First thing is first. Do Not go into this movie expecting Godfather or Apocalypse now material. Those were Coppola's masterpieces and no one will ever make anything quite like those films. Okay? Okay.
I have been waiting for this film for quite the while. I saw the trailer when it came out and was very excited. It was a long and hard search to find this film but I found it eventually. My hopes had been really high since the trailer, but then I saw some of the reviews which just had nothing but awfulness to offer this film. So I lowered my expectations, and still watched it only to be confused. Not by the film itself, but by the fact that it got bad reviews and ratings. I could see what some people didn't like about it, but I didn't notice anything that would have given such an undeserved wave of hate.
I think that this movie is good for people who appreciate obscurity and uncertainty in films. Most of these are hardcore film buffs. This film was very visually fantastic and was very haunting from the start. Val Kilmer surprised me with his acting in this one. He was cocky, depressed, and stressed all at once. Bruce Dern as the kooky sheriff was great as well. All of the cast did good, and same goes for the directing.
In the movie Val kilmer starts to have these dreams, and my god these dream sequences are glorious. They are visually very pretty yet spooky. The encounters with people are creepy and quirky. Even the scenes in which he is awake share the same qualities, but there just not as intense. The story felt like homage to Gothic horror films, and there was some vampire content in it. Francis Ford Coppola has been making more personal films, and yes it's noticeable. In a specific scene, I won't reveal, was not really needed and felt like a filler.
This movie sort of feels like a really cool dream. Which makes sense knowing that Coppola got the idea from a dream which might throw some of you off, but I loved this film and recommend to all.
