Focus Features
Director Robert Eggers has made a name for himself in a few short years with visually stimulating but frustratingly obtuse films like The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, most of which have become critical darlings with cult fans but nothing yet has reached major commercial success. That could all change with Eggers’ remake of the classic 1922 silent film Nosferatu, which also borrows heavily from Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula and the various and sundry film adaptation of that work (and for those not in the know, Stoker’s estate sued the makers of the original Nosferatu for plagiarizing the story and all copies were to be destroyed, which would have been a tragedy, but at least one print survived and it had a major influence on cinema with its style rooted in German expressionism).
Eggers’ version of Nosferatu is really the Dracula story — which is now in the public domain so no lawsuits are forthcoming — of a young man named Jonathan Harker … sorry, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) who is sent halfway across Europe on horseback to meet with an aged nobleman who is planning to buy a dilapidated estate in Germany, coincidentally in the same town in which Hutter and his new bride Ellen reside. Or is it a coincidence? While Hutter endures the hardships of his journey, having an odd dream (or is it?) about an encampment of gypsies he’s come across, he finally makes it to the count’s castle … and endures more bizarre dreams and horrifying encounters there, at one point finding himself with the monstrous count attached to his chest, guzzling all the blood he can get without killing his prey.
Meanwhile back on the homefront, Ellen is missing Thomas and having bizarre dreams about a frightening shadowy figure telling her that she wished for him and he came, or is coming. Thomas finally escapes from Count Orlok, but by the time he gets home his wife has become so mentally unstable he doesn’t know what to do. To make matters worse, his employer has also gone bonkers, having fallen under the spell of the Count … who has arrived to set up house, bringing a plague — THE plague — with him, the streets of the town filled with rats. Thomas’s friend Friedrich calls upon Dr. Abraham Van Helsing … no, sorry again, Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz who seems to know a thing or two about vampires, and comes up with a plan to save Ellen and rid the world of Count Orlok and his plague. But can Ellen be saved?
Robert Eggers truly is a visionary filmmaker, carefully planning the look and feel of his films. Nosferatu certainly is his masterwork to this point in his career, probably the biggest and most ambitious film he’s done and all of the work he and his talented crew put into the sets, production design, costumes, hair and makeup is right there on the screen. Eggers also indulges in quite a lot of camera trickery with pans and dissolves that take us from one scene, one location to the next. Often, though, he also allows his craft to needlessly extend many of these transitionary moments, dragging the film out longer than it needs to be. At the same time, his choice of cinematography which drains the color from the film, making some scenes nearly black-and-white before a sudden burst of color, is breathtaking and certainly deserves major accolades. The problem here really is the story. It’s Dracula with the names changed, with the twist being that Ellen is the person who lures the Count to Germany. The rest of the story beats are pretty much identical to any Dracula movie you can think of that follows the Stoker novel. The other major issue, at least for this viewer of the film, was the Count himself. If you’re expecting to see Bill Skarsgård, you wouldn’t even know it was him under the tons of makeup — and he does not resemble the original Count Orlok because this Count has a big, bushy mustache. And he’s almost always seen in shadow, just brief glimpses of his horrific visage (although Eggers does indulge in the ‘Full Orlok’ in one brief shot) and that’s fine, keeps him shrouded in mystery. The real problem is the choice of his speaking voice — heavily accented, deep, gurgling and he … speaks … oh … so … slooooooooowly. The film’s running time could have lost a good ten minutes if he’d just spoken a tad faster. But even under the makeup, Skarsgård still makes Orlok one of the most horrific creatures even put on screen.
The rest of the cast is also excellent. Lily-Rose Depp has the perfect look for the role of Ellen. She looks fragile, thanks in part to the hair and makeup, and she jerks and contorts her body in quite grotesque ways when she is experiencing her connections to Orlok. She gives a very physically demanding performance, making you feel all of Ellen’s trauma. Nicholas Hoult is great as Thomas, particularly in the first half of the film when he’s at Orlok’s castle, perfectly conveying Thomas’s terror and fatigue, and then his near hysterics when he returns home and tries to convince everyone that Orlok is behind all the ills that have befallen the town and his family. Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Friedrich is at first the good friend but becomes quite the prick as the story goes on and he seems unwilling to accept that supernatural forces are at work. Emma Corrin doesn’t get a lot to do as Friedrich’s wife Anna, occasionally consoling Ellen, but generally relegated to the background. Simon McBurney is at first Thomas’ jovial boss but quickly becomes an agent of Orlok’s (basically the Renfield role), gleefully chewing all of the scenery as he descends further into madness. The cherry on the top is Willem Dafoe as von Franz, at first very serious and academic about the subject of vampirism, but the more he learns about Ellen and the Count, even he begins to go a bit buggy to the point that Thomas isn’t even sure he can trust the man with his wife’s life. Dafoe brings some energy and at times much needed humor to a film that is oppressive and full of dread. You can’t help but look at the actors and think either they are really good at their jobs or they were totally miserable making the movie because they look totally miserable. So … great job?
Nosferatu is sure to draw in massive audiences in its first week, but it’s that second week that will tell the story. Will audiences be enthralled enough with the visuals to overlook the too familiar story? Will the oppressive nature of the story turn off audiences, or will they be enthralled by the performances? Will audiences find Count Orlok intriguing and repulsive enough at the same time to be entranced, or will his speaking voice repulse the audience in an unintended way? Nosferatu is certainly Eggers’ most ambitious and ‘mainstream’ film yet but it still carries his unique style that audiences will either love or hate.
Nosferatu has a run time of 2 hours 13 minutes, and is rated R for bloody violent content, graphic nudity and some sexual content.
Focus Features
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