maybe he actually was Count Orlok?

I made a list of 13 Dracula/Nosferatu movies and put them in an order I thought would be fun to go through this month. I don't think I'll be able to get through all of them in the order I've prescribed for myself (I shared my idea with my wife who was quick to nope out), so I'm just watching what I can as I can instead.

Since, in the past two years, I've seen the main Nosferatus (Murnau, Herzog, Eggers), and the first two movies on my list were a rewatch of Murnau's Nossy and then a first-time watch of Shadow of the Vampire, I decided to skip the rewatch and go straight to this. I kinda loved it!

Shadow is a brisk and often funny 90 minutes that I absolutely think is worth someone's time if they think they'd be into such a thing. Seeing Murnau's Nosferatu first isn't necessarily a pre-requisite, but I think one's appreciation for Shadow would be greatly enhanced by going in that order.

Sure, Dafoe is incredible and Malkovich is good, but to me Suzy Eddie Izzard stole every scene they were in - what a joy! Udo Kier was also great.

I don't know, man...I just really clicked with it.

A Sigh from the Depths: 40 Years of Suspiria

Rated 3.0 out of 5

I'm made to understand that the hour-long doc on the 25th anniversary release is a more significant source of information than this half-as-long retrospective comprised of a few well-informed/educated talking heads, but having never seen that and without access to it currently, I'd say this was still relatively informative.