Potatohead

This is my first robert eggers movie. I really really liked it at first. The feel, the sets, the lighting and the fucking accents. Omg, bill skarsgard (still can't believe it's him) saying herr knock will live in my mind rent free. This movie isn't particularly scary, but very disturbing and bleak. The gore, the mania and tone were set really well. Ideally, this movie should be an 8.5 but oh dear, the ending was really bad and put me off. I was intrigued by the almost sensual way they show nosferatu sucking blood. The euphoric face that thomas or ellen, and the very disturbing way he undulates over thomas. Creeped me out a bit. The themes of Ellen reprising her sexuality because it is deemed as wrong while men, like fredrich not needing to do so is very evident, along with the sexual assault allegory going on bw ellen and nosferatu. The only way nosferatu (the rapist) can be defeated is by ellen (the rape victim) consenting (via blackmail and having no other choice) to getting her blood sucked (intercourse/sex) till morning? What the fuck? So the only way to kill the rapist is for the victim to get raped and and sacrifice herself? This didn't sit right with me at all. In fact, I should bump down some more points just for this very fact. Ellen was groomed since she was a kid. Manipulated and assaulted by the fucking vampire himself, but she has to do it again to save everyone. It just pisses me off because the narrative could have been written in any other way, but it was chosen to be like this. I don't care if this was how it was in the original stories. It doesn't matter to me. It sucks so much because the film right before the ending was fucking fantastic. It's a shame, really.

Edit: I've apparently seen the director's cut (three hours). Oh dear, so the original cut must have been even worse. I've only seen the shining once and enjoyed it quite a bit and i love Mike flanagans shows so I was really excited to watch this one. All things considered, it's alright. It has a really good first act and loved all the scenes where they focused on Dannys rehab. The second act with Rebecca Ferguson was.... Well, it was odd. There are some sexual and almost incestual connotations in the true knot. Rapey too. The murder scene made me quite uncomfortable with the sexual assault imagery, but it is also jarring because the movie is trying so hard to be pg 13 and then u get a scene like this. I do like the killing of the true knot. It looked like a thriller during those portions. I thought snakebite andy would have a bit more to do because of how much significance she had during the start of the movie but she does too before a final fuck you to danny. This is where my problems start. I do not like how they dealt with Abras father's death. There is literally no grief from her and how she responds to her mom. I just don't believe that a 13 year old would do that. The biggest sin of this movie though, is the final act in the overlook hotel. At first, I thought that the reuse of the first scenes of the shining were really cool but then they enter the overlook and kinda retcon it into something like the hill House from haunting of hill House. I mean, I get it, but it felt odd. The set looks like shit tho, and all the callbacks are just so cheap and boring. Come onnn, the fucking blood elevator again? But with shitty Rebecca Ferguson greenscreen? And same old twins? It's regurgitating the same scenes for fan service. I get that Mike flanagan had an impossibly task here, with writing a sequal to kubriks movie and kings book, which are fundamentally different, but he could have done a better job. A slower movie focusing on Dannys rehab and his relationship with abra could have worked so much better. I did like Dannys convo with his dad tho, but the actor looked kinda odd. Still better than AI or deepfakes, tho. Overall, the third act killed it for me.

Dear god, park chan wook, even in ur good movies, u have sexist undertones. The permormative sex scene at the end and the subtle suggestion that Hideko didn't get seduced by the count solely because she was gay. It sucks because this is actually a really good movie