At long last saw both Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s ABIGAIL, and Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU.

The former is as fun as horror movies get. Nodding to everything from THE BAD SEED to FRIGHT NIGHT, PANIC ROOM to FROM DUSK TIL DAWN it’s a clown car of horror silliness. Occasionally super-scary and DEAD ALIVE levels of spoogy, hilarious gore. It’s a fun story that doesn’t put too much stake in the plot twists or human condition stuff. It was made for popcorn and should be enjoyed as such…

…which isn’t possible when viewing NOSFERATU. Where to begin.

First of all, no more Dracula—by any name. We’re all cut off til further notice. That Eggers pushed all his chips in to the center of the table to make this ambitious, expensive, and dauntingly retold story suggested he had something big to say. And, to be fair, the movie looks like it had something big to say—nodding stiffly to BARRY LYNDON with its painterly backdrops and ghostly candlelight. Unfortunately, Werner Herzog said it a half-century ago, with more conviction and shock—all of his signature themes of cruelty in nature and the individual’s meaninglessness in the churn corformed well with the vampire tale. Eggers appears to have gathered bits from other iterations of the Dracula story, arbitrarily and without theme, into something that feels both bloated and tentative. The actors stumble around like the cast of A CHRISTMAS CAROL bound together by food poisoning. Everyone is clammy, dizzy, and emotionally off. Lily Rose Depp looks like she’s just shitting her pants for two plus hours.

Forebears from 1922 and the aforementioned 1980, render this story, about some of the gruesome complications that came with industrialization, modernity, and city life, with sharper focus and irresistable storytelling. The overall tone here is self-serious and slow to the few points it gets around to making.

Also, unless your name is Christopher Lee you are not a vampire with a mustache. But you’re not worried about that now, because you’re cut off. We all are til further notice. Thanks Eggers. This is why we can’t have nice things.