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- [00:00]
Todd McShay
What's happening? It's Todd McSha and I'm back with.
- [00:03]
Sean Fennessey
A new home and a new show at the Ringer and Spotify. The McShay Show.
- [00:07]
Todd McShay
It's a video and audio podcast coming.
- [00:10]
Sean Fennessey
To you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement.
- [00:15]
Todd McShay
Plus, I'll be chatting with some of.
- [00:17]
Sean Fennessey
My best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts during the week.
- [00:22]
Todd McShay
We'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
- [00:24]
Sean Fennessey
That will include discussions about my player rankings, who who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on.
- [00:31]
Todd McShay
Plus, we'll be reacting each week to.
- [00:34]
Sean Fennessey
The College Football Playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate.
- [00:39]
Todd McShay
In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the.
- [00:44]
Sean Fennessey
Full day in college football every week.
- [00:47]
Todd McShay
So if you love the college game.
- [00:49]
Sean Fennessey
The NFL, the draft, or all of.
- [00:51]
Todd McShay
It like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe and get ready for the.
- [00:55]
Sean Fennessey
McShay show on, on the Ringer, Spotify.
- [00:58]
Todd McShay
And wherever you watch or listen to podcasts.
- [01:03]
Sean Fennessey
There's no better feeling than a personal win. And the State Farm Personal Price Plan can help you do just that. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with a personal price plan.
- [01:15]
Todd McShay
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
- [01:17]
Sean Fennessey
Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [01:29]
Todd McShay
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply.
- [02:04]
Sean Fennessey
I'm Sean Fennesee and this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about bloodsuckers. Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Robert Eggers. He's the writer director of Nosferatu, an extravagantly designed new remake of the 100-year-old German Expressionist film classic. This is Eggers third time on the show. He explains in great detail how and why he made this movie. To put it bluntly, he really knows his worlds. He really knows his craft. He really knows why he built them. Stick around for that conversation. But first we gotta talk about the Demon we got my two demons here, my demon boys, my demon babies. Rob Mahoney, Chris Ryan.
- [02:40]
Todd McShay
We are in congress with the Beast.
- [02:42]
Chris Ryan
I like to think I've been filing down my teeth for this one.
- [02:45]
Sean Fennessey
You guys really are. I've been looking forward to this episode for a very long time. And I think you and I talked about it like four months ago.
- [02:52]
Todd McShay
I've been looking forward to this movie.
- [02:53]
Sean Fennessey
For a long time. I have as well. We're talking about Nosferatu, which is very exciting new film that is essentially what I just described. It's, it's, it's a remake of a classic film. And it is so much more than that. And it is also like not much more than that at all. Yeah. So let's just jump right into it. CR. Nosferatu. What did you think of the movie?
- [03:12]
Chris Ryan
I was bowled over by the design and the cinematography and the execution of it. And like, not very, like, emotionally connected.
- [03:21]
Todd McShay
To it at all.
- [03:23]
Chris Ryan
I was, I was kind of surprised. I went in relatively blind. No. Like, not reading a lot about, like, his intentions or what was going to take place, and was a little surprised at just how faithful it was.
- [03:34]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [03:35]
Chris Ryan
Which I, I can't wait to talk to you guys about. Because I wonder whether or not he addressed that with you, Sean. But like, why, why do such like a kind of on your knees, hands clasped, like, let's do the most religiously, like, accurate version of this demon, of this, of this anti religious figure, you know, and it was, it was kind of surprising. Midway through, I was like, oh, yeah. Like I, I actually know this story.
- [03:59]
Sean Fennessey
I know this story.
- [04:00]
Todd McShay
Yeah, I've heard this one.
- [04:02]
Chris Ryan
But then I guess that frees you up to just notice things in the corner of frames and in the background of frames. Rob, what do you think?
- [04:08]
Todd McShay
I'm all along the same lines. Like, I think it's much less twisty than his other movies. And in that, like, I was kind of waiting for that turn, waiting for some deviation and it's not there. That said, I think you're still held so captive by the effects in this movie, by the tension of it, by the visual styling, as you mentioned. Like, I still felt unsure of what was going to happen second to second, in a way that made for a really satisfying viewing experience. So it's like, you know the story, you know the beats, you're still going to be fucking terrified by it. And I would love to meet the person who isn't.
- [04:36]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I'm pretty much on the same page. I was captivated by the movie. I Love this kind of movie. I've been a huge, huge fan of the Eggers project. I have felt over the last few years like he has been kind of upending the expectations of these classic genre or mythological tropes and stories and fables and finding new ways into understanding what they mean to us and what they mean to him. I'm not sure if this one totally gets there ideologically or emotionally the way that I felt like the Lighthouse did or even the Northman did with, like, especially some of that, like, psychedelic Pegasus imagery near the end of that movie. But there's just a level of craft in this movie that is, like, very, very few people can accomplish what he does. And if you care about that sort of thing and can be cowed by it in a movie theater, man, he's. He's just. He's. He's cooking, you know, he's doing the thing that he is so good at. Why he made it is an interesting question. We did talk about it. I was fortunate enough at my screening to see a Q and A with him afterwards with. Between him and Guillermo del Toro. And it was like, you know, it was like Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron talking to each other. You know, I was just like, these are the two guys who just get this more than anybody get. They.
- [05:45]
Todd McShay
These.
- [05:45]
Sean Fennessey
They felt these ideas more deeply in both good and bad ways. I think in a way, they both get to be so down the hole of their interest that sometimes it feels like no one else can enter the hole with them. But in that conversation, tons of things that, as I was watching the film, I was like, is that right? Why is this like this? They just talked about openly, and they would just be like, for example, I don't think this is a spoiler to say this, but fairly early on, there is a staking sequence of a vampire in an open field in Romania, Transylvania, wherever they are. And the stake is metal. And the reason that the stake is metal, it was explained to me by Robert Eggers, though not in the film, is because when you would stake a vampire in this mythology, you would stake him to the ground so that he could not get up again.
- [06:31]
Chris Ryan
Gotcha.
- [06:31]
Sean Fennessey
So wooden stakes. And that version of vampire storytelling is something that evolved over time, but is not, quote, unquote, historically accurate to the occult. That's a cool detail. Yeah, I liked hearing it. As someone who's seen probably 200 vampire movies in his life. Yeah, I didn't know that, and I'm happy to have known it. I don't know if that makes it A better movie.
- [06:51]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, it's weird. It's like I was thinking about all my favorite vampire movies and they all have scenes where someone definitely explains all the vampire stuff. They're just like, in this iteration of vampires, they can do this.
- [07:01]
Rob Mahoney
This works.
- [07:02]
Sean Fennessey
This doesn't work. No garlic.
- [07:03]
Todd McShay
Yes. Crosses.
- [07:05]
Chris Ryan
Let me throw something out at you about Eggers. Can we start there before we go into the movie itself, which is that he's the doom metal Wes Anderson, and that a lot of the same critiques people throw at Wes Anderson, which is that you are working with these dioramas and that everything that we see in here is precisely fixed by you and that there is not a lot of like, accidents or life or spontaneity to it and that your movies are like, essentially, like, emotionally vapid. I disagree with. Wes Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers. I find his films incredibly emotionally moving. Even more so as he gets older. I feel like he's tapped into a kind of somber knowingness that maybe his early movies didn't even have. So I feel resistant to throw that same criticism at Eggers where it's just like your movies are about you having all the control over everything I see and feel. But nothing in this movie is like, actually about being alive. But what do you do? What do you guys.
- [08:02]
Sean Fennessey
In fairness, this movie is also about not being alive. That's true.
- [08:05]
Todd McShay
Well, yeah, important plot points.
- [08:06]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. But like, there are. Are ideas in this movie and there are themes in this movie. But I think what he really wants to make is a Dracula movie. And he wants to make the perfect Dracula movie that he's probably been seeing in his head for his entire life.
- [08:19]
Sean Fennessey
Well, what do you think? Because I. I do have some information regarding that.
- [08:23]
Todd McShay
I would say two things. One, everything in his movies does feel so considered, like, down to these iron staking details in a way that makes me feel immersed in the world in a West Andersonian sort of way. Like I. I am in it from minute one. I am grabbed by the throat of this movie. I am locked in. And because of that, I think I have a lot more latitude for whatever it is, whatever kind of ride it wants to take me on. I agree with you that overall emotionality is not always the most vivid part of the movies that he makes. That said, I think all of his movies have a lot to say about the way human beings interact with mythology. It's not just reinterpreting myth, it's what are we doing with myth in real life. All the superstitions that you get in nosferatu even in things like the Witch, where it's like all of the paranoia that's emerging from believing someone to be something else, which is a huge part of the vampire story in a lot of ways, too. It's about the ways that we as humans harness our fears and our paranoias and how we wield them against each other, or how we try to protect ourselves and ultimately fail.
- [09:21]
Sean Fennessey
I think this one is particularly complicated in trying to understand the Eggers story as a director, because it's a movie that, since the Witch came out, he has said he has wanted to make. It's a movie that he has staged a stage adaptation of this story at a very young age and has clearly just been consumed by this movie and by vampire movies and Stoker's novel and all of the things that are a part of it. And so it's just like when all you want to do your whole life is tell these kinds of stories, and particularly this story, there is invariably something kind of airtight and impenetrable about it, because you can feel how long he's been wrapped around it. Like, the Lighthouse feels like something that developed over time as he got older, as opposed to something that was just like, this is so dear to me. This would be like me making a Transformers movie, you know, like. But it could really get their way in.
- [10:10]
Todd McShay
It's not Megalopolis, though, right?
- [10:12]
Sean Fennessey
It's not.
- [10:12]
Todd McShay
It's not been poured over to the point that it's come apart.
- [10:15]
Sean Fennessey
It's not overthought at all. No, it is still this very, like, sharply constructed thing. And maybe it's because it has the framework of it being a remake and a remake of a kind of odd thing, which is that Nosferatu comes after Bram Stoker's Dracula but precedes the Hollywood film. And so it is sort of an adaptation, sort of. Not. The characters are not the same from the Stoker novel, but some are similar and some are not. It's not quite the same adventure story. It's a little bit of a. It's a story about obsession and lust and disease between two and three people, really. It's a fairly contained story. And so him having that framework from the Murnau movie, I think really works in his favor in some respects and works against him in others. Because through 45 minutes of the movie, to your point, I was like, okay, so he's doing that movie.
- [11:05]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [11:05]
Sean Fennessey
You know, he's not going too far away. And in fact, like, during our conversation, there's one fascinating, fabulous sequence in the 22 movie where the demon is leaving his estate in Transylvania or Romania or wherever, and he's putting caskets on the wagon so that he can head to Germany to come to his new estate that he has acquired from Hutter and Murnau in 1922. Manages to shoot and film and cut the sequence where, like, the caskets, like, magically float onto the top of the wagon. And it's, you know, very early cinema technology. And it's like it is when you're watching the movie. It is. It catches you.
- [11:44]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [11:45]
Sean Fennessey
And he chooses not to do that sequence at all in the movie, which is interesting because you could do it now in an amazingly interesting way, even in a practical way. You could do it a fascinating way. And I asked him about it and he was like, yeah, I just didn't think that was cool. Like, I didn't want to do it. And I was like, but you did, like the whole other movie, like, you did everything else. Which is interesting that he still is applying directorial vision. Like, he still has his taste inside.
- [12:09]
Chris Ryan
Of this, but he's still 13.
- [12:10]
Sean Fennessey
But he's. Yeah, he's got his idea what works and what doesn't. We should say that this movie stars Bill Skarsgrd as the title character. Nicholas Hoult as Hutter, the. I guess, the envoy from a real estate agent when the demon reaches out and says, I would like to buy a piece of property. And Lily Rose Depp, who I think is really ultimately the star of this movie, as the woman who has a profound psychic bond with the Nosferatu character, the Count. Lily Rose Depp is an important person in Chris's life. She is. She is, of course, the daughter of Johnny Depp and an actress in her own right. Accomplished actress. She's also the star of the television series the Idol.
- [12:54]
Todd McShay
Yeah, Chris was telling me all about it. Its own kind of vampirism in the show.
- [12:57]
Chris Ryan
Yes, that's exactly right. She's like a blood bag from Dracula's modern and past.
- [13:04]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, well, maybe that says it. So you felt. I think my big takeaway from this movie is, wow, she's pretty. She's incredibly gifted. I think this is a great, great, great horror movie performance. And it's a very fine line. In a horror movie performance, you can really overdo it. You can really undersell it sometimes when you're working in an otor horror environment. I thought she was phenomenal, both physically and emotionally in a movie that could have been harder to connect to. And what did you think?
- [13:32]
Todd McShay
This is like an Olympic Gymnastic performance. I think the physicality of it is super athletic, super interesting. She does a lot of tongue acting. At a certain point, I'm like, I've literally never seen that happen before.
- [13:44]
Chris Ryan
That's the thing. Is that what she. She does physically? I was kind of. I. I Rob and I saw this together. And on a very slow drive back down the five, I workshopped, what if they had swapped Emma Corin and Aaron Taylor Johnson into the Nicholas Holt and Lily Rose Depp roles? Because Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corin are lively and have, like, kind of, like a much more naturalistic feel to them. But that's. That's kind of the point is that these two people are open to this kind of persuasion, this kind of connection, maybe this kind of. Of experience, you know, because they are so kind of flat. And then as Lily Rose Depp becomes, frankly, more possessed over the course of the movie, it's hard to imagine anybody else doing this, but I get the.
- [14:26]
Todd McShay
I get the compulsion because, like, Emma Corrin, every time I see them on screen, it's just. I want more. Like, I. I want. I want a variety of roles. I want to. I want to see what they can do. Like, Aaron Taylor Johnson is getting to be maximum ham, which is my favorite mode that he. I mean, he does a lot of great things in a lot of movies. That's my favorite mode of his. But I don't want to short shrift Nicholas Hoult, who has a good portion of this movie not quite to himself because you got Orlok kind of lingering in the background, slightly out of focus. But him progressively losing his shit and getting laughed out of Romanian villages is a highlight of this movie for me, and I really love it, honestly.
- [15:01]
Chris Ryan
It's Happy Holtadays because we got this in the order and juror number two.
- [15:06]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, we were just talking about it earlier this month on the show, just how he has suddenly found himself at the center of movie culture in an interesting way. I guess he just did a reunion interview with Hugh Grant on the awards circuit because of Boy Days, which I thought was sweet. I'm a big fan of Holt's, as I said on the show earlier, and I think he's very well suited to this. You know, Hutter is like. He's the ultimate cuck. He's the original cuck.
- [15:30]
Todd McShay
And the ending, the ending shots of this movie are just like Pete Cuck.
- [15:34]
Sean Fennessey
Observing what has transpired. It's unbelievable. Yeah. So I enjoyed him. I agree with you, too, about Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corrin. They're both great. They're both, they're doing what? They're sort of surrogates for the audience where they're just like, this can't really be what's going on, right?
- [15:49]
Chris Ryan
Just like, this is depression. This is like, you just need to get a good job, you know?
- [15:53]
Sean Fennessey
Is this movie scary?
- [15:55]
Todd McShay
I think so.
- [15:56]
Chris Ryan
No.
- [15:56]
Todd McShay
No, not scary. You don't, you don't think people are gonna be scared by this movie?
- [16:00]
Chris Ryan
I'm just not scared.
- [16:01]
Todd McShay
Cause, like, you're, you're dead inside in this movie.
- [16:03]
Chris Ryan
I am dead inside. I was waiting for Art the Clown to come.
- [16:11]
Sean Fennessey
No, that's enough for a Nosferatu sequel. I would watch.
- [16:14]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, it would be awesome if, like, the CR cut was like, all these caskets open and Art the Clown and in the violent, in a violent nature, guy jump out with.
- [16:25]
Sean Fennessey
That's good. But that, that would not have been scary either. I, I, the reason why AI is gonna happen. Oh, please don't give them any ideas. The, the reason I ask that is because one thing that Eggers really just doesn't do is jump scares. Until this movie. Yes. This movie is the first time he's really used conventional horror tactics and right out of the shoot. But in the first five minutes, that sequence is, I think, really effective. Right at the first two minutes of the movie where you're sort of in Lily Rose Depp's mind and she's having kind of like a waking nightmare about her connection with the Nosferatu character and say his name. His name is Count Orlok. And we do respect him. We respect him in this house greatly. Thank you, Orlok, for all you have given us. I want to talk a lot about Skarsgrd and Orlok, and I think Chris does too. But he, you know, those hard smash cuts and the shrieking sounds, and basically the James Wan style of filmmaking is applied here by a filmmaker who is otherwise. With the exception of maybe the mermaid freakout in the lighthouse, maybe one or two moments in the Witch, but for the most part, he doesn't use that stuff. And I noted with some interest that the producers of this film are Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus, who, he told me reached out to him after the Witch and wanted to work with him. Chris Columbus?
- [17:42]
Chris Ryan
Like as in Chris Columbus, the director.
- [17:43]
Sean Fennessey
Of Home Alone and who is a traditional Hollywood storyteller to the fullest. And my suspicion is that there were some suggestions to maybe commercialize the film somewhat, which is.
- [17:56]
Todd McShay
Does this feel commercial?
- [17:58]
Sean Fennessey
Ultimately, no. But one thing about Eggers is that he's Been able to find a big audience by pretty much sticking to his guns. You know, these movies are. Even if not all of them are box office successes. The lighthouse was the O.G. oh wow. It made that much money. A 24 movie. Like there's a bunch of those now. Where We Live in time makes 25 million. And you're like, oh wow, that's actually a heretic. Made $30 million. That's pretty good. I think that lighthouse made like $20 million in 2018 when it was released. Which is crazy because it's two guys, Robert Pattinson farting on Willem Dafoe in a Lighthouse cinema. To me, same for me. Nevertheless, I don't know, am I overreading how much he's attempting to bend to the will of an audience in the filmmaking.
- [18:40]
Todd McShay
I just didn't see it as that commercial an endeavor. I think the biggest payoffs are the way that a story is realized to maximum possible creepy gothic effect. For someone like me, who I am somewhat horror inclined, but I'm not in the streets like Chris is in that way. I find it creepy enough. Like I see that opening sequence and like, I don't think it's a spoiler to talk about literally the opening sequence of the movie, but just the way that the vampirism is shown on screen and conceived as this like physical, violent, animalistic, like straight to the heart kind of action. Like I'm just like horrified to see it again. And so I'm spending the whole movie in dread just like waiting for the next person to get bitten, the next person to get attacked. And then there's this whole like, obviously there's always like a psychosexual thing with vampires, but Lily Rose Depp is sort of like moaning, undulating in her own way and Orlok is doing a weird like again, animalistic convulsion. There's a lot going on. I'm sure we can unpack.
- [19:38]
Sean Fennessey
I really like all that stuff. We can talk about it when we get into that.
- [19:40]
Todd McShay
Three dudes would like to unpack that we can, but there's a lot.
- [19:43]
Sean Fennessey
Were you openly fist pumping when Lily Rosedev was throwing, thrashing her body and.
- [19:49]
Chris Ryan
Moaning, thinking of like, could we overlay the Tarantino monologue about like a virgin but for no Sparato? It's like Nosferatu is about this chick, man, and she meets this guy.
- [20:02]
Sean Fennessey
Wow, is. Is Ellen Hutter a dictase? I believe that's the phrase that when uses in that.
- [20:09]
Chris Ryan
I found this movie really disturbing, but not scary. I think part of that is Just I. This is just a little thing about me. I don't really find dreams very scary, especially represented on. On screen. So I'm not an Elm street guy. Like I. I find like the like it's happening in your head part to be a little bit kind of like of a distancing.
- [20:29]
Sean Fennessey
Honestly makes you're one of the most even keel guys I've ever met. So that makes a ton of sense.
- [20:32]
Chris Ryan
There's a lot to be scared of in our waking life. You know what I mean? I don't know. Are also pretty pedestrian too.
- [20:38]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [20:38]
Todd McShay
What would you say is the number one nightmare you have?
- [20:40]
Chris Ryan
It's all TMJ related, so it's just always like tm.
- [20:45]
Todd McShay
You're just clinching too tight.
- [20:46]
Chris Ryan
It's like my teeth are clenched. Like my teeth are falling out. Stuff like that.
- [20:50]
Sean Fennessey
Sounds like or lock in to me.
- [20:53]
Chris Ryan
Do you think I've been.
- [20:55]
Sean Fennessey
Are you the demon? Is that what we're saying?
- [20:57]
Todd McShay
In the night?
- [20:58]
Sean Fennessey
I don't have nightmares.
- [20:59]
Chris Ryan
I am like sometime at some point some like Romanian football manager is going to come across this. You have been watching my highlights for years.
- [21:11]
Sean Fennessey
Don't spoil.
- [21:12]
Chris Ryan
Don't spoil.
- [21:12]
Sean Fennessey
Orlok, please. Do you think the movie is sexy at all?
- [21:16]
Todd McShay
In the aforementioned way? Sexual? Not sexy.
- [21:20]
Sean Fennessey
Okay.
- [21:20]
Chris Ryan
Hell yeah.
- [21:22]
Sean Fennessey
You just went home and knocked one out. Okay. I do think that we probably should talk specifically about Orlok and the decisions that are made around Orlok, if you don't want to hear anymore. We really haven't spoiled much of the movie, but I think we're going to spoil not plot points per se, because the plot is sort of unspoilable, but the decisions that were made. And I could sense that Eggers was a little concerned about this as well when we were talking to. Not kind of give away too much, but I think the choices that he makes that deviate or that are meant to be more faithful to the occult study that he's done are interesting and fun and are kind of the reason to see the movie, honestly. So if you don't want to hear any more fast forward, we'll talk about vampire movies in about 15 minutes.
- [22:09]
Chris Ryan
Spoiler warning.
- [22:11]
Sean Fennessey
So I mentioned the metal stakes thing. And that was when we got to that sequence in the film, I was like, what is this? This doesn't happen in Nosferatu. I don't know who that guy in that casket is. And then I started feeling like, is this a dream? A nightmare? What has even happened? I believe that predates the carriage sequence where the carriage comes to the Ghost cake into ghosts.
- [22:33]
Todd McShay
I mean, don't get in the ghost carriage as a general rule. Just don't do it.
- [22:37]
Sean Fennessey
I loved that scene though. The spinning camera and the way, oh.
- [22:40]
Chris Ryan
My God, like all the stuff in the Carpathians and like the tracking shots in as he's going into the camp is just incredible.
- [22:46]
Sean Fennessey
That stuff is amazing. And then he does eventually arrive at Orlok's castle and he enters and you know, they're, they're there to do a real estate deal, just straight up Redfin. And what's the market on derelict Castle, do you think? I don't know. I mean he, it seemed like he wanted something a little bit more like a, like a two bedroom, you know, like a, like there's so many NIMBYs.
- [23:06]
Chris Ryan
In this work right now. Just like I don't want any Orlocks, honestly.
- [23:14]
Sean Fennessey
Fair.
- [23:14]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [23:15]
Sean Fennessey
A lot of time in the movie is spent on like signing and reading documents, which is not something I expected, but that is also faithful to the original. The Count is not fully revealed for an extended period of time. We see him in a kind of blur in the distance. In the background of the movie. We do hear his voice. And you gave us just a little sneak peek of that voice, which I thought was incredibly effective and funny and also somewhat unintelligible at times. But Skarsgard has put like clearly a vibrato and like a beaver carcass into his throat at the same time and.
- [23:50]
Chris Ryan
And it never breaks. So just. I thought an interesting comparison was the way in which Coppola depicts Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula and how he gives him a bunch of different characters to play based on time of day, amount of blood he's been getting, whatever. And his voice changes with those characters.
- [24:08]
Sean Fennessey
The old man, the young suave for sure. Yeah. Mustachioed guy.
- [24:13]
Chris Ryan
Skarsgard never does that. He actually like, even by the end of the film is still pretty decrepit. He's getting his hair back shout out to him. I mean, he is near Turkey so.
- [24:22]
Todd McShay
He can probably go get in the plug.
- [24:23]
Sean Fennessey
It's kind of got a little Jude Law thing going on actually. Yeah.
- [24:27]
Chris Ryan
But yeah, he always keeps the voice. He always keeps the voice. And it, it, it was, it's a choice. I, I love it because I was a voice guy myself, a pioneer in the field.
- [24:38]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I definitely thought of you and all of the rich material you would get out of. You got to bring Orlok to the rewatchables, I think.
- [24:44]
Todd McShay
How have we not done some extended bit where you're a Voice coach to the stars.
- [24:47]
Chris Ryan
Well, no, I mean, I was joking with Shaw the other day that like. Let me ask you, what do you think Orlok's favorite biggies team is? Providence.
- [24:59]
Todd McShay
This is a big movie for Providence, I gotta say. Really? Really a high point.
- [25:03]
Sean Fennessey
In addition to the amusing voice, when he does eventually reveal his face, we see that he has a mustache.
- [25:11]
Todd McShay
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:11]
Sean Fennessey
A very prominent mustache. Robust mustache. Of an impressive mustache. Do you think that's real or do you think that's some turkey fakery?
- [25:19]
Todd McShay
That's gotta be Cherokee fake.
- [25:20]
Sean Fennessey
They don't come.
- [25:20]
Todd McShay
They don't come in like that.
- [25:21]
Chris Ryan
You mean, like, do they just. I think everything Skarsgard is doing is like slapped on him.
- [25:25]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, you need to be like literally a police officer in 1987 in Teaneck, New Jersey to grow that mustache. And if you're not, then you can't. Can't do it. Or a Romanian count. I loved the mustache. That was another moment where I was like, this is a very small choice that changes things very significantly for me. As Eggers said, I think very fairly. He was like, show look at a photo of a count in this part of the world in the early 1800s. They have mustaches. It is like a class signifier that they have a kind of manicured facial hair.
- [26:02]
Todd McShay
So can I reveal something along these lines? Yes. The first elective course I ever took in college was this course called the Vampire in Slavic Cultures. It was just like, oh, this is in the book. There's a class about vampires. I'm locked the fuck in. This is when 30 days of night came out. We went at the class to go watch it. It was wonderful. Needless to say, the mustache game among all of these would be. And supposed vampires is off the fucking charts.
- [26:26]
Chris Ryan
I can't imagine.
- [26:27]
Todd McShay
So clean shaven Dracula again. I get the count visage. I get that certain versions of Dracula are supposed to be more like, appealing and sexy in a way that this one is not. But yeah, if you want to be true to form, he's got to have the stache. He's got to have the thick, somewhat unintelligible accent. Like all that stuff really, really worked for me.
- [26:45]
Sean Fennessey
Me too. I. I couldn't think of another mustachioed vampire. No, I'm sure there is one, but I couldn't think of one.
- [26:52]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone.
- [26:55]
Sean Fennessey
He's a bloodsucker for sure. I enjoyed that. And then you also indicated the blood sucking happens essentially from the breastplate in this movie and not from the neck. Which apparently is also, I guess, historically accurate in so far as there were. Yeah. Closer to the heart. Yeah. And I think that beastly, like, tendency that you're talking about, too, that animalistic portrayal of Nosferatu is. Is really cool and really great. And the thing is, like, Dracula is. Is more suave. He's more suave in the. In the Stoker novel, too, than he is than. Than this figure. You know, Orlok is a ghoul. He is a. He is a. A beast. He is something from an underworld. Yeah. And so I like that choice and I like that sort of, like, ferocity and speed that he attacks with. And then everything else in the film is so slow moving. So those sequences give you, like, that, if not that fear jolt, that energy jolt. Yeah, that really helps.
- [27:50]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. There's something cool about over the course of the film, obviously, his psychological telepathic hold over certain people, the Renfield character, who's, you know, Canuck, and then also with the Willy Rose Depp character, that it makes his physical approaching, like, that much more terrifying, but also really interesting because you're like. But he's not getting any, like, that much better looking. Like, it's not like he's going to come and be, like, charm all of Europe and take it over. It's like there's a very specific mission that he's on, which is to, like, inhabit this woman.
- [28:22]
Todd McShay
I think he is. He is grosser than a lot of other Draculas in a lot of different ways. Like the nails. This movie, overall, any vampire movie has its share of blood, given the subject matter, but this was like, a lot of drooling and dripping and just, like, goop. A lot of goop. It is more so than I even anticipated.
- [28:39]
Sean Fennessey
Also, there's just lots of attention paid to the sort of, like, deteriorating nature of his form. You know, that he has, like, these sort of, like, scars and maggots, body parts and stuff. Yeah, he's. He's gross. He's disgusting, as you would imagine a beast like this would be. He would not look like Bela Lugosi, like, fresh out of the sauna, as he does in the original Dracula film. Thematically, as I was watching the movie, and I'm kind of desperate to have themes in my movies and tend to work hard to find them, but I was like, there's a couple of choices that are made in the movie that are really cool. You know, the idea of the plague coming when Orlok comes and the rats come aboard the ship. Obviously a reference to the bubonic plague. And I was watching it, I was like, this is a very cool way of rendering the same panic, like, so freshly out of COVID 19. And I asked him about it and he was like, nope, that was not something I was thinking about at all.
- [29:32]
Chris Ryan
Did you know that there was Covid?
- [29:33]
Sean Fennessey
We didn't discuss really the details and we can talk about that momentarily.
- [29:39]
Chris Ryan
But I imagine him just listening to like Austrian opera all day and not knowing, like, does he know Juan Soto is a free agent?
- [29:46]
Sean Fennessey
I don't know. Please don't utter his name. The beast's name. The other thing was one of the things that I think is great about the film, and this is present in the original film, but maybe contemporarily feels even deeper is it's a great story about women's repression and sexuality and desire and Lily Rose Depp as this figure who, like, in our culture alone is already like a deeply sexualized person. The whole movie is oriented around what she wants and feels she needs and is at war with the expectations of her own femininity at that time. This is a great idea that powers the movie. And I was like, did you talk to Lily Rose Depp about that? And he was like, nope, we don't talk about themes. I was like, okay. I mean, like, is it okay that it's still there? Like, I. I really. I found it to be.
- [30:30]
Chris Ryan
So do you think he's like, this is like a biblical, mythological old story that has like self evident ideas and themes and my job is to execute those. Or is it that, like, these are my interests?
- [30:43]
Sean Fennessey
Because I would say that scholarly approaches.
- [30:45]
Chris Ryan
These primal feelings, these primal, like, Northman is about vengeance. It's just like, there is just like, I will avenge my father. It's one of the oldest stories we've got.
- [30:55]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [30:56]
Chris Ryan
This idea of like, sexual desire that is both illicit but also like maddening is like very old ideas. So I feel like he's trying to get back to the original sheet music with his works, you know?
- [31:09]
Sean Fennessey
No, I think that's well put. I just wonder when you live in modern times. Yeah. And the ideas resonate to this day. I find that. I don't know. Were there any other ideas that you kind of felt just below the surface of the movie that resonated for you in any way?
- [31:24]
Todd McShay
I mean, I think the one you identified about femininity is. You almost don't have to talk about it on set. It is that obvious. Like, every time her character complains about anything, it's like, here, let me chloroform you to sleep. Let me tie you to this bed. It's all kind of right there. But overall, I think it's a lot more about people wrestling with things that are like so far beyond their control and trying to rationalize ways to do it. And maybe the only character who has like a clear eyed vision through that is Willem Dafoe's, who seems to have a pretty good grasp on everything that's going on and a pretty good grasp of the fact that he. Are we kind of in spoiler territory?
- [31:58]
Chris Ryan
Sure.
- [31:58]
Todd McShay
Is that okay? Like, can basically take the men to get out of the way and run a fake false flag mission off to the side so that the actual work can get done. I thought that was a really clarifying perspective in this movie. Everyone is fumbling around staking bodies that may or may not be vampires, trying to figure out what the rules are for this version of Count Orlok. Like all this mythology is confounding them. No one has an idea what to do. Except the one guy who's like a crazy, kooky doctor who's basically been outlawed by an alchemist.
- [32:26]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, right. He's the ball knower of this movie.
- [32:28]
Todd McShay
Certainly.
- [32:31]
Chris Ryan
I wonder. So thematically, I thought actually that one of the more interesting things that I thought they hammered was the economic anxiety and class stuff, which I don't remember from previous iterations of this story, per se.
- [32:45]
Todd McShay
They little women did, you're saying they.
- [32:47]
Chris Ryan
Really brought it up of like him signing away his wife or unknowingly. But then that fight that they have, which is so electrifying, where she's just like, well, show me the gold then, like, show me what you sold me for all the stuff where there's that edge to Holt's relationship to Friedrich where it's like, you've lent me money. It's okay, you're staying with me, it's okay. But I can always kick you out. And that kind of like the, the sort of edge to the, you know, 19th century version of capitalism that's going on there. And this guy, you know, climbing this mountain to try and get his, his piece of the world and only to find the devil up there, I thought was really fascinating to watch Eggers play with, but apparently it wasn't on his mind.
- [33:30]
Sean Fennessey
Well, I think it's. I like how you described it and you made me, I think, understand it a little bit better, which is that these things are sublimated so deeply into the structure of the original stories that you don't have to spend too much time overwhelmingly thinking about them. But all the things we're talking about are such modern concerns, the idea of ownership and property and power and the sense of loss there. But like in 1922, in post war Germany, ownership and land and power and the rebuilding of a social structure is, like, definitely on Murnau's mind. Yeah, you should read up on it. Maybe his next film will be a war film about vampires. You can watch that and find out.
- [34:08]
Chris Ryan
Holy shit.
- [34:08]
Sean Fennessey
Now that would be wood Watch.
- [34:09]
Todd McShay
Wood Watch.
- [34:10]
Sean Fennessey
That would be good.
- [34:11]
Chris Ryan
That would unite the last couple of big pictures.
- [34:13]
Sean Fennessey
That's true. That's our flag. Yeah, I think I'm. I think there's been a lot of criticism of Eggers over the last couple of years, that he's a guy who likes to play dress up, but doesn't maybe think too hard. And I've been a very staunch defender of the strategy and structure of his movies. But it was funny to talk to somebody who's just like, don't worry about that, dog. This vampire is sick.
- [34:35]
Chris Ryan
But I imagine I don't. You haven't talked to Wes Anderson before.
- [34:39]
Sean Fennessey
I never have. I've never spoken.
- [34:40]
Chris Ryan
I would imagine that if you asked him about Asteroid City and you were like, this is obviously about grief, and this is obviously about, like, the memory of love. And he would be like, it's also about what I think UFOs in Arizona would look like, you know, like. And it's like, yeah, he would be like. It's about, like. I wanted to make something that was about this particular moment where science fiction and reality kind of merged and I don't know. I think that I personally get Wes Anderson more than I get Robert Eggers. I think I respect Eggers more than I love him, with the exception of the Northman, which was very meaningful to me as a. As a man who's been trying to avenge his father for quite some time. I felt scene. But I fucking dug Nusrat too, man. It was good also.
- [35:25]
Todd McShay
How much of that do you think is the vampires are sick. Don't think about it too hard. And how much of it is leaving the gap?
- [35:31]
Sean Fennessey
No, that's what it is. I mean, some filmmakers love to talk about theme, and they love to say, like, here's what I was going for with this one. I like those conversations. Those are easier for me. Um, it's not as fun to interview a filmmaker and be like, let's talk about theme. And he's like, good luck to you, sir.
- [35:44]
Chris Ryan
Maybe he's like, this is Hamlet to me. You know what I Mean like the themes are like, it's, it's. The theme is already. You should know that already because of like the reason why this story still seems to resonate with a lot of people is because it's, it's, it's road tested, you know, so I don't really have to explain it.
- [36:01]
Todd McShay
Part of that too, like, one thing we haven't really touched on is in all of his movies there's a lot of weird magical stuff happening. Almost none of it is good. It's all like creepy and horrifying and monstrous and this, I think playing with this idea that if there is some great power in the universe that is beyond us, we probably don't want to fuck with it too much.
- [36:18]
Sean Fennessey
I'm not sure if that's the reading though, because I tend to feel like he most closely associates himself with the characters who get caught up in those worlds.
- [36:25]
Todd McShay
Well, sure, but they get like wrecked.
- [36:27]
Sean Fennessey
By would be mermaids or they ascend and become. They find a family of witches together. You know, like I tend.
- [36:33]
Todd McShay
You see the Witch as a found family movie 100%.
- [36:36]
Sean Fennessey
I'm not even joking. I really think that that's what that movie is about is that like sometimes you're born into a circumstance and you're like, these are not my people. Who are these people? These, My parents are aliens. They're God fearing Catholics living in the newly established lands of America. I am a witch. Where are my witches at? That's what that movie is about. And it's great because a lot of people have an experience like that. So I think you're right that what he shows you in these movies is that those things are very dangerous and powerful for sure, but not necessarily bad. And in fact, like, if you want to talk about the ending of the movie.
- [37:08]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [37:09]
Sean Fennessey
Which I think is great and beautiful and so amazingly shot the last 30 minutes. This movie, it's awesome.
- [37:15]
Todd McShay
It rips.
- [37:16]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. From the moment that the rats are scurrying across the pavers in Germany, I was like, oh yeah, he's getting, he's, he's in his bag. But that final moment, which as you pointed out, like Willem Dafoe sets up the false flag operation, everybody moves over here. Nosferatu and Ellen are able to have union. She sacrifices herself ultimately and he dies on top of her when the sunlight is revealed, executing their plan. And then that frozen image of him on top of her effectively at completion. At the completion of our story. And then having.
- [37:47]
Chris Ryan
He's definitely spent. Yeah.
- [37:49]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, they both are. They have been Drained, so to speak. And that was a pun. Guys, I have a lot of regrets.
- [37:56]
Todd McShay
Being on this podcast. I had a career before for this.
- [38:01]
Chris Ryan
What do you mean?
- [38:02]
Sean Fennessey
You're only elevating. You're levitating, like. Like Orlok.
- [38:05]
Chris Ryan
He's been arguing about Dyson Daniels.
- [38:07]
Sean Fennessey
I know.
- [38:08]
Todd McShay
That's the real work.
- [38:11]
Sean Fennessey
And then this, you know, sort of like Renaissance painting of a decaying demon on top of a woman.
- [38:18]
Todd McShay
It's kind of beautiful.
- [38:19]
Chris Ryan
I know.
- [38:20]
Sean Fennessey
It is wonderful. Yeah.
- [38:21]
Chris Ryan
You see something in a movie and you're like, I think that was the shot that's been in your head for 15 years. And you're like, I'm going to make the movie so I can do this shot. And that's always really awesome when you see somebody get it. And just, like the flowers and everything, it's just. It's really breathtaking.
- [38:37]
Sean Fennessey
It's really good. This is a really, really good movie. I think I like picking it apart because I'm a little obsessed with his movies. So invariably I'm like, what about this? What about this? But if you enjoy the Eggers project, I think you will very much enjoy this. But, you know, Chris said something very funny to me the other day, Rob. He had a very strong take on. On Dracula.
- [38:55]
Todd McShay
Okay?
- [38:55]
Sean Fennessey
Now, obviously, Nosferatu isn't Dracula, but he basically is.
- [38:58]
Todd McShay
He's Teemu Dracula.
- [39:00]
Sean Fennessey
So what's your take, Chris?
- [39:02]
Chris Ryan
Vampires rule. Dracula drools. Vampires are fucking incredible and just awesome storytelling mechanisms and engines and also just, like, fascinating creatures that you can do so much different stuff with. And I would like to say we did it. We were done. Eggers, Coppola, Murnau. We've got them all. You guys don't ever have to do this guy wants to buy a house. I better go to this mountain and sign over my wife's soul to him. And then he comes back in a crate, and then we have to stake him.
- [39:36]
Todd McShay
What if it's a musical? You know, what if it's a comedy?
- [39:38]
Chris Ryan
Loving it.
- [39:38]
Rob Mahoney
I don't know.
- [39:39]
Chris Ryan
You know, I just. I think that the Dracula character, he's not. He's not one of my guys, to quote Marc Maron, you know? And vampires, though, are fucking fun and exciting and scary and really, some of my most watched movies of my life probably are vampire movies. But there's something about Dracula just misses for me, man.
- [40:02]
Sean Fennessey
It's interesting because this is not stopping. Like, just last year, we had the last voyage of the Demeter and Renfield, right? We have the Hotel Transylvania movies for kids. We had The Dracula Clays Bang miniseries on Netflix a few years ago. Like, if you go back and look, I just searched for a letterbox list just called Dracula, and I found one, and it has 110 films on it.
- [40:25]
Todd McShay
Good Lord.
- [40:26]
Sean Fennessey
And that, you know, of course, that includes all the early the Browning movies and the Universal horror movies. And it includes all the Hammer films. I mean, hammer made like 15 Dracula movies in a very short period of time. And it does not stop. People love this story. They love this character. I think it's all the things we talked about. It's the psychosexual nature of things. It's the suavity and the beauty, it's the terror, the elegance combined with, like, a true monster movie. So it's interesting that you say that because vampire movies that are not Dracula stories, or should maybe I should say even more so, that are not, like, truly European tend to be like, whoa, vampires, they're going to fucking explode everywhere. And there's like guys with shotguns. It's just like, let's make T2, but with a guy who sucks blood. And this is contained to this very elegantly rendered story of a lost time in history. I don't really have an observation beyond, do you like Dracula?
- [41:24]
Todd McShay
I like Dracula fine. I'm not opposed to your overall thesis here though, which is we know the story. Frankly, Nosferatu feels like it closes the book on it a little bit for me.
- [41:34]
Sean Fennessey
It does.
- [41:34]
Todd McShay
I have a hard time feeling like I'm gonna watch a Dracula rendition. That's going to leave me more satisfied with the story than this interest. I'm cool with every other vampire story you want to tell. Any genre, any time, any variation. You can only see them in mirrors. Maybe they can walk at day. Now, whatever it is you want to do, I'm here for that stuff.
- [41:52]
Chris Ryan
Those Daywalkers are just. They're trouble.
- [41:54]
Todd McShay
They're diabolical.
- [41:56]
Sean Fennessey
What's your, like, what makes a great vampire movie for you?
- [41:59]
Chris Ryan
I think it's the setting and setup. So for the top five that I have, I think part of it is like, the vampires are incidental to the fact that it's a great idea for a movie. It's like, what if we put vampires here? And so I think I can go for vampire movies that are romantic, vampire movies that are action movies, vampire movies that are straight up horror movies, vampire movies that are travel logs. But I think it's got to be everything, but the vampire has to be there for me. And then you put the vampires in to twist it up a Notch.
- [42:31]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. Is so Sinners is coming out next year, which is Ryan Coogler's new film, which is not being sold in the teaser as a vampire movie, I don't believe. But as far as I know is straight up a vampire movie, which I think is in the post war South. Wow.
- [42:48]
Rob Mahoney
Looks like it.
- [42:48]
Sean Fennessey
Which kind of speaks to the point that you're making, which is like a very cool action movie from Ryan Coogler set in the post war South. But Vampires is great. Like that's just. I'm in like tickets sold and then I don't. We've talked about Chris Nolan's next movie like 300 times together. Chris and I on this pod recently.
- [43:05]
Chris Ryan
Charlize Theron.
- [43:07]
Sean Fennessey
Has she been cast as well?
- [43:08]
Todd McShay
What, what's, what's the list right now? Where are we?
- [43:11]
Chris Ryan
It's Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o, Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Charlie's Throne.
- [43:18]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, top fives. Now. I did, I did do this in 2022, which I had completely forgotten about. Van Lathan and I. And you can. Here's why I forgot about it. Van Lathan and I did an episode, and by episode I mean an 18 minute conversation about the film Morbius, which is also a vampire movie based on a vampire comic book in the Marvel world. That stinks. And we talked about our favorite vampire movies. So I thought one I wanted to hear from you guys, which ones you like. And then I'll just do five more. I'll share the five I did in 2022. I'll do five more. I made a list of vampire movies as I often do. There's 300 fucking movies on the list. Like there's just. If you are into this stuff, there's a lot of fodder. But some of these we've talked about over the years, not all of them. Any thought that you put into the kind of vampire movie that you're looking for in your top five.
- [44:04]
Todd McShay
I mean, having just done this with the World War II exercise too, I was struck by the variety of what's available and how much you can draw from. And so like, the question of what makes a good vampire movie for me is very hard because sometimes I do just want vampires getting shot with like stake guns. And sometimes I want moody vampires, like finding themselves. Like the loneliness of a vampire and the loneliness of the people they prey on is often what draws me to these movies. I think if there is a theme, theme may be too strong given all the movies I picked. But that's kind of a unifying idea.
- [44:34]
Sean Fennessey
I feel like maybe I should become a vampire.
- [44:36]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [44:37]
Sean Fennessey
Because like that loneliness, you know, I like to be up late. Like to just sit in my cave.
- [44:41]
Chris Ryan
Are you sure you're not a vampire?
- [44:43]
Sean Fennessey
Well, I certainly have the power. I know I do have canines. I do have the classically sharp canine teeth.
- [44:51]
Todd McShay
What is like the thing blood test equivalent that we could like run on you to prove that you are or are not a vampire. I guess we just gotta throw you out of the sun and see what happens.
- [44:59]
Chris Ryan
Your wife ever just to be like. Like, it's me, it's me. I'm a Telluride.
- [45:07]
Sean Fennessey
How is Alice doing today?
- [45:09]
Chris Ryan
Eileen, you will make sure there is coffee for me when I get back from Toronto Film Festival.
- [45:20]
Sean Fennessey
Three tickets for Moana 2, please. I'm not a vampire. I promise. In 2022, my five movies which I don't think are represent. Actually one of them is represented on Chris's list. And I want to let Chris talk about. So I'll share mine afterwards and we can just jump into our list. CR number five, what do you got?
- [45:37]
Chris Ryan
Twilight.
- [45:38]
Todd McShay
Yeah, of course.
- [45:40]
Chris Ryan
Edward is the real Dracula. Edward is the guy that I would be like, I get it. I get why she's throwing it all away for this guy.
- [45:46]
Sean Fennessey
A soy boy.
- [45:47]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. It's a awesome setting for a movie in Forks, I think it is.
- [45:52]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [45:52]
Chris Ryan
Pacific Northwest and Pacific Northwest and the idea that like mild cloud cover protects vampires.
- [45:58]
Todd McShay
That's all they need.
- [45:59]
Sean Fennessey
That's all they need.
- [46:00]
Chris Ryan
I have seen this movie so many times. This came out at a very special time in my relationship to my wife. Yeah, it is kind of.
- [46:07]
Sean Fennessey
Phoebe, should we watch Twilight again?
- [46:11]
Chris Ryan
Are you a Jacob or Team Edward?
- [46:14]
Sean Fennessey
Phoebe.
- [46:17]
Chris Ryan
I. I love these movies. And you know, there's some diminishing returns as you get to the breaking dawn. But this first one is actually like a really good up teenage love story that then turns silly at like the very end. And I think transposing the idea of this like old ass man who's like, you know, looks disgusting and is like has a psychological hold on you turning it into Jordan Catalano, you know, and having him just be a little paler, little sparklier. Paler, but incredible speed, incredible dexterity and eye coordination off the charts.
- [46:52]
Sean Fennessey
Hitting the whole like Dalton connect, right?
- [46:55]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [46:55]
Chris Ryan
And I think also for a lot of people out there, this is the vampire story.
- [46:59]
Todd McShay
Honestly.
- [46:59]
Sean Fennessey
So weirdly enough, these movies are bad. I. You know, I know, I know that they are have a huge fan base for people who are roughly 12 years younger than me, but they're not 5 years old. Yeah. Bob. Waving from far away. Bob, you love the Twilight movies. I don't. I mean, I wouldn't say that I think they're good movies, but I do kind of have a distinct love for them. This is the movie that I've seen in theaters more than any other movie ever. Because, like, when I was in seventh grade, all of my friends were like, we're just going again next weekend. Rolls around, we're going again for, like, three months straight. You know, it was like endgame before endgame.
- [47:34]
Chris Ryan
There was also, like, a very fun Obama core moment of, like, this and Hunger Games. It was. Everybody was just like, I'm very excited to see Twilight on the screen. Twilight was very good. It was like the book. I want to see the next Twilight movie.
- [47:48]
Sean Fennessey
The Lenno culture salutes you, Chris Ryan.
- [47:50]
Todd McShay
You really do stand up for them. I think I've seen this one the least.
- [47:54]
Chris Ryan
It's never too late to rewatch.
- [47:56]
Todd McShay
You know, it probably is the best one, but, like, I think the Twilight movies are very underrated in the. Like, you're in a hotel and you needed something to throw on in the background. Like, it's on tnt. Watch. Yeah, Elite. Like, I'm just like, let's watch the fucking softball scene. Let's watch the weird cgi, baby. Like, I want all of that stuff even more so than I want the original Twilight.
- [48:15]
Chris Ryan
Rewatchables would do fucking insane numbers. I'm just saying.
- [48:18]
Sean Fennessey
And where would that be happening?
- [48:20]
Todd McShay
Live from Forks.
- [48:21]
Sean Fennessey
It's funny. My friends at the New Beverly have started programming it, I think, on an annual basis. And the screenings, just to Bobby's point, just do gangbusters. Apparently, like, people are showing up in costume. And, you know, obviously the movie is a huge phenomenon as an actual movie. I think Taylor Lautner is, like, a significant part of this film.
- [48:38]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [48:39]
Todd McShay
Is he a significant part of this one?
- [48:41]
Sean Fennessey
He's. He's not a significant part of the first one.
- [48:44]
Todd McShay
We're not there yet.
- [48:45]
Sean Fennessey
Number two.
- [48:45]
Todd McShay
Yeah, he's just seeding the relationship.
- [48:47]
Chris Ryan
He's like, I got a haircut and swole.
- [48:50]
Todd McShay
And then he just gets lapped by Pattinson by the end. It's just not even close.
- [48:53]
Sean Fennessey
We. We, obviously. I salute Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and I'm very grateful that they were able to. To make these films, have success and now just do weird shit in perpetuity. So they are important.
- [49:04]
Chris Ryan
Rob.
- [49:04]
Sean Fennessey
Number five, Robert Pattinson. One of the greatest press runs of all time because of this movie. You know, he was just shitting all over the movie and the experience the whole time. He's the goat. Maybe I was influenced by those quotes that he shared during that time.
- [49:18]
Todd McShay
I am here to represent the two genders. I guess we got Twilight in Camp one. My number five is Blade two.
- [49:24]
Sean Fennessey
Love it. Speaking of Guillermo.
- [49:26]
Todd McShay
Speaking of Guillermo. Also, stop me if you've heard this before. There's a new breed of vampire guys.
- [49:30]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [49:31]
Todd McShay
You know, it's. It's crazy to think about, and we need Blade to hunt them for us. That's really what we need to happen. Fully Snipes ified. I consider this, like, the elevated version of the original Blade model. I would like to read for you the names of some of the Blood pack that he works with in this movie, the pack of vampires who are under. Under his command.
- [49:50]
Sean Fennessey
Well, there's one that we must salute because he has recently fallen and we miss him dearly. Please feel free.
- [49:56]
Todd McShay
Light Hammer, Priest, Chupa, and Donnie Yen's Snowman. Really, really something. But Kris Kristofferson, also. Also a legend in this movie. But, like, it's got everything you like from Blade. The vampire clubs, the motorcycle fights, plus vampire government, and that's. That's really where my interests lie.
- [50:14]
Sean Fennessey
It's incredibly fun movie. It is truly the flip side to the Twilight coin. Blade, you don't. You don't care.
- [50:21]
Chris Ryan
Blade's cool.
- [50:21]
Sean Fennessey
Is it because he's black? You don't like him?
- [50:25]
Chris Ryan
One of these days, we're gonna fucking get canceled because you keep. What do you mean, push the envelope?
- [50:29]
Sean Fennessey
I'm asking you a pointed question about portrayal and film.
- [50:32]
Todd McShay
I'm just gonna be the sidekick on McAfee who's, like, looking down the barrel of the lens, just like, what am I supposed to do here?
- [50:37]
Chris Ryan
When do we get rehearsal as movie? What the fuck?
- [50:40]
Todd McShay
It's not gonna happen.
- [50:41]
Sean Fennessey
I don't think. I don't think it's happening.
- [50:42]
Chris Ryan
I thought he was, like, a major part of the. The next phase of the mcu. They're just like.
- [50:46]
Sean Fennessey
Was it in Eternals when we heard his voice at the end? What movie was that? Where you hear his voice? Yeah. Also Harry Styles was that he appeared in the. Yeah, in the final. The Stinger of that.
- [50:56]
Todd McShay
All right.
- [50:56]
Sean Fennessey
Very cool movie, Eternals. My number five. That is not my number five, but is. My number five is Martin, which is a very cool movie that George Romero made in the 70s that is very little seen, is much more available now than it was five or 10 years ago. But set in Pittsburgh. It's about a young alienated teenager as so many of these movies are just like Twilight, who thinks he is a vampire and starts to act like a vampire, but may not actually be a vampire. Which is, you know, interesting psychological study of a moment of change in a person's life. But also to the point of Eggers film. There was a lot of vampirism in Romania and Transylvania in the 1800s. And there were men who were incredibly violent and who would rape and murder women.
- [51:47]
Chris Ryan
That's real.
- [51:47]
Sean Fennessey
Like, what did they do? They believed that they needed the sort of the human flesh to regenerate.
- [51:54]
Todd McShay
Let me dig back to my freshman elective education in there. So there is that. And then there's also the like, oh, everyone on literally the other side of our border is a vampire. Like, oh, the Roma people over there, they're definitely sucking blood and killing. So that's where it's hard to separate them.
- [52:10]
Sean Fennessey
That was the original Bill Wall, as I recall, was to keep out the vampires.
- [52:14]
Chris Ryan
Like the Steve Bannon of vampires. I'm here from the war room. We got blood suckers.
- [52:19]
Sean Fennessey
Maybe it was Bram Stoker. I mean, he wrote that influential bit of literature. He would have been the Angel Studio.
- [52:25]
Todd McShay
He blew the whistle.
- [52:25]
Chris Ryan
Fit right into the North Nosferatu with the clothes like. He's got like seven garments on.
- [52:30]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Do you think it was between him and Willem Dafoe for that role for.
- [52:33]
Todd McShay
The Alchemist Were out of control prison.
- [52:35]
Chris Ryan
So it didn't work out.
- [52:37]
Sean Fennessey
I enjoy Martin. You should check that out. Chris, what's your number four?
- [52:40]
Chris Ryan
I cheated because we're not ranking Fellini movies here. So these are two films at number four. I think I've seen the two of these films combined 500 times. They're. They're my vampire action movie. Go to's John Carpenter's vampires and 30 days of night. John Carpenter's vampires is James woods as the Catholic Church's chief vampire assassin.
- [53:02]
Todd McShay
Yeah.
- [53:02]
Chris Ryan
He plays a man named Jack Crow.
- [53:04]
Todd McShay
Is that a lifetime appointment or how do you get in there?
- [53:06]
Chris Ryan
And his sidekick is played by Daniel Baldwin, who plays a man named Tony Montoya. It's fucking awesome. It's set in the Southwest. It's a lot of John Carpenter doing John Carpenter things. And this was actually like his last, like, successful movie. Pretty much.
- [53:24]
Todd McShay
That's crazy.
- [53:25]
Chris Ryan
Have you revisited this one?
- [53:27]
Sean Fennessey
I love this movie. We have talked about it before. This was actually, I believe Van's number one when we talked. So he loves this movie as well. Very Van Core as well as cr course.
- [53:34]
Chris Ryan
It's just an awesome cable Saturday afternoon movie. 30 days of night I've talked about before. David Slade's night set, like Eternal Barrel, Alaska.
- [53:45]
Todd McShay
Just an all time vampire elevator pitch.
- [53:47]
Chris Ryan
And it's just so great. It's like where would vampires be most at home at the place where the sun never comes up for a month. And there it's. Danny Houston is the chief vampire in this one. It's Josh Hartnett is like the sheriff and it is so gory and bloody and the vampires all like move really fast and are super strong and it's.
- [54:04]
Todd McShay
And they've got like shark teeth. It's like their whole mouth is teeth.
- [54:07]
Sean Fennessey
That was going to be my question. What is your preference on the vampire teeth experience? Because you know Danny Houston in particular, he has like a hundred pointy edged teeth.
- [54:16]
Chris Ryan
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:17]
Sean Fennessey
But you know the classical Dracula is just the two.
- [54:20]
Todd McShay
I think I'm a classicist, honestly. I love the experimentation but it's a classic.
- [54:25]
Chris Ryan
I'm a mid century modern. You know, I think like something where like you change into something pretty scary is better than just like I have one long tooth, you know.
- [54:32]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, cool. Very cool. Normal stuff. Number four, Rob.
- [54:36]
Todd McShay
I'm going to keep it. Guillermo Kronos, his first movie, like another like really tight vampire story. Very small cast. I think it. It kind of plays with a different idea of vampirism which is like everyone is on the search for eternal life throughout these sorts of movies. What if it turns you into a vampire? And the side of vampirism that is actually more of a curse to participate in. So I have a lot of time for that and the sort of like holy grail ification of the vampire idea. Also Guillermo just like has such a knack for the mythology of this stuff and of these worlds. So I have a lot of time for Kronos. Overall I think it's just like a really well executed especially first film just kind of blew me away.
- [55:15]
Sean Fennessey
I haven't seen this in a while but whatever.
- [55:16]
Todd McShay
The scarab, like a golden scarab beetle that stabs your hand.
- [55:20]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [55:20]
Todd McShay
And I want to say there's like a little insect inside the golden beetle.
- [55:25]
Sean Fennessey
That little creature design is like a. It's like a echo signal of what's to come when he gets like $100 million to make a movie. You know, he's so good at that level of design. It's a really good movie. Kronos. I like that pick. My number four is movie I watched last night for the first time. I was looking around for another Universal film because obviously when the TOD Browning movie in 31 came out, it was a sensation. It faulted Bel Lugosi to become a huge star. Unfortunately, Dracula dies at the end of that movie, so it's a little hard to make some more movies. This movie is a proper sequel to the original Dracula. It's called Dracula's Daughter. We didn't know in the original Dracula that Dracula had a daughter, but this movie presupposes that she did and certainly does. Dracula's Daughter is really interesting. It is like part of the Universal assembly line chain of films. And this is a vampire movie about a woman kind of coming to grips with her father's death. She believes that if she is able to destroy her father's corpse, that she will be set free from the curse of vampirism.
- [56:29]
Todd McShay
Can I say that that's not how this stuff works?
- [56:31]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. There's some invented mythology in this movie, but the movie, which is directed by Lambert Hillier, is. Has great tone atmosphere, very unsettling kind of movie. Very short. It's only 71 minutes and it is very clearly a crypto lesbian drama. And one of the original portrayals of gay love between two women in a movie. And there are a couple of other examples of this. I just watched another Val Lewton movie like a few months ago that also features this kind of relationship. But if you look at it through that prism, it's just another great reading of like what you can do with a vampire movie. And the obsession that we see between Orlok and Ellen in the movie is the same between these two women in this story. One a kind of like raven haired seductress and another kind of blonde, innocent. So very cool movie.
- [57:16]
Chris Ryan
It's actually a really good segue to the number three, for sure.
- [57:20]
Sean Fennessey
Oh, yeah, Fire away.
- [57:21]
Todd McShay
Yeah. Only Lovers Left Alive.
- [57:23]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. Jar Mush's 2000, Jim Jarmush's 2013 movie with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. Maybe my favorite Tom Hiddleston performance.
- [57:31]
Todd McShay
Honestly, the role they were both meant to play.
- [57:33]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. And it is.
- [57:34]
Todd McShay
They're so good in it.
- [57:35]
Chris Ryan
What if the two coolest people literally of all time were vampiric lovers who lived through centuries and like, fought and left each other and came back to one another. And it has. It's this moment in Jim Jarvis's career where he kind of gets some mainstream notoriety for a couple of his indie films and then starts to work with bigger actors and then takes on this project that's essentially like taking his tone and applying it to big genre movies. So Westerns vampire movie, zombie movie. And this is one of my favorite films by him, but is really like the central sort of like relationship between Swinton and Hiddleston is so awesome.
- [58:15]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [58:16]
Chris Ryan
And it's just like, if you haven't seen this movie, I. I honestly recommend this the most out of all of the movies we're going to talk about today.
- [58:21]
Todd McShay
It has such a cool musical sensibility too, because he's like, obviously this musician has lived hundreds of years writing a bunch of mostly funeral dirges. Like, I mean, it's almost like fuzz rock.
- [58:31]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. It's like.
- [58:34]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [58:34]
Todd McShay
And I think it's set in Detroit, which is probably the only vampire movie that operates that way. I think it has a couple things going for it that other vampire movies don't. One, this idea of blood is almost like a hallucinogenic drug more so than a life force. Like they do need it to survive, but it gives them a high.
- [58:49]
Sean Fennessey
I mean, it's very much a stand in for heroin completely. Like, it is so heroin chic the whole movie. And it's very clearly mapped onto what if you just sat around and listened to Scott Walker and Lou Reed 80s records. Like, that's basically what they're doing in the movie. So it's very, very, very cool.
- [59:04]
Todd McShay
And also the part that it. Because it is in Detroit, in decay, I think it's as much a movie about like, what vampires make of us as, you know, as opposed to what we make of them or what they make of each other. It's like, what do you do with an eternal life when you see humans just fucking up everything that they touch.
- [59:18]
Sean Fennessey
Speaking of fucking up everything they touch, my number three is. I don't know if this is one of my favorite vampire movie, but it's a very cool film that is somewhat related to Martin, which is called Trouble Every Day. It's a Claire Denis movie from 2001, stars Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dahlia. And it is once again about a movie about people who think that they are vampires and who wreak fucking havoc. And there is like an extraordinary kill in the middle of this movie. It's related to another movie that was on my previous list in my mind, which is called the Addiction, which was an Abel Ferrara movie starring Lily Taylor in the 90s. And they both have these kind of centerpiece murder sequences that are very unnerving but weirdly very sexual. The addiction is a little bit more of a parable about aids. Trouble Every day is something else.
- [60:00]
Chris Ryan
Something I feel like the Larry Fessenden movie Habit which is really cool, but fits into this as like a trinity of.
- [60:07]
Sean Fennessey
Absolutely, yeah. Independently made, using that genre Trojan Horse to explore something bigger in the culture. But Trouble Every Day is a very, very cool and kind of mystifying movie at the end when you get to it, and Vincent Gallo, like, I'm not spoiling it. He just kind of decides like, okay, I think I'm done with that. And they like, get on the road and you're just like. So you just had an interregnum period of your life in which you were a vampire.
- [60:26]
Todd McShay
If you told me Vincent Gallo actually believed that, I would believe that.
- [60:29]
Sean Fennessey
It does seem believable. Okay, number two, Chris.
- [60:33]
Chris Ryan
I got Near Dark, which is Kathryn Bigelow's Southwestern travelogue about a couple, like basically a Bonnie and Clyde Badlands kind of situation where, you know, this couple is wreaking havoc throughout the Southwest and falls in with a group of like, traveling vampire criminals. Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, just like the James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow All Stars are in this. And I think it, it kind of has. It's the perfect marriage of like a director with this very high style and this very hard genre thing. But then it's like, let's, let's actually like imbue this onto like a real world situation. It's just a fantastic, fantastic film.
- [61:16]
Todd McShay
I'm not up on this at all. I gotta, I gotta catch up.
- [61:18]
Sean Fennessey
This was my number one when we did the list originally. This movie is in desperate need of a 4k restoration. They should put this movie back in theaters. They should put it on physical media. It's very hard. I don't know if it's hard. You probably could just rent it. Yeah.
- [61:29]
Chris Ryan
But I think you can get it. But it's not a great print.
- [61:32]
Sean Fennessey
Not a great. Yeah, not exactly. Just a rip, rip, rip roaring movie. And then when it's not, is a very ethereal coming of age story. Great movie. Okay, number two, Rob.
- [61:45]
Todd McShay
Yeah, I think we share a number two.
- [61:46]
Sean Fennessey
We do share a number two.
- [61:47]
Todd McShay
Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I think has a lot in common with nose fraud too, in a way. Like, I believe in rewarding vision with a list like this. Like, this is a movie that has a clear sensibility. I think it deserves placement on production design and costuming. And Gary Oldman going so fucking hard every second that he's on screen in this movie. An absolute style icon. You were talking about the various Draculas that we see. I prefer steampunk, little blue glasses. That's kind of my preferred Dracula mode. I just think it's a really cool Dracula adaptation in which he almost gets to be kind of a wolfman version of a vampire.
- [62:21]
Sean Fennessey
Also a kind of beast.
- [62:23]
Todd McShay
Definitely more of a beastie vibe. And plus, you got Keanu in there cooking, too, getting worked over by Dracula's brides. I think it's just a really fun time.
- [62:32]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah.
- [62:32]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I, like, I. I revisited this movie for Megalopolis, and I was just blown away, and I probably hadn't seen it in 20 years, and I was just blown away by the level of craft that's going on.
- [62:42]
Todd McShay
It's a classic. We didn't know how good we had it.
- [62:45]
Chris Ryan
Also, one of the great movies of that was, like, one of the great texts that people wrote about at the time when it came out, because there was a lot of access to this production. There's a lot riding on this as. As is with many Coppola films. And just the controversial about, like, casting Winona and Keanu and these parts that probably required, like, British theatrical presence. And it's. It's an awesome movie to go.
- [63:07]
Sean Fennessey
I think Winona is pretty good. I mean, Keanu was kind of famously not good.
- [63:10]
Todd McShay
He's struggling.
- [63:11]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Whoa. That looks like a vampire.
- [63:16]
Todd McShay
But that character is struggling. Like, that's the thing. I. I think.
- [63:21]
Sean Fennessey
Incredible. Yeah. Okay, Chris. Number one.
- [63:24]
Chris Ryan
My number one's Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher movie from the 80s, starring Jason Patrick and Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. This is, I think, for me, gets at the thing that, like, is the young at heart part of the. My fascination with vampires, which is, like, they just seem cool and how dangerous that must be be if you actually, like, let it play out. This is one of the great settings of any movie, which is this Northern California beach amusement park town. So most of it takes place on this boardwalk where the kids all have jobs or hang out and ride motorcycles and a gang of vampires are, like, marauding around this town. And, yeah, I don't want to give too much away about what happens, but a lot of it is about fitting in as. As a teenager and trying to figure out your identity. Are you a vampire or a vampire killer? And it's fucking amazing. It's so. It's such a great movie to rewatch over and over again. I find myself delighted every time I watch it. And this is probably the vampire movie that hit me right as I was coming into consciousness about what they even were. So it's like you always remember your first love.
- [64:33]
Sean Fennessey
I like this movie a lot, too. And is the perfect setting for Joel Schumacher's whole deal. Like visual schlock.
- [64:44]
Chris Ryan
The saxophone.
- [64:45]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, yeah. You know, his like sense of, you know, started out as a costume designer and his sense of staging is always really good and his like scripts and idea of plot mechanics are always like quite bad. But in this world, just like honestly in the Batman movies, it's like let it rip. You know, that's the whole point of the Joel Schumacher movie is we're not trying to make a serious world of art here. We're trying to have, have a fun movie. So. Great pick. Rob, what's your number one?
- [65:11]
Todd McShay
My number one? You know, someone here must respect Swedish cinema.
- [65:15]
Chris Ryan
This is actually probably the right pick.
- [65:17]
Sean Fennessey
I legitimately didn't put this on my list because I knew you would.
- [65:20]
Todd McShay
I, I take that as a high compliment. Let the Right One in Must be on this list. There are not a lot of feel good vampire stories out there. I would say Only Lovers Left Alive kind of gets close. It's pretty bleak, like especially the end.
- [65:33]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [65:34]
Todd McShay
You know, attempted suicidal bullets are made in that movie. So it's like, it's a bit of a heavier watch overall. But this is about like two lonely kids finding each other and I think plays on the vampire myth in an interesting way. Like yes, it is. There's, it holds no punches ultimately and gets very, very violent. I think the fact that it doesn't hold anything back is what makes it so good and what makes it so that when you do see a little vampire kid and a little human kid doing Morse code through the wall at each other, like, it's just so, so endearing. And I, I think ultimately using that, you know, in the same way you were saying as vampirism or vampires as a, as a way of like fitting in or, or finding your boys this way, it's like, how do you stand up to a bully? And one answer is make friends with a vampire.
- [66:15]
Sean Fennessey
What is your take on the Matt Reeves remake?
- [66:17]
Chris Ryan
It's pretty good.
- [66:17]
Todd McShay
I just don't. It's one of those like, what's the point? A little bit.
- [66:20]
Chris Ryan
It's very faithful. But I, I, I thought it was pretty cool. I thought Richard Jenkins was really good in it.
- [66:24]
Todd McShay
The cast is unreal.
- [66:26]
Chris Ryan
Yeah. This is another example though of what we were talking about before, where a Swedish apartment complex in Dead Winter is an awesome place to.
- [66:37]
Todd McShay
So cool.
- [66:38]
Sean Fennessey
Also just very hard to make a credible film about the emotional connection between two 10 year olds. That's a hard movie to make. And both of the actors in the Alfredson version are so incredible. Especially the young girl is such a great actress. It's a wonderful movie.
- [66:52]
Todd McShay
I'm glad you picked it because there's kids too. There's also the dimension of what it's like to be the caretaker for a kid vampire, which is.
- [66:58]
Sean Fennessey
That's such a great little wrinkle in the story that it's like, what if Renfield was your babysitter? You know, just. Just a super good idea. So my number one on this list is Fright Night, which is a movie that I also hadn't seen in a long time and I rewatched during the spooky season and it's just like such a fun movie. And I had forgotten to your point about Eggers being very excited to make a movie gloopy. Like the practical gross out effects in Fright Night are amazing. The final 40 minutes in Chris Sarandon's house where like he's transforming into like a bat demon and they're killing the other vampires and the familiar in the house in his death. Like all that stuff is so wild. But it's also what you're saying, which is just like. It's a cool teen comedy about a guy who's trying to get laid and also like is super into a TV show and he meets the host of the TV show and they go on an adventure together. Plus Chris Sarandon wanting to kind of like fuck everybody's mom and also drink their blood. It's just a super fun movie.
- [67:56]
Rob Mahoney
You know.
- [67:56]
Chris Ryan
The remake's not bad.
- [67:57]
Sean Fennessey
It's pretty good.
- [67:58]
Todd McShay
I mean, Tenant, David Tennant's the.
- [68:00]
Sean Fennessey
Colin Farrell.
- [68:01]
Chris Ryan
Colin Farrell, Colin Farrell and Anton Yelchin.
- [68:03]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it is pretty good. I got onto rewatching it because I had rewatched Child's Play on a plane, which I think I talked about. And I was like, Child's Play is very, very good film. And Tom Holland, the director who's like pretty underrated. I think this was his first movie as a director and he wrote a bunch of stuff like Cloak and Dagger before this.
- [68:20]
Todd McShay
Before Spider man, you mean?
- [68:21]
Sean Fennessey
Not that Tom Holland. Oh, that's unfortunate. Tom Holland as a firmatazoa, you know. Well, that's everlasting.
- [68:28]
Todd McShay
I haven't seen him age a day.
- [68:30]
Sean Fennessey
That's a really, really good point. That's our list. My list from 22 was Salem's lot, the Tobe Hooper miniseries, which was recently remade not very successfully from Dusk till Dawn, which I gotta do. Fucking love. Absolutely. The Addiction, which I just mentioned. The original Dracula from 31, which is still great. And still plays really well. It does not feel like an old movie at all. And then Near Dark, as I mentioned.
- [68:51]
Chris Ryan
I'll throw out the film version of what we do in the Shadows. Definitely the TV version, which might at this point eclipse the film version. They just did a college basketball March Madness episode of what we do in the show Providence.
- [69:07]
Sean Fennessey
Any other honorable mentions? Anything else you want to shout out before we go to Robert Eggers?
- [69:10]
Todd McShay
I mean, since we were talking so much. Nosferatu. I think the Herzog Nosferatu is kind of off to the side a little bit. Thirst Blood for Dracula. I really like the original Morrison movie.
- [69:20]
Chris Ryan
Oh, a girl who walks alone at night, right?
- [69:22]
Sean Fennessey
Yep, yep. It's a great movie.
- [69:24]
Todd McShay
And similar to your like thinking you're a vampire phenomenon, I actually really like vampires Kiss a lot. Not really about being a vampire, but about thinking you're a vampire as we.
- [69:34]
Sean Fennessey
Know you are Cage pilled. Sure. And so it is one of the ur crazy Cage texts.
- [69:39]
Todd McShay
It unlocks. It really breaks open the whole case for us.
- [69:41]
Chris Ryan
Whose list do you think Robert Eggers would like the most?
- [69:44]
Sean Fennessey
I genuinely think you would want to throw punch all three of us. So with that in mind, let's go to my conversation with Robert Eggers. This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes Brought to you by the fda this episode is brought to you by aws. Amazon Q Business is the new Generative AI Assistant from aws. Many tasks can make business slow, like wading through mud.
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Rob Mahoney
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Sean Fennessey
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Chris Ryan
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Todd McShay
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- [71:32]
Sean Fennessey
Robert Eggers is back on the show.
- [71:34]
Todd McShay
Hey Rob.
- [71:34]
Sean Fennessey
How are you?
- [71:35]
Rob Mahoney
Great. Happy to be here.
- [71:37]
Sean Fennessey
When did you first see the Murnau Nosferatu? Do you remember?
- [71:40]
Rob Mahoney
Yep. Nine years old. I My mom helped me Acquire a vhs. We had to like mail order four and. Yeah, and it was just, it just really stuck with me. I'd seen Bela Lugosi, the Bela Lugosi version and a couple of the Christopher Lee versions, but I. Something about Max Shrek's performance and the simple fairy tale telling of the Dracula story, the haunting atmosphere. Yeah, it really stuck with me.
- [72:18]
Sean Fennessey
What did your parents think when their nine year old was really into German silent cinema?
- [72:25]
Rob Mahoney
Status quo, you know, like I was into weird stuff, but yeah, I mean, my dad was a Shakespeare professor and my mom like, you know, had a kid's theater company so it was like, you know, a household where that kind of thing was perfectly fine.
- [72:41]
Sean Fennessey
How did you feel it like manifesting? I know you wrote a stage play that was sort of an adaptation. Like did you, when you were nine, were you like, I want to make the things that I'm seeing?
- [72:51]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, no, I mean, I think I definitely thought about the idea of being a film director as a kid, but yeah, I did a lot of theater growing up and I had the opportunity to do senior directed play and I thought like, maybe I'll do Nosferatu and as a silent film on stage with black and white costumes and black and white sets. And then I said that maybe it was dumb. And my friend Ashley Kelly Tada, who's now a prominent theater and opera director, she said, no, that's a cool idea. Like, and so we directed it together and then it was seen by this guy, Edward Langlois, who had like the cool, the only cool theater in southern New Hampshire that was like doing Duchess of Amalfi and Sam Shepard instead of My Fair Lady. And he invited us to, to do a more professional version of it as his theater. And it changed my life and cemented the fact that I wanted to be a director. So like before I knew that I wanted to make a movie of Nosferatu, like Nosferatu sort of like symbolically was like, you know, my primal narrative that made me like want to do what I do or something, you know. So back then, to some extent did.
- [74:11]
Sean Fennessey
You find yourself like intellectually disassembling it when you were younger and thinking about why you liked it?
- [74:18]
Rob Mahoney
Of course not. Yeah, you know, I mean, I barely, I, I like, I can barely do that now, even though I like, that's why I'm being asked to do like all day long every day, you know, but I, but, but obviously I had to explore that in when I did approach writing a screenplay because, you know, how do I make it my Own. Why. Why do I want to do this? Like what. You know, and I think what was nice about the Galleon screenplay, that adaptation that is more now film, is that that simpler fairy tale structure has a lot more enigma and a lot more question marks. So it's a framework where I can put in what I'm the most interested in. And I wrote a novella in trying to like, figure this all out, to embellish Ellen's backstory and childhood and understand Orlok and create a. A vampire mythology based on folklore and a cult that was. That sort of had some consistency to flesh out other characters and. And that was like the first step in. In, in sort of making this movie a reality. And that happened like eight or like nine or ten years ago.
- [75:40]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. So I feel like. I think we talked on the phone in 2016.
- [75:44]
Rob Mahoney
Sure.
- [75:45]
Sean Fennessey
And you had been. You were going to do it or you were thinking about doing it, and it was after the witch and you. It had been discussed and obviously it didn't happen for a variety of reasons. But do you think that the version you would have made then would have been significantly different than where you are now?
- [75:59]
Rob Mahoney
It was only because of my lack of ability, but not because of what I wanted to do. Like the, The. The. The movie hasn't really changed since then too much. I mean, the script has gotten tighter and gotten better and like, less expositional and whatever. But. But, but it, it is the same movie.
- [76:20]
Sean Fennessey
You know, what abilities have changed in that time?
- [76:24]
Rob Mahoney
You know, I've gotten better at making films. I've matured as a human being. Like, you know, you know, my. I've. I've got. Grown closer and more fluid with my frequent collaborators. So many things. You know, I think the. The Northman was such a tall order and, and it was way too big for my britches and. And it was like Trial by Fire. And. And after that, I came out thinking, like, I know how to direct a movie now. Like, I'm not convincing people that I know how to make a movie. In theory, like, I actually know how to direct a film. So it was great when Nosferatu finally happened to go into it with more confidence. Not to say that we didn't challenge ourselves as filmmakers. We, you know, all of my team were trying to deliberately bite off a little more than we can choose so that, you know, so, so that we can stretch ourselves and, and get better and also stretch further on the next one. But, yeah, it was a good time to make the film.
- [77:37]
Sean Fennessey
Is there a big anxiety of influence when there are Several iterations of a story that come before. Will you look at them or not look at them when you're preparing.
- [77:47]
Rob Mahoney
I looked at every Dracula and vampire movie. I would say that there's definitely some quoting of the Todd Browning film a little, but other than that, like not a, not a ton. And the movies that were more influential to this movie, aside from Nosferatu, were not Dracula movies. And I watched the Herzog version and the Coppola version a lot as a young person. So in the 10 years of, to make this, I deliberately didn't watch them. I know that the, that there are, that those influencers are there. They can't, they could not be. I watched those movies a zillion times when I was younger, so. But I, but I did want to try to deliberately distance myself from them as they were the more recent, strong versions of the story. But at the end of the day, you have to respect what came before you. And while I want to do my own thing as much as the makeup design, the costume design of Orlok is meant to be radically different, but I also have the fingers, the shape of the skull. There are certain things like the hump back. There are certain things that I also wanted to acknowledge. And I think me, Bill Skarsgrd, David White, the prosthetics designer, and interestingly enough, Robin Carolyn the composer, I think were the people who fought the most weight of like, oh my God, we're doing Nosferatu. But when you're there, you just have to kind of like let go and be or you're gonna fail.
- [79:41]
Sean Fennessey
There's a very surprising name in the credits. Chris Columbus is a producer on this movie.
- [79:46]
Rob Mahoney
Yes, Chris Columbus of Home Alone and Harry Potter and Mrs. Doubtfire fame was the main creative producer on the film with, with his daughter Eleanor. But yeah, Chris, Chris and Eleanor had, have a, have a company called Maiden Voyage that like they're, they're. The main thing they do is support first and second time filmmakers. And on the Witch, when we sort of were doing posts with Monopoly Money, they came in to help finish that movie. And Chris has been mentor ever since and, but, but on this film, you know, Chris and Eleanor were there every single day by the monitor, you know, on, on set for all of prep. And Chris was, you know, we are very different filmmakers obviously, but having one of the masters of orthodox Hollywood storytelling being there as an advocate, it was incredible. And also, you know, he was there as a great voice to sort of counter my arty farty inclinations, you know, and, and I don't think I'm certain the film wouldn't, you know, be what it is. Hopefully good without Chris Columbus's input.
- [81:09]
Sean Fennessey
Was. Was any of that instinct around, forgive the. This word specifically, but like a kind of commercial sensibility that you hope could be suffused within the things that you're doing?
- [81:20]
Rob Mahoney
No. I mean, I. I would say no, but. But I would say that just, you know, in the, you know, Jaron and I do these long, unbroken shots, and in doing that, there is, like, a slight rewriting of the script and streamlining things so one thing can lead to another so that we don't have to put in edits. There are scenes with shot, reverse shot. Like, editing's great, but, like. But, you know, often this is what we're doing, and Chris would be combing through our storyboards and saying, you know, where's this story beat? Where's that story beat? You know, like, you missed it. You know, it's in your script. You have to articulate it. It's not enough for them to say the line. We have to see it visually, you know, and that care was incredibly helpful.
- [82:10]
Sean Fennessey
That's really interesting. I mean, you know, the Northman feels like this incredible exercise in the freedom of open space, and this movie is sort of the opposite. It's very contained. It's a lot of small rooms.
- [82:23]
Rob Mahoney
I think audiences will feel how they feel. I feel like these, like, oners are a little more invisible in this movie. Like. Like in the Northman, it's a little bit like, look what we're doing. And, you know, which sucks, but it is what it is, you know. But why does it.
- [82:40]
Sean Fennessey
So. How do you say it sucks?
- [82:41]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I didn't. I just. Just when you don't want to announce your bravora, like, I see. Or I mean, sometimes it's fine, too, but I think in. In general, I wouldn't want that. And I think that a lot of times you don't. In this film, you don't even notice that you're watching a oner. It just kind of happens.
- [83:03]
Sean Fennessey
It's definitely true.
- [83:04]
Rob Mahoney
And. And I think. I think some of that is, you know, because of the chamber scenes and, you know, like, this isn't revolutionary stuff we're doing. You know, you can see it in 1940s Sherlock Holmes B movies, you know, which. Then they're doing it just to, like, make their day, you know, but it is. You know, I think it's. It's a nice for. For me, like, as an audience member, I find it, like, more in. In a Little more engaging and with my period world building and everything. The fact that you're just kind of like sucked into this shot that keeps on going, like, unconsciously, you, like, don't feel the artifice of the cut. That said, you know, like the scenes that are shot, reverse shot or whatever, you know, working with a great editor like Louise Ford, that also has its own, like, emotional value in seeing face, face, face, face. But the other thing about the oners that I really like is making them. Because what happens is that, like, all the actors are dependent on each other. They're all, you know, dance partners, but so is the dolly pusher, and so is the focus puller, and so are the carpenters, who have to, like, move walls that are hinged to get the camera out, like the walls out of the way to move the camera in the middle of the shot. And so there's a tremendous amount of focus on set. And I also think that everyone feels like they're making the movie. Everyone feels collaborative. You know, people aren't just sitting around waiting for the next setup. Like, everyone's engaged. And that is also, like, just an enjoyable way to work.
- [84:44]
Sean Fennessey
Did you know that before the Northman that. That creates, like, I guess, more of a team atmosphere?
- [84:49]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I mean, we. We had done, you know, shots like that on the. On the lighthouse and. And to a lesser extent on the Witch too. But. But it was, you know, something that we were continuing to work on and explore as.
- [85:05]
Sean Fennessey
As a movie watcher, do you like having a consciousness of the filmmaker making moves? Like, what's your. How do you.
- [85:14]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, the best movie, you're just watching it. And obviously it's hard for me. It's hard for me because I make movies not to, like, be into mindsets, but if there is a movie where I'm not thinking about the filmmaking, then I know that it's like, extra great. Sometimes I'll watch a movie and just be like, wow, the camera works so awesome. But I'm not even paying attention to the story. That's probably not good, even if it's. Even if it's enjoyable. But, you know, but obviously I watch movies repeatedly, so there can be a great movie that you get sucked into. And obviously I'm not like, blind to the fact that. How they're shooting it to some degree. But then I'll watch it two times, three times, however many times I need to. To learn what I need to learn from it.
- [86:05]
Sean Fennessey
You said there were other movies that were not vampire movies that were meaningful influences on this. What were Some of those.
- [86:12]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, the primary one would be Jack Clayton's the Innocence, shot by Freddie Francis, who also. Who, you know, also shot the Elephant man and. And directed many, many Hammer horror movies. And, you know, the Innocence is probably the best ghost story and. And. And, you know, ever. Like, movie. Ghost movie. Sure, yeah, I'd say, yeah. And certainly one of the funnest gothic horror movies. And if you pay attention to the camera work, it's very restrained, it's very elegant, and it tells the story without doing more than it needs to.
- [86:59]
Sean Fennessey
What about the creature design you mentioned? Obviously, it's a collaboration with the actor. Makeup effects. There's like a, you know, even in the trailer, there's the restraint with not showing how Bill looks. Creates a sense of anticipation. Did you guys feel, like, a certain pressure to do something new or different or elevate what the story look like?
- [87:20]
Rob Mahoney
Max Shrek, Max Schrepp created this iconic thing, and Kinski did his version of it. And then, you know, Dafoe does the Shadow of a Vampire, like, and it's a comedy. But I think we needed to do something different. Even though, again, like, I do some things to acknowledge Shrek and his makeup that he designed himself, by the way. But I think. I think, like, in order, this is supposed to be a horror movie, right? And obviously, vampires have, over the course of the 20th and early 21st century, become more and more romanticized. And, you know, you know, Kinski sad vampire to Gary Oldman's, like, anti hero, like, vampire, you know, and now and then climaxing with, like, Edward Cullen's sparkling vampire who's there where there's no threat at all. And it's great. Like, the pliability of the vampire is awesome. And, like, I like Blade, you know, but this is a horror movie, and. And the vampire needed to be scary again. So. So, obviously, given my approach, that means, like, going back to the folklore and understanding, like, why were people actually afraid of things that they thought were real vampires? And so the folk vampire is a walking corpse. You know, I. Closer to a zombie, visually. And so then I ask myself, what does a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like? And this is my best effort as far as the facial features, the hair style, the attire, the whole thing.
- [89:16]
Sean Fennessey
There are a couple of really striking things about it that I want to ask you about. One is the voice, and I don't think I heard when you and Guillermo were talking. I don't know if you talked about that at a certain point. What the decision that. I guess I just.
- [89:26]
Rob Mahoney
I. You Know, that's. I wrote Orlok to have a very deep, powerful, booming voice, but also like a sort of like a. A pained breath because he was. He's decayed. And. And. And it's almost like, you know, if he. I guess he's in like a. A static version of some kind of decay. But. But. But it's a zit, but it sounds like it's getting worse every time he breathes. And that was in the script and something I developed with Bill. And he also worked with. I also daughter is an opera coach to like, which is opera singer. But she. She coached him to lower his voice in an octave for the.
- [90:09]
Sean Fennessey
The role I was. I mean, I didn't think that it was digitally manipulated in any way, but it does have that sense of like, it is from another existence. It doesn't feel natural.
- [90:19]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I mean. I mean, I think what. Basically the only things we did to it is like amplify it because obviously, like, you know, like having that not be your normal register, like, he couldn't do it quite to that volume on set. But it was. But it's the same sound, you know, the mustache. I don't. Was this coming out?
- [90:44]
Sean Fennessey
It will come out after the movie.
- [90:45]
Rob Mahoney
Okay.
- [90:45]
Sean Fennessey
Yes.
- [90:46]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, find a picture of a Transylvanian nobleman without a mustache. I mean, like, you know, just so if you don't want to Google, just picture Vlad the Impaler, you know.
- [90:56]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [90:56]
Rob Mahoney
Like.
- [90:57]
Sean Fennessey
And so I guess talk to me about that. We have talked about some, like, a version of this in the past, but this sort of like, desire to have verisimilitude to something that may be myth or a cult. Like finding a truth in something that may not be real. And why that is important, but it be.
- [91:14]
Rob Mahoney
Well, it becomes more, you know, the more the physical world and the. And the mindset of the period is articulated, you know, specifically with quote, unquote accuracy, which is impossible. But you know, my best interpretation of that. The more you can buy into the metaphysical things like a vampire existing, I think, you know, at least that's what I've been doing the past four times.
- [91:46]
Sean Fennessey
Trying to get closer and closer to that.
- [91:48]
Rob Mahoney
Oh, I mean, I'm just doing the same thing. I don't know if I'm getting closer.
- [91:53]
Sean Fennessey
Well, like, you made a. There's a couple of other choices that I thought were interesting. Like the staking being metal and the rationale for some of that.
- [92:00]
Rob Mahoney
All of this comes from the research, you know, and it's like, obviously, you know, Anglo authors said vampires must drink blood from the throat, because like that's a good place to drink blood from, you know. But in the folklore, like if they are drinking blood at all, which sometimes they don't, they. Sometimes they strangle their victims, sometimes they, their victims to death. Like it's, it's very often from the chest because of old hag syndrome, like waking dreams where you feel that pressure on your, on your chest. So that's something that I, that I went with and. Yeah, and you know, very often in Transylvania, it's, you know, iron stakes, cold iron is what you would want to use. And staking them through the navel rather than the heart. And the origin of the staking goes back, you know, before these kind of Eastern European folk vampires, like the. Many of the bog bodies in, in, in Scandinavia and the British Isles were staked with hazel staves. And the idea is to like keep these fuckers there. Yeah, like these, these, these are, you know, malevolent people who we want to be kept in their grave. Yeah, stake them down.
- [93:21]
Sean Fennessey
Did you see the new guy in Madden movie?
- [93:23]
Rob Mahoney
I haven't.
- [93:23]
Sean Fennessey
The bog bodies play a role in that movie. Yeah. It's funny that that's happening at the same time as this. Obviously like you were thinking about this long before, but the movie really reads as a kind of like a COVID pandemic kind of a film too because of the plague and the, you know, that's, you know, part of the original, obviously.
- [93:41]
Rob Mahoney
But yeah, just, just sort of the interesting timing.
- [93:45]
Sean Fennessey
Had you, had you thought about it at all when you were making it? Because there's like a kind of paranoia in a town about what is really happening.
- [93:51]
Rob Mahoney
Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, but of course I wrote it before COVID But you know, interestingly, the. More now film came out a couple years after the Spanish flu and this is coming out a couple years after Covid. I mean, actually pre Covid, like the, the. I had a lot of the townspeople wear, wearing face coverings in the script and I took that out because it just felt like too like I was trying to say something about COVID which I, you know, wasn't. But it's going to resonate anyway.
- [94:22]
Sean Fennessey
Do you. How does that strike you when like someone reads something into a movie that was not your intention but like could.
- [94:28]
Rob Mahoney
Be supported by as long it's. It's great, you know, I mean, I think, you know, I don't make movies with a message I don't think about like, you know, I want to tell the, you know, like a feminist horror story, whatever. I like it Just. It's not how I work. I just try to be in the world, but obviously, I don't live in a vacuum. And so, like, things are just gonna come into it that hopefully work with people. Also, when you're dealing with fairy tale, myth, fable, folktale, these are archetypal stories which can be read in many different ways, you know, and that's why people keep staging Oedipus and keep reading Hansel and Gretel, you know, it's hard not.
- [95:21]
Sean Fennessey
To watch the movie, though, and see coherent themes. Like, even if. I don't know if your intention was not to make Ellen, like, a representation of something about how women's sexuality is repressed, for example.
- [95:33]
Rob Mahoney
Yes. In a 19th century context. But then, you know, people. Kids can, like, like, again, it's. For me, it's like, with this film. For her, it's in a 19th century context. But, like, it doesn't mean. It doesn't resonate for people today. I, you know, say, like, you know, the woman's voice not being heard, but there are, you know, other ways that you can read it, too. And. And, you know, and, like, I mean, people have been talking about, you know, the election, which was certainly not anything that.
- [96:10]
Sean Fennessey
Who is who in the story.
- [96:11]
Rob Mahoney
Right. I mean, I'm not even gonna go.
- [96:13]
Sean Fennessey
There, but, yeah, I don't have any election questions, so I might dock it here for you. Today. I was curious about what your conversations were like with Lily Rose Depp, because she's asked to do quite a bit, both physically and in terms of the typical performance. Will you talk about themes like that that are in the story? Do the actors want to hear those things, or do they just want to hear about the world that you've built and kind of executing on that?
- [96:37]
Rob Mahoney
I don't. I mean, it happens, particularly in theater, but I don't know why you would want. Which I love. And my approach, in many ways, is similar to a theater approach, but I don't know why it would matter for you to know the themes. Like, does it. You know, as an actor, like, what do you. You know, because that's not your job. Your job is to be in the moment, you know, Like, I think some of the problems with, like, the Stanislavski approach is that you are, like, thinking about the arc of your performance, which, again, in theater, like, it kind of makes sense because you're doing a lot of this work. But in on screen, you just need to. I mean, I also think in theater, too, but particularly on screen, you just need to be there in the moment.
- [97:28]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [97:28]
Rob Mahoney
You know, and so like, did we talk about themes? Like, maybe, probably. But, you know, mainly it's like, okay, like, how. How do we map and choreograph Ellen's physical arc of all of these different, like, hysterical poses and. And possession fits and things? How do we. How do we make them build? How do we make them grow? How do they evolve? What do they say about where she is? But, but, you know, and. And that's. But that's sort of, you know, myself and Marie, Gabrielle, Rody, the choreographer need to be like the sort of God figure over seeing that and then. And Lily needs to learn it and then be there, you know, and she's in the. You know, the performance is so raw and so powerful, you know, and. But then where there is that kind of attention to detail in like all the story beats is also like interpreting a text. And like, obviously Lily's getting all this incredible praise for her physical performance, as she well should, because it is incredibly challenging, incredibly tiring physically and mentally. And you know, and I should say, like, you know, a lot of people have wondered if this stuff is CG enhanced, but this is what she is physically doing. But also, you know, she does these two. Like, she has all kinds of. But. But there's two long monologues. One of them is a. Is a disjointed memory of her childhood. Another one is a telling of a dream. And those monologues are really hard to do. You know, those are crash and burn. Like, those are kinds of auditions you never want to like, audition with. Monologues you never want addition with because they're so tricky to like, make a connection. And she does them, you know, very powerfully with a lot of nuance.
- [99:24]
Sean Fennessey
Can you tell me a little bit about scares? Because your last couple movies didn't really were not defined by scare moments. This is more of like the traditionalist horror sense. There's some, I guess some scary moments in the. In the lighthouse, but there's. There's no.
- [99:38]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, not really like a mermaid reveal or something.
- [99:41]
Sean Fennessey
You know, a couple things. But this movie, you. First of all, right out of the shoot in the kind of cold open, we are terrified.
- [99:51]
Rob Mahoney
Well, I mean, it's. You know, there's a reason why those horror movies often have that, like, you know, that kind of scare in the beginning because then you're like, concerned about what else could happen for the rest of the film and adds like a degree of tension, you know, free of charge, you know, and. But I think, you know, approaching nosferatu which in many ways, obviously, there's horror films before Nosferatu, but in many ways invented the horror film. I felt like, you know, we needed, like. I think when Hutter threw the lid off the sarcophagus in 1922, that was a jump scare. So. So here, even though I've often derided jump scares, was, you know, I. I have, like, a handful of them in the movie, but I do feel that, you know, they are in. They are supporting the story. You know, like, they. You know, they. They move. They all move the story forward. They're not just like a set piece for the sake of it, but also, you know, we know they're coming and that's okay.
- [100:57]
Sean Fennessey
But as a fan of yours, I was not expecting them. And so when I got them, I probably was even more scared than I normally would because I didn't think that you were going to do them. I didn't. You know, that's just my personal experience.
- [101:06]
Rob Mahoney
That's cool. I mean, you know, it was. It was a. They're hard to do. I mean, I actually, I have. I respect James Wan even more, like, having, like, tried my hands on it, because they are. They are.
- [101:20]
Sean Fennessey
He's particularly good.
- [101:21]
Rob Mahoney
He's very good. They always work. And. And. And it is. Is a real. It is a real craft. And. And it is.
- [101:31]
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
- [101:31]
Rob Mahoney
Harder, hard to do.
- [101:34]
Sean Fennessey
I wanted to ask you about one thing that isn't in the film, that is in the Murnau original, that feels related to my favorite little sequence in the movie, which is that the casket. The caskets being elevated onto the back of the wagon in the original film, but then the sort of carriage scooping up Nicholas Hoult's character. I feel like they're sort of, like, almost in conversation with each other. But how much did you think about what to include? Cause that's such a magical moment in the Murnau film. Did you want to not repeat certain things that felt, like, kind of critical to what he was doing versus introducing your own versions of those things?
- [102:11]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I think. I think that the vampire looks a little ludicrous, like, running around, carrying his coffin under his arm, like. And so I didn't want Bill to have to do that. And so, you know, Simon McBurney, like, brings the sarcophagus, like, on the skiff to the manor house. And that was fine with me. And, you know, and then, you know, the. The carriage sequence was something that was really fun to do and. But I decided, you know, wouldn't. Instead of Dracula being in disguise as the carriage driver. Maybe there would be no driver. Maybe that's more interesting. Certainly harder to shoot.
- [102:58]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Can you tell me about it? Because it seemed hard to do.
- [103:01]
Rob Mahoney
Oh yeah. I mean, it was like we just basically built a carriage where we could hide the driver inside, you know, so. But, but you know.
- [103:09]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. Are you happy with it? I feel like every time I talk to you at the end of a movie and you're like, I'm not quite like totally satisfied.
- [103:16]
Rob Mahoney
You always. There's always things that are never going to get there. But, but I've never. This is the film that out of the Gates I am the most pleased with. It was the first time in post production that I didn't want to just like jump off a bridge. Bridge every day. Like, I'm in very. I'm always very engaged in post production. Like, I know like great directors who like go away for two weeks, check in, da da da. I'm there every day in the edit room, like really involved. But on all my other films I've just been like, like just also writing the next thing and trying to like distance myself from the movie. And here I didn't feel that I was still going home watching one or two horror movies every night thinking like, how can I make it better? You know, and just, and was just. It was very engaged with it the whole time.
- [104:06]
Sean Fennessey
Is it very close to what the storyboards were and what you expected? Did anything meaningfully change in post production?
- [104:14]
Rob Mahoney
No.
- [104:17]
Sean Fennessey
Like you wouldn't see a movie and be like, actually we should do it like this or I should reorder this or this shit.
- [104:22]
Rob Mahoney
I mean, I think that obviously some things change and obviously, like it's, it's, you know, Louise Ford, like, doesn't get enough credit because of the oners and because, you know, her best work is invisible. And you know, she has the tremendous challenge of when me and Jaron's clever shots don't work. And then we have to like, you know, get ourselves out of the corner that we've painted ourselves into. And, and, and, and also because the shots are so designed and every edit is like designed. Like we have to also, if we get out of a shot early or whatever, or lift a scene, it has to look like it was designed to go there. So it can be very hard, you know. And, and, and also the other thing is, is that these, these oners, when there's a lot of characters in them and they take up a big important scene, you can be sitting with one of them for months and then realize you Know, like, maybe we need to use take seven instead of take eight. And all of a sudden, like, the whole movie changes, you know, it is, it's. It is interesting, but I. There wasn't any major things on this one. There was no additional photography. You know, there was just sort of honing and finessing.
- [105:49]
Sean Fennessey
You gonna keep making movies? I always feel like you get to the end of one and you're like, kind of like, I don't know. I don't know.
- [105:55]
Rob Mahoney
No, no, no. I mean, I desperately hope people keep letting me make movies like, yeah, I love it.
- [106:04]
Sean Fennessey
And you're writing right now.
- [106:06]
Rob Mahoney
I've got a lot of stuff going on. I always have to have a lot of things going on because you never know what's going to work. I mean, you know, this didn't happen several times. And it happened like, I absolutely thought I was making. Gonna be making not this as my next film. And here we are.
- [106:23]
Sean Fennessey
Do you have any other Nosferatu esque, like, totems of film history that you are interested in digging your teeth into? I'm sorry, that was. That's a bad.
- [106:32]
Rob Mahoney
You know. No, I was just making a weird face because, like, a few people have asked me this, you know, I mean, there are things that I would like to do that are famous properties. But, like, should they be done? I don't know, you know, should this have been done? I don't know, you know, but I.
- [106:48]
Sean Fennessey
Feel like vampires and by their nature are kind of iterative. So, like having the reverence for the history and like watching all the Hammer movies, you know, if you, if you know it, then make a new one.
- [106:57]
Rob Mahoney
Yeah, I mean, Robin the composer was like, you know, you know, when this was finally like gonna happen, we were at the pub and he's like, well, he's British, so excuse the saying, the slang, but he's like, well, mate, you know, no one can say you didn't fucking think about it hard.
- [107:20]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, that seems true. Rob. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen? Could be old or new, could be anything.
- [107:31]
Rob Mahoney
I'll just. There's, you know, I'll spare you from my Russian silent cinema and just say that I really enjoyed the substance.
- [107:38]
Sean Fennessey
Can you tell me why? I'm very interested in your take on that movie.
- [107:43]
Rob Mahoney
It was just. I have some good friends who I respect who really didn't like it and had very lucid reasons for it, but I just. It was just incredibly sound like it was, it was. The whole thing worked. And was of a piece and it was like, well crafted and very enjoyable and like, good performances and. Yeah, I just enjoyed it.
- [108:12]
Sean Fennessey
That would make for an interesting double with your movie.
- [108:15]
Rob Mahoney
Sure.
- [108:16]
Sean Fennessey
Transformations. Robert Eggers. Thank you.
- [108:18]
Chris Ryan
Cool.
- [108:27]
Sean Fennessey
Thank you to Robert Eggers. Thanks to Chris and Rob. Thank you. You to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Later this week, it's time. The Brutalist boys have arrived. Let's get brutal. We're talking about Brady Courbet's the Brutalist. See you then.