I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Blistering performances.

I've been viewing a bunch of Dracula-related movies since reading Bram Stoker's novel, and I'm not disinclined towards highly-stylized and artistic adaptations. My favorite Dracula film, after all, is a postmodern silent-film ballet, "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" (2002). Not exactly mainstream fodder. But, "Nadja" is merely artsy; it throws the entire book of arthouse gimmicks onto the screen and pretends to art.It's filmed in black and white, with many scenes photographed with a toy camcorder, there's lots of cigarette smoking, there are scenes where indie music blares in some attempt to cover with emotionality images of nothing happening, there are other strange sound effects, voiceover narration, hardly-motivated canted and obscured angles, slow motion, jump cuts, negative images and deadpan delivery regarding daddy issues, narcissistic self wallowing and sophomoric philosophizing. At worst, this is very annoying and hard to watch, with the best parts--all of the violent vampire vestiges--obscured by the lousy pixelated images of the toy camcorder and the scenes that are in crisp black-and-white come off as some young Goth woman incessantly smoking, hanging out at bars and ranting about herself.At best, the ironic distance comes off as some kind of joke--like an intentionally so-bad-it's-good movie. I was laughing at delivery of such lines as, "She's dying... for a cigarette," or "Her emotions are like big storms," and I strongly suspected we had been taken for a ride when the Lucy character, in a zombie state, starts listing what she ate, including her discrimination of M&M'S colors, with the scene photographed in an absurdly arty fashion, still in black-and-white, and with over-dramatic blocking. Plus, this is the kind of humor one would expect from David Lynch, who produced and has a cameo in this one. In this light, Peter Fonda as Van Helsing seems to be the only one letting the joke slip. In the narrative, he's supposedly the crazy one, but his character is the only one that isn't almost-entirely a nuisance. It helps that, unlike the other characters, except for, sort of, Nadja in the end, his character has some motivation to action instead of just sitting around like everyone else saying stupid stuff, waiting for the next blurry, pixelated action to barely be seen.Past the artsy ostentation and inane dialogue, the story is a simple updated melding of bit parts of Stoker's book with a retelling of Universal's sequel "Dracula's Daughter" (1936). Nadja's hood is a reference to the one Gloria Holden wore in the predecessor. The parts from the novel mostly consist of character names and traits: Dracula dies, but Van Helsing is still nutty, Lucy falls under the vampire curse again and must be saved, and Renfield is always a slave. Basically, "Nadja" follows the plot of "Dracula's Daughter." She feeds off men and women (the sex being more explicit in this '94 film compared to the '36 one, expectantly), burns her dead father, renounces him and tries to forge a new path, some men try to stop her, she goes back home--completing the circle of where Stoker's Dracula began. Some of the particulars are different this time, including the inclusion of characters from Stoker's book and the addition of a twin brother. The brother is a rather unnecessary character except that it adds to a doubles theme that the movie develops late and becomes potentially incestuous in the end. And Lucy's conversion plays out as a bad episode of the menses. This isn't art. Art is beautiful and intelligent; artsy is pretentious.(Mirror Note: Van Helsing and son look at some photographs that Lucy, apparently, took of her night with Nadja. Contrary to some other vampire films, this vampire's image can be captured on camera, but, as the pictures are said to reveal, her image isn't reflected in a mirror. There's the horror-film jump-scare cliché when Lucy hallucinates Nadja's image in a mirror. And Van Helsing uses the reflections off his sunglasses several times to confirm vampirism.)

I had never heard of "Nadja" until it turned up on a 4-film budget priced "Vampire Collector's Set" DVD that I recently purchased, where it shared space with three other low budget bloodsucker films. I'll be honest, from the package description "Nadja" didn't sound like my cup of tea from the get-go, so I wasn't expecting much from it to begin with. Sometimes when I go into such films with my expectations lowered, I am pleasantly surprised, but not this time. "Nadja" was 90 minutes of plodding, occasionally irritating "art house" crap disguised as a vampire film.I pretty much knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the words "DAVID LYNCH PRESENTS..." flash across the screen (though he can't be fully blamed for how badly "Nadja" turned out as he was only a producer on this film), because to a B-Movie kinda guy like me, David Lynch's name is pretty much Kryptonite. I've got nothing against Lynch, I know he's got a lot of fans, but he just doesn't make "my" kind of movies. So knowing he had a even a small hand in this thing was already one strike in my book.Anyway, getting to the story (what little there is of it) as I understand it: "Nadja" transplants the Dracula myth to present day New York, with the famed bloodsucker's daughter prowling around Greenwich Village looking for a random hookup. She meets "Lucy," a depressed, bisexual night owl, who soon falls under Nadja's spell, much to the dismay of Lucy's drunken doofus of a husband. Fortunately hubby's Uncle (Peter Fonda, who appears to be the only cast member having fun in this film) happens to be Van Helsing himself, and he of course knows how to handle a vampire problem. From there...well, there's a whole lot of pseudo-philosophy, endless talking, a lot of cigarettes being smoked, a lot of self important dialogue, and not much else. Eventually Nadja's estranged twin brother hooks up with Hubby and Helsing and they travel to Nadja's lair in Romania, where... awww the hell with it, I'm not even going to bother describing the rest of this nonsense. Let's just say if you can make it to that point in the film without feeling an urge to drift off to sleep (or change the channel), I salute you.At first I thought the film being made in stark black and white might be distracting in this day and age, but I'll admit the B&W photography in "Nadja" is really cool...for a while. Then along came numerous segments where, for no discernible reason whatsoever, the picture would suddenly go grainy and pixellated for minutes at a time. At first I thought something was wrong with my DVD, but it turns out that director Michael Almerayda shot those particular scenes (which turn up randomly throughout the film) with a Fisher-Price kids' toy camera. He's probably got some artsy fartsy explanation for why he did those scenes that way, but to me it only served to antagonize an already bored audience.Ultimately "Nadja" comes off like one of those 1990's Calvin Klein commercials stretched out to feature length, complete with its hip (for the time period) soundtrack (The Verve, Portishead, My Bloody Valentine, etc.). It's nice to look at (occasionally, when it's not pixellated) but doesn't have an ounce of soul.I'll (grudgingly) give "Nadja" two stars for two reasons: Number one, the lesbian seduction scene between Nadja and Lucy was pretty cool, (though it's got nothing on the Catherine Deneuve/Susan Sarandon scene in "The Hunger," its obvious inspiration) and number two, the song "In the Meantime" by Spacehog plays over the end credits, and I've always liked that song. Otherwise, I can't recommend this one at all. Judging from the other reviews on this site, "Nadja" appears to be a film that people either love or hate. I guess it's obvious which side I'm on. Avoid!!!

I've just read all of the reviews on this film on this site and nobody even mentions what this film is really about. Like any "good" horror story it works on different levels. Like the Zombie films of George Romero there's an underlying message to this film that has nothing to do with it's horror exterior. But you have to think about what Michael Almereyda is trying to say with this story. This isn't just true of this film, but of all good horror. Dr. Jeckyle and Mr.Hyde-Addiction to substances, Frankenstein-Man playing at being God, Dracula-Hate poisoning the mind and soul. The main theme of this film is wanting to change your life but not being able to escape your old habits and break loose. It's even mentioned outright several times during the film by different characters. There's a lot of philosophical discussions by different characters on this through the film.This film has black humor, meaning of life philosophy, camera work that serves a purpose to enhance the story and heart felt dramatic performances by all of the actors and actresses. One of the things that I really like about this film, (and one of the things that many people didn't understand or like) was the use of the toy camera pixel-vision effect. I found it to be a perfect way of economically expressing the intoxicating effect of being under the influence of a vampire. If you watch the film and think about the scenes where it's employed it will be obvious. It isn't just a random attempt to be arty as many of the reviewers seem to think. It's a visual depiction of the impaired state of mind that you might experience if a vampire was psychically manipulating a mortal. And it enhances the film it doesn't detract from it. Whether you like it or not, film-making is an art. Just like painting, drawing, writing or any other form of expression. Some filmmakers just don't have any sense of art, they only wish to mindlessly entertain. That's why people say things like TV rots your mind. Well, I guess that if you watch anything in a mindless manor that could be true. But film that has something to say, something to think about is a worthwhile use of time and intellect.I have a fairly large collection of "horror" films and "Art House" and I can tell you that Nadja is one of my all time favorites. Every time I watch it I see something new, get a different little joke or notice different connections that I didn't get before. I also enjoy many of the "Mindless entertainment" variety of Vampire films,and so a quote from the writer David Goyer who wrote the screenplays for Blade, "Sometimes you just want to see somebody kick some ass!".Most people don't realize how huge the genre of Vampire Cinema really is. Dracula is the definitely the most filmed character in film history, and the greater tree of Vampire films in world cinema is so big that it almost impossible to accurately list. Of the Art House and Vintage, comedy and Vampire Hunter categories I would recommend checking out some of my favorites. Many Vampire films are a hybrid of two or more of these categories,but they all have different points that I find attractive,humorous, exciting, entertaining and thought provoking. Again, I haven't seen but a small selection of the huge list of Vampire cinema, so it's likely that I'll be leaving out many excellent selections and maybe some of your favorites in this list. I'm giving this list because the film Nadja could very well be enjoyed if you like some of the films that I like and have been entertained by.Art House and Vintage: Nosferatu 1922 (The original granddaddy Vampire film from the silent era. The Kino Version is worth paying for with an excellent soundtrack option featuring musicians from Art Zoid), Nosferatu the Vampyre (Werner Herzog), Shadow of the Vampire (a fun comedy-fictional story based around the making of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu-1922), Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer's atmospheric masterpiece, even though part's of the film were created by accident!),Dracula (1931), The Hammer Dracula series (feartuing the great Christopher Lee), Dracula-Pages from a Virgin's diary (a modern silent film of a Canadian Ballet company filmed by Guy Madden), Blood for Dracula (also known as Andy Worhol's Dracula), Immortality, Ganja and Hess, Habit, Near Dark, Salem's Lot (Based on the novel by Stephan King-the original mini-series, I haven't seen the newer remake) Bram Stoker's Dracula (The love it or hate it classic by F. Coppola). Some of my favorites from the Vampire Hunter sub-genre: The Blade Series (Again one of those "Love it or hate it" series for some.), John Carpenter's Vampires (This one is hard to classify, lots of comedy too.), The Captain Kronos-Vampire Hunter films by Hammer studios, The Forsaken, and the British TV series "Ultraviolet" (an X-Files type mini-series). Also worth mention is the Japanese-Anime films Vampire Hunter D-Bloodlust (You'll forget that you're watching a cartoon, the story's that good!), and Blood-The last Vampire (A short but well done film).Some of the comedy genre: Innocent Blood, Modern Vampires, The Breed, Dusk to Dawn (I've only seen the first one, a hybrid of Tarantino's crime style and Robert Rodriguez's horror style), Vampire's Kiss, and Interview with the Vampire (I find this Ann Rice film quite comedic), and Lost Boys (A local favorite being that I live in Santa Cruz).Nadja is one of the jewels of my collection because it is truly a multi-faceted piece of film-making that defies categorization.

In New York City Nadja, her brother and their slave come to terms with the murder of their father by Van Helsing. Meanwhile the girlfriend of Helsing's nephew, Jim, is taken as a drone by Nadja. Jim and Van Helsing set out to stop the reign of the Dracula family and stop their blood lust.I didn't even know this was about the Dracula legend when I sat to watch it, just the title drew me and the cast sounded quite promising. The black and white, shaky shots, post modern slant and grainy camera work were both a draw and a turn off for me. On one hand it was very arty, deliberately sticking a finger up to the mainstream. I dislike this feeling - one that the multiplex crowd are unworthy of any film and that the director wouldn't care to have their film be successful and hence uses such things with abandon. However it also made the film much more imaginative and interesting if it had all been full Technicolor with steadicam and nicely framed shots, it was pretty hip and I enjoyed it even if I felt like it was aimed at the art crowd rather than just being a film for anyone or everyone.The story is quite good, albeit just a twist on the old story of Dracula. The script is where the main difference lies. It is quite talky a film but it is better for it. The dialogue is a little pretentious at times but it is interesting and involving. In terms of characters I'm afraid it falls down quite badly - the grainy images and dialogue that is far from `down to earth' stop the characters from ever being real people or even characters that I felt deeply involved in - but happily it wasn't to the point that I was completely disinterested in them. That's not to say it was great - but it was different enough to keep me interested, even if I wasn't gripped by it at any point. Likewise with the direction, I felt there was imagination but that it went too far to the point of just being experimental and arty for the sake of it. If you are making a film with as good a cast as this had then why on earth would you use a child's camera unless you were trying to be arty? This mindset did feel through the whole film and it was, as I've already said, a pretty big turn off for me.The cast is great on paper but they struggle with the pretentious dialogue and the fact that the film loses them in a grainy black & white world. I will always watch Donovan but that doesn't mean he's any good. Here he is alright but has precious little to actually do! Fonda is better and plays his character with a sense of humour that the wider film could well have benefited from - I wonder if the director got annoyed by Fonda not playing it straight when he clearly had arty aspirations. Lowensohn is not only beautiful but acts well in the title role but the astonishingly named Galaxy Craze was pretty much cardboard as Lucy.Overall this is an interesting movie but it struggles under the weight of it's own pretensions. I found it to be different enough visually and script-wise to be interesting and even I found the apparent concerted effort to alienate the mainstream to be slightly off putting. An interesting effort but one that will irritate far more viewers than it will please.