A dreamy arthouse vampire film from the early nineties—produced by David Lynch—receives a brand-new live score by ambient pop's rising star, more eaze.
Drawing inspiration from Dracula's Daughter (1936) and André Breton's surrealist novel Nadja (1928), director Michael Almereyda's acclaimed cult film follows the enigmatic vampire Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) as she returns to New York City to avenge her father Dracula's death at the hands of Dr. Van Helsing, played by sixties screen icon Peter Fonda.
After Dracula's death—represented by a repurposed shot of Bela Lugosi from the 1932 film White Zombie—Nadja arrives at a Manhattan morgue to collect his body. She slips effortlessly into the city's nocturnal hipster scene, spending her nights drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, wandering downtown bars, and engaging in deadpan philosophical conversations. Meanwhile, the eccentric Dr. Van Helsing relentlessly pursues Dracula's daughter through the streets of New York.
Visually, Nadja is as distinctive as its story. Almereyda combines luminous black-and-white 35mm cinematography with haunting Pixelvision footage shot on a Fisher-Price toy camera, creating a dreamlike, low-fi aesthetic unlike anything else. More interested in atmosphere than conventional horror, the film replaces gore and jump scares with melancholy, emotional unease, dry humour, and a hypnotic sense of mystery. It is as much a portrait of early 1990s downtown New York as it is a vampire film, evoking the worlds of Jim Jarmusch, Hal Hartley, and David Lynch.
Equally difficult to categorize is more eaze, the project of Brooklyn-based sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice. Blending ambient pop, folk, musique concrète, and experimental electronics, Maurice transforms everyday sounds and acoustic instrumentation into richly textured, emotionally resonant compositions. Exploring themes of intimacy, longing, memory, and transformation, more eaze has become one of the most exciting voices in contemporary experimental music, with releases on Thrill Jockey, Leaving Records, Longform Editions, Ecstatic, Orange Milk, and 15 Love. As a string arranger, pedal steel player, and producer, Maurice has also collaborated with artists including Claire Rousay, Lomelda, Space Afrika, Martha Skye Murphy, Water Damage, Fashion Club, Rainy Miller, and Nick Zanca.
For Videodroom, more eaze brings a new musical interpretation to this haunting cult classic, creating a unique encounter between adventurous cinema and contemporary experimental sound.
