Nadja DVD with Suzy Amis, Galaxy Craze, Isabel Gillies (R) +Movie Reviews

Existential Vampire Flick

Brent Trafton | Long Beach, CA | 06/16/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Nadja" is not like any other vampire movie ever made.

It is creepy, thoughtful, and very funny. This movie has viewers divided. Obviously the people who hate it did not get the humor, which is subtle and dark.

Nadja is the daughter of Dracula living in modern day New York. She describes her father as "a cruel and distant man." For the most part, this film is about the psychological damage caused by growing up in a single parent household with a vampire as the parent. She says things like "the pain I feel is the pain of fleeting joy." Instead of saying "I want to suck your blood," she says "I want to change my life" in a heavy Transyvanian accent.

Like all Dracula films, the arch nemesis is Van Helsing. In this film, he is the crazy uncle. He rides a bicycle and sleeps in a piano.

Nadja's crazy sidekick is Renfield, but we do not find that out until a third the way through the movie.

If you liked films like "Blade" and "Underworld," you are going to hate "Nadja." "Nadja" is for people who normally hate vampire films and looking for great dialog, stylish camera work, and have a quirky sense of humor.

This is easily my all time favorite vampire movie.

"

Casts a blurry spell

trashcanman | Hanford, CA United States | 08/10/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As soon as I saw David Lynch produced this, I knew I was in for a mixed bag. It's not that I don't think the man has talent, it's just that he always pushes the artistry and existentialism of the viewing experience to the point that his films occasionally cease to entertain and devolve into a near-nonsensical, unfocused mess. Still, Lynch didn't direct "Nadja" and it never goes that far, though it veers into that territory from time to time. This is a film custom made for philosophical, art-house vampire fans; the kind who think of goth as The Cure and Morrissey, not Marilyn Manson and Type O Negative. The action is thin, the sexuality brief, and the story difficult to accurately portray in mere words. Definitely a one-of-a-kind sort of vampire flick and that alone is reason enough to look it up and give it a whirl.

"Nadja" is a bit of a remake of the sequel to the original Dracula, entitled "Dracula's Daughter". Nadja is the daughter in question, one half of a pair of fraternal twins. Dracula has had many children through rape, but she and her brother Edgar were the only born from love; thus all of the rest were born hideous idiots allowing them to blend into the population (now THAT's black humor!). Nadja is a sexy vampire maiden of perpetual sorrow, enveloped by the sadness of "fleeting joy"; everything she loves disappears in the end. Her brother, thinking them monsters, wants her dead and is ill from not feeding, her "cruel and distant" father has just been killed by Dr. Van Helsing - who is played in an unusual manner by Peter Fonda- who is now aiming for her, and then there's that whole vampire thing: immortality and blood drinking and all that. Her desire for a fresh start in life and inability to break old habits can be a metaphor for many things; drug addiction and bad romantic choices being the two that strike me as relevant. The black and white picture is beautiful, the music is unique, modern, and evocative, and the image of the modern female vamp's hooded form walking down the street smoking a cigarette strikes me as iconic. Nadja herself is quite likable and the cast overall is good. There's a lot of indie charm to the film and humorous little bits of dialogue thrown in like Renfield chiming into a conversation with the philosophical nugget "love is like rabies". Hard to argue with that assessment. This is definitely a film to see if you're into artistic gothic horror with an indie touch that still maintains a classical feel. That's the good.

The bad is that after the first half, the film sometimes tries too hard and is often inconsistent in both the vampire mythos and the overall quality. The biggest loser of points is the unique but often annoying use of a blurry, pixelated camera view used in scenes where Nadja uses her vampiric influence to blur her victims' minds. A great idea in theory but it looks terrible in practice, inducing headaches in the lengthier scenes and making the onscreen action hard to follow in others. I actually wondered if the DVD was defective for a while the first time I viewed the film, but then I remembered David Lynch was involved and let out a little sigh. More good artistic intentions gone bad. And let's face it, when two beautiful women are kissing passionately onscreen or the protagonist is fighting for her life, nobody needs a blurry picture. Some of the dialogue is a bit distracting as well, with the use of phrases like "psychic fax" -used to explain the telepathic link between vampires- or statements like "blood is like chewing gum to these creatures" breaking the sophisticated and otherworldly feel of the film. Some of the plot points are of the WTF variety and the climax is more of an anticlimax, though the ending is somewhat fitting for the character. Still, much more could have been done storywise.

The bottom line is this: if you're looking for the orgy of sex and violence that the back of the box promises, you may as well go buy a coaster because that's all this DVD will be good for (well, that and a non-nude sex scene involving period blood); but if you want a thoughtfully different approach to vampires on film give this one a try. It will never be my favorite vampire film, but it is surely a worthy addition to my undead library.

3 1/2 stars, rounded down because Amazon won't let me change my rating."

Litmus test

E. Wuehrmann | Austin | 10/05/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Arty without taking itself too seriously, beautiful, sexy yet...funny? this movie is hard to categorize. Visually beautiful with a gorgeous, haunting soundtrack, the movie has the potential to be a pretentious art house flick but avoids it through the occasional use of dead-pan mundane lines that are side-splitting by their incongruous placement in this striking vampire flick. When I saw this movie in the theater with my friend, we were the only ones laughing at the funny bits at first - not until later on in the movie did other people seem to catch on.

The use of the grainy Fisher Price camera for some of the horror sequences is nothing short of genius.

Any friend who gets this movie gets my sense of humor and aesthetics."

A Major Indie-Film Inspiration

D. A. Sebasstian | Seattle, WA United States | 12/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have owned this film for years on DVD and still think it is one of the best indie- films and vampire films of all time. So cool and quirky. People who knock Nadja (and David Lynch) just don't get it. As a musician I was very impressed with the selection of music and sound to viual editing. Beyond words."

Showed potential

Sarah Bellum | Dublin, OH United States | 12/19/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Here is a vampire movie that had potential, yet was ultimately ruined by some poor choices. It is a tale involving two offspring of Count Dracula, who has recently been stabbed with a wooden spike. The two, Nadja and Edgar, endeavor to retrieve the body so they can return it to his native soil. Showing up so he can try to stop them is a relative of van Helsing, also known as Dr. van Helsing. Why the filmmakers thought they needed to retain Dracula as their vampire character is puzzling, though not nearly as puzzling as the decision to include Lucy, van Helsing and Renfield characters. Are these the only characters from vampire lore they could think of? For me, it only seemed to make the film contrived, less authentic and less appealing. Footage from the Lugosi "Dracula" film is also briefly used for some reason, as though we do not know who Dracula is. As Dr. van Helsing, Peter Fonda's performance is sporadic at best; he looks intermittently embarrassed and acts as though he did not take his role seriously. I cannot really blame him though, since the film's budget is noticeably very low. As with most other vampire films, the low budget does not hinder the production very much. There really aren't any special effects and, this being set in the present, the sets are not elaborate. It becomes rather humorous, however, toward the climax of the film, which is supposed to be at Dracula's castle in Romania. One scene, which supposedly takes place at the foot of the castle, was obviously shot at night in some non-descript countryside. The next scene is supposed to be under the castle, though it looks as though it was shot in a drainage ditch. The scenes inside the castle consist of one room, which doesn't really look like a castle.

It is not all bad news, though, as Elina Loewensohn looks and acts very much the part of Dracula's daughter. As Lucy, Galaxy Craze (I swear I did not make that up) is delectable; she is quite competent for an unknown actress and brings a convincing naïveté, which is consistent with the character. Too bad she has not been in more films. Also, the decision to film in black and white was gutsy and, I think, a good one. It is sometimes beautiful and works tremendously to the film's advantage with use of shadows, etc. Unfortunately, the overall look of the film is really cheapened and ruined by the use of pixel vision. I have NO IDEA why this was employed, as it renders the onscreen action indistinct and utterly incapable of viewing.

David Lynch, who also had a hand in producing this film, shows up in a cameo. Just don't expect Lynch's usual stamp of bizarre, humorous entertainment. If you really want to see this film, I would strongly recommend renting before buying.

"

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	Nadja Actors: Suzy Amis, Galaxy Craze, Isabel Gillies, Jared Harris, Bernadette Jurkowski Director: Michael Almereyda Genres: Drama, Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy R 2005 1hr 32min TWIN BROTHER AND SISTER VAMPIRES STRUGGLE AGAINST EACH OTHERAND THE ANCIENT CURSE THAT BINDS THEM IN THIS STYLISH EROTICTHRILLER.
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