Kwaidan 1965
3h 3m Horror
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.
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1h 22m Horror Rated 3.0 out of 5
I love a good witch story and I enjoy Donald Pleasence and this is pretty alright.
I appreciate the strong feminist angle this takes. I like that almost all of the men are cartoon villains. I love the lore they try to build. I don't love how this is only 83 minutes long but I felt almost every one of them.
Perhaps a rewatch will make it all better?
1h 10m Animation Rated 4.0 out of 5
The "folk" aspect of this folk-horror is the dreamy fairytale-like setting, the "horror" part is a fable about the commodification of art or self or beauty or womanhood or all of the above.
Beyond the movie: If there's a theme or takeaway to the disc (which also houses Litan) this is on in the All the Haunted Be Ours Vol. 2 box set, for me it would be that with a strong will or an idea and someone who believes in you, you can do or create anything, and I think that's a lovely thought.
To tie that idea into this title: It took Christiane Cegavske 13 years to make this beautiful, touching, heartbreaking - yet often fun - movie. I'm glad it exists.
Rated 3.5 out of 5
Cute little fable we're given, here.
At one point, life-affirming.
And at many points, wife-affirming.
Litan 1982
1h 28m Fantasy Rated 4.0 out of 5
There's a lot of "what the...?!" happening in this movie, and when it ended I was very much in the a camp of "I have no idea what that was", but days later I'm still thinking about it, and I really appreciate that nothing is explained in any satisfactory sense and that the satisfaction one should get from the movie comes from making it make sense.
It's a trip and I'm glad to have taken it.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter 2023
1h 59m Horror Rated 3.0 out of 5
It's a little boring, and I immediately thought of a thousand different and better ways that it could've ended, and it probably could've been about 10 or so minutes shorter, BUT I thought it was beautifully shot and that the actors did their best with what they had.
Cool looking Count helps, just what a blah ending, though, gah!
2h 8m Romance Rated 3.5 out of 5
There are various levels of acting on display in this lush and incredibly horny version of Dracula, it's hard not to be distracted by it.
I was hovering around a 3 for most of its runtime, but the last 20 minutes in the snowy Carpathian mountainside are so beautiful, I was moved to 3.5.
Dracula 1979
1h 49m Romance Rated 4.0 out of 5
Still working my way through my list of 13 Dracula/Nosferatu movies that I made, and after watching this I discovered a minor misordering on my part: This movie starts with the ship that Count Dracula was on running aground; I should've watched The Last Voyage of the Demeter> (2023) first.
At any rate, it's been a fun experience watching so many of these in such a short time and really being able to pick up on the differences and seeing what each writer and director wanted to focus on, as well as how each actor (in every role, really) wanted to play it.
I didn't think I would like Frank Langella's portrayal of the Count going into this, and it did take me a while to get used to how fluffy his hair is, but he actually turned out to be a really great Dracula. I also found him and Kate Nelligan's Lucy to have pretty palpable chemistry. A later scene between them takes a bit of a psychedelic turn I wasn't expecting, but it was so well done that I'd recommend watching this for that alone.
I feel like Willem Dafoe may have taken some of what Laurence Olivier did with Van Helsing here and injected his von Franz in Nosferatu (2024) with it. Not a bad thing!
No one will remember me bringing up Donald Pleasence's choice to eat in every scene in Nosferatu in Venice (1988), but interestingly it seems that he's done it here first (different character, but still).
I could probably be talked up to a 4.5! This was better than I expected it to be, to the point of me wondering why it seems as though this isn't as popular as others.
Rambo III 1988
1h 42m Action Rated 3.5 out of 5
Well shot, nicely scored, solid action.
John J. traded in his PTSD for wisecracking.
Good times!
Count Dracula 1970
1h 38m Horror Rated 4.0 out of 5
I'm probably closer to a 3.75 really, but this has a great score that accompanies some decent visuals (almost-but-not-quite-as-good as (Horror of) Dracula's). Christopher Lee once again provides a decent Drac, but I found I didn't care so much for Van Helsing here (he's no Cushing, that's for sure) and Klaus Kinski felt wasted as Renfield.
Pretty good mostly faithful adaptation!
The Housemaid 2025
2h 11m Mystery Rated 2.0 out of 5
Not feeling well after getting flu/COVID shots, my wife wanted to watch something she didn't have to think about, and boy did she get it.
It's not great, but at least there's a lot of it (this is like 20 minutes too long).
One of these stars is for Amanda Seyfried alone, but if I think about this as more like the origin story for a comic book hero, then it almost sort of makes it a little bit better, so two stars.
Dracula 1958
1h 22m Horror Rated 4.0 out of 5
This one's great(!), though enough liberties were taken with the basic Dracula story that I prefer the title on the movie's title card, Horror of Dracula.
The colorful visuals don't detract from the gothic setting, but instead give this a bit more of a fairy tale look that I really enjoyed. Everyone is great in their roles (shout-outs to Christopher Lee's Count, John Van Eyssen's Harker, and Peter Cushing's Van Helsing), and the visual effects (neck bites, bloodshot eyes, burning up into ash in the sun) were quite effective.
Worth watching if you can!
2h 54m Documentary Rated 5.0 out of 5
Regarding Elizabeth Holmes: I read the book, listened to the podcasts, and watched the Hulu show. It was, at the time, a story I found fascinating, just the amount of deception happening. Confounding.
Regarding Nathan Fielder: I'm familiar with him in that I've seen clips of things, but I've not watched any of his shows in full. No particular reason as to why or why not, as he seems like a guy whose output I'd enjoy, I just haven't is all.
Regarding Billy Evans: There are worse people in this world that have more power than he ever will, but he's a pretty great amalgam of all of them. What an absolute fuckhead.
Regarding the doc itself: I'm honestly probably more like a 4 or 4.5 on the content - I would've liked to have heard more from Liz's dad, for instance - but there are so many layers to try and unpack here (can anyone truly know anyone? what is truth/belief/deception?), and then it goes in directions one really can't expect, so in the execution of it all it's hard not to give it the full 5.
Vampyr 1932
1h 14m Horror Rated 3.0 out of 5
A vampire movie mostly comprised of beautiful imagery and gothic vibes, the story is sort of an afterthought. A bit slow and sleepy, but not necessarily dull.
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.
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.
Rated 4.0 out of 5
What a delightful little travelogue! It'd be a real treat if more releases of films of this status (or really any status, I suppose) had something similar.
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.
