Nadja

This is a very clever and enjoyable vampire movie. The film employs beautiful black-and-white photography (with scenes of Pixelvision) and an abundance of understated humor. Elina Löwensohn is both graceful and hilarious as Nadja, the daughter of Dracula. Peter Fonda gives a splendid performance as the world-weary Van Helsing. A delightful rendering of the 1936 film, "Dracula's Daughter".

A striking departure from the Wes Craven/Tarantino vampire treatment of vampirism of late, Almereyda's artful black and white piece gives us intimate psychological portraits of the count's wayward son and daughter, and their sexual exploits - specifically as they involve a married couple whose terminal ennui is exploded by the entrance of Nadja - dracula's twin daughter, who falls in love with Galaxy Craze's (am I the only one who finds this name a little disturbing, and slightly reminiscent of porn-names)character and abducts her to Transylvania.

Peter Fonda does a brilliantly and comically paranoid Van Helsing and Dracula himself. David Lynch, whose wife Mary Sweeney produced the film, has a cameo and much of the film's heady cutting and profusion of cigarette-smoke seems to echo Lynch's work - definitely qualifies for an amazon.com-style "Customers who bought "Blue Velvet" also bought "Nadja".

Criticisms would include a slight over-reliance on fairly blatant visual puns (Martin Donovan's character is asked "can you picture that" and responds "yes, I can picture that" to visual accompaniment, and this device is repeated), and perhaps gratuitous use of smoke machine technology, but on the whole a fresh, artful evocation of one of the more encrusted thematic territories in film.

I cannot believe how lame this movie is. The acting is terrible, and seeing as all these performers have a decent repertoire, one can only blame the writing. Cliches abound: a pet tarantula named Bela (oooh--you're soooooo Goth), ridiculous Romanian accents with forced ESL dialogue (e.g., "Why you show me this?", pathetic Philosphy 101 ruminations ("We've lost touch with God...I don't mean the man with the beard, the father, the punisher, but the Source"---oooh, deep), etc. My personal favorite laugh comes at the title character's large black hooded cape. Her description of her birthplace (I won't ruin the one true comic gem of this film) is similarly laughable..I had to rewind twice...

Was this project the brainchild of high school Goths, creatively malnourished and trapped in their under-stylized 80s haze? It truly looks like the directorial efforts of a novice who desperately wanted to update "The Hunger" for a new generation of bat-cavers. Too bad, cuz it doesn't hold a candle.

The video box describes two vampires hiding in the NY afterhours scene, but all we see of that potentially exciting "scene" is a quick montage of some fake club and a tiny bar with one other customer. Perhaps the most annoying attempt at hipness is the use of a highly-pixelated camera to show "vampire vision." DORKY!!!! The lack of consistent perspective makes this tool useless--whose vision is this? Nadja's? Her vampire brother's? God the Punisher's? LAAAAAAME...

I love the blood that spews forth from one actor--thicker than hershey's syrup and about as convincing. Things pick up a bit in the ending, but good luck making it that far. I can't stress enough how bad the writing is. It almost has to be seen to be believed, but why waste your 90 minutes?

I saw Nadja at the Vancouver Film Festival, and was struck by its freshness. The use of the toy camera with the pixelated (fuzzy) image during the more violent scenes added a nightmarish quality, making it more frightening. Good performances, especially from Peter Fonda who played a wacked-out Dr. Van Helsing character.

One of the more original vampire movies of late. Not just for the goths.

A strange, disarming feeling sits over this film, as if everyone is in a semi-comatic haze. That's a good thing. While a bizarre mix of humor, horror flick, and psychodrama, it also draws from (and pokes fun at) the vampire flick tradition. Full of highlights, not the least of which is a ratty haired Peter Fonda.