Reviews

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  ★★★★½ review by Joe on Letterboxd

  Does for belts, sand castles, staircases, pianos, pencils, pencil sharpeners, ice cream, freezers, phone booths, shoes, duck hunts, dinner, garden shears, shovels, metronomes, and showers what Psycho did for showers.

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  ★★★★★ review by Daryl on Letterboxd

  At 98 minutes, this is my dream length of movie. I have said it all my life.

  After leaving this screening, and using the facilities, I could quite easily have jumped straight back in to watch the whole movie again. That doesn't happen to me often.

  Stoker is phenomenal.

  It's as dreamy as it is taught. As beautiful as it is horrific. It's The Tree of Life with A screenplay. An outstanding screenplay at that. It has been said that the director Park Chan-Wook has made a Hitchcock movie. You can't make a Hitchcock movie without a Hitchcock screenplay, and Wentworth Miller and Erin Cressida have made one. It's my favourite scenplay in recent memory. It keeps enough under wraps to shock and to keep you gripped. It's like getting a bottle in wrapping paper at Christmas. You know it's a bottle, but a bottle of what? It could be a bottle of Chateux Rothschild 1982. But it never has been, and probably never will.

  Stoker has given me my Chateux Rothschild 1982 moment.

  You know bad shit cometh. How? when? and what? is brilliantly kept a mystery. You would never have been able to piece together the entire back story until the end. The way it sets up the story at the start, through overheard whispers, off screen conversations and background noise is brilliantly clever. Yes, it has been done before, but here the director makes it seem new.

  This is a beautiful looking picture. Magical, awe inspiring, and simple moments lavish this picture. There is so much going on in nearly every shot. Its a joy to witness, and you find your eyes exploring the corners of the screen. That bit with Nicole Kidman's hair? Wow. So much talent right there. In just picturing it, let alone the execution.

  Kidman, Goode and Wasikowska are magnificent in this movie. They bring innocence, mystery, and evil to each of their characters. There are not many A-list actresses of Nicole Kidman's stature that would have take on a movie like this, let alone a role like it. And she is wonderful.

  I could wax lyrical all day long about Stoker.

  Stoked.

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  ★★★★★ review by YI JIAN on Letterboxd

  Tonight, India joins the hunt.

  
  
  Gothic, surreal, unsettling, and of course, tremendously gorgeous. Not surprising since I expect nothing less from the master Park Chan Wook. A frame is always connected to the next, transition between scenes are so smooth they're almost invisible. Every shot seems to have a life of its own. Instead of being a medium to carry the plot, they gracefully became the story itself. Mia Wasikowska gave her best and so does everyone else. Without a single doubt, I say Stoker is as good as an English debut gets.

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  ★★★★★ review by vee on Letterboxd

  things Stoker invented:
  
  - the word "hello"
  
  - freezers
  
  - blood splatter
  
  - slow fades
  
  - piano duets
  
  - garden shears
  
  - visual ingenuity
  
  - saddle shoes

  (this film only gets better and better when you rewatch it)

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  ★★★★½ review by davidehrlich on Letterboxd

  "I've often wondered why it is we have children..."

  the rare film that's grossly UNDERappreciated at Sundance. Nature vs. nurture as a woozy gothic battle royale. Ecstatically good. also features one of the most clever instances of single-shot misdirection i can remember (it involves curtains).

  Park Chan-wook is the filmmaker that Lee Daniels so desperately wants to be.

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