By George & Josh Bate
Over 100 years since its release, Nosferatu remains a seminal horror movie. The 1922 German silent film shocked audiences upon its release and features imagery that is still seared into minds today, even among those who have never actually sat down to watch the film. Although few attempts have been made to re-envision Nosferatu specifically, most notably Werner Herzog with his 1979 remake, Nosferatu was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula and, as such, seemingly countless films share extremely similar plots and characters. With the tale of Dracula so extensively explored across the history of cinema, one would think that there is little novelty and effect that could come from yet another Transylvanian vampire story, yet acclaimed writer/director Robert Eggers nobly takes on the task of not only creating another Dracula movie, but a remake of one of the most iconic horror movies of all time.
Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu stars Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, a newly married woman in 1800s Germany, who is troubled by visions of an ominous supernatural figure from her past. Shortly after getting married, Ellen’s life is disrupted when her husband Thomas (played by Nicholas Hoult) departs to Transylvania to secure a real estate deal with the mysterious Count Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgård). An unnerved Ellen, now living with Friedrich and Anna Harding (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin) while her husband is away, and a cautious Thomas soon find themselves facing against a terrifying vampire, whose obsession with Ellen spells trouble for everyone involved.
Robert Eggers and Nosferatu sound like a match made in heaven. The director of The Witch and The Lighthouse has quickly emerged as one of the industry’s most fascinating directors, with his name alone being sufficient to sell a movie to an audience. Eggers has crafted a reputation for period horror movies gothic in tone, disturbing in imagery, unsettling, and deeply and authentically seeped into the eras in which they are set. All of this makes an Eggers-helmed adaptation of Nosferatu (and, in turn, Dracula) seem like the perfect combination and, in part, it certainly is. However, the final film, despite masterful technical filmmaking on display, disappointingly plays out as a largely conventional Dracula story.
In Nosferatu, Eggers strikes a dark and gothic tone consistent with his previous work and refreshing for a modern adaptation of Dracula. Many modern attempts to infuse Dracula or vampire tales with novelty manipulate tone, usually by making the film more comedic or light-hearted (e.g., Renfield, Abigail), but Eggers takes the opposite approach in making his film faithful to the serious tone of Stoker’s classic novel. Rather than poke fun at the vampire subgenre and its tropes, Nosferatu embraces them in being a serious vampire movie dark in tone and devoid of overt humor.
Much like The Witch and The Lighthouse, Eggers’ film is a period piece shrouded in darkness and shadows. The cinematography by Jasin Blaschke (who has worked on every Eggers movie and was nominated for an Academy Award for the cinematography of The Lighthouse) is gorgeous and enables Eggers to create a beautifully spooky and atmospheric film. Very much like the original Nosferatu, several shots in this remake are worthy candidates for inclusion among the most iconic of the horror genre (with a shot involving the shadow of a massive hand covering a city landscape being particularly memorable). From shots of the snow-covered, mountainous pathway leading to Orlok’s castle to creative usage of shadows in darkly lit bedroom scenes, Nosferatu is a visually meticulous marvel of filmmaking.
Eggers’ film features characters speaking in a more period-accurate, old-fashioned manner with rich and poetic dialogue, which comes across fitting to the era in which the film is set and is very much in line with the filmmakers’ previous films. While this dialogue adds a sense of prestige and accuracy to the film, at times it becomes a bit too much, especially when its usage in more gut-wrenching and desperate scenes lessens scenes of some of their emotional impact.
But the mixed results with dialogue are far from the film’s biggest issues with characters. With various characters playing more prominent roles at different parts of the film, Nosferatu struggles with a lack of a true main character. The first half largely sees Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas Hutter as the lead, but this changes as the character essentially vanishes for what feels like the entirety of the middle of the film before reemerging in the final act. As the plot revolves around Orlok’s obsession with Ellen, Lily-Rose Depp would seem like the natural lead, but this isn’t the case as she is largely in the background for the first and final acts while being somewhat more central in the middle. Also playing a role is Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Thomas’ best friend, who provides housing and company to Ellen while Thomas is away. And, as Hoult’s presence diminishes, Taylor-Johnson becomes more central and, at times, the film seems like it is pushing in a direction to make him the lead, although this never comes to fruition. The vampire himself is another candidate for lead character, and yet the film is more about Count Orlok than it is starring Count Orlok. All of this makes for a film filled with characters (brought to life by universally solid performances), but devoid of a true lead.
Contributing significantly to this main character problem is the poor development of Ellen and her character’s connection with Count Orlok. In many Dracula adaptations, the connection between the vampire and the leading woman serves as the driving force of the film’s narrative, and Nosferatu is no exception. Where Eggers’ film errs in this regard is with its lack of attention to making this connection substantive and gripping. Orlok’s obsession with Ellen is clear from the opening moments, but what specifically drives him to pursue Ellen is never clearly defined. As a result and in the absence of any depth to the connection between Ellen and Orlok, the film’s narrative and the emotions surrounding it feel disappointingly hollow, even with Depp delivering an awards-worthy performance. That being said, the allegory of Ellen and Orlok’s relationship to psychological abusive romantic relationships and the enduring effects of trauma inflicted by an intimate partner prove to be effective.
Without much substance to the vampire’s motivation, much of the film’s effectiveness as a horror film is left to the depiction of Count Orlok. The vampire in the 1922 original Nosferatu has a look that still terrifies to this day, such is the striking nature of this seminal cinema imagery. In his remake, Eggers decides against replicating the aesthetic of the original vampire by generating his own vision of the character, one that unfortunately doesn’t entirely come together. From a sound design and performance standpoint, this new vision of Count Orlok works tremendously. Bill Skarsgård plays Orlok with a deep and unsettling voice that alone is sufficient to strike fear into audiences. His voice reverberates and carries such weight to it, and is particularly terrifying when Orlok speaks in ominous ancient languages. For much of the first act, Orlok is restricted to the shadows and, bolstered by the sound design of the character, is a genuinely unnerving presence. However, as the film progresses, more and more of Orlok’s appearance is revealed until a point in the film where the vampire is fully on display to the audience. No longer hiding Orlok from the audience, the viewer is left to behold the vampire for what he is, which is unfortunately underwhelming. Skarsgård is unrecognizable as Orlok, to such an extent that one would likely have no idea this was Skarsgård playing the vampire unless they had known beforehand. Unlike Orlok in the 1922 film, Eggers and Skarsgård’s portrayal of the character looks far more human and less monstrous and supernatural. The most apt visual comparison to Orlok in this film is Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik in the Sonic the Hedgehog films, which alone speaks to how this depiction of the iconic vampire misses the mark. It is also in the film’s final moments that Orlok becomes a visually terrifying presence due to the striking nature of some of the film’s final shots. However, at this point, it all comes a tad too late.
Before Orlok fully steps into the spotlight, the vampire is more fleetingly present in a first act that is, by far, the film’s most engaging period. This is akin to many horror films, which excel with a first act build-up of dread before the more overt terror sets in. The beginning of Nosferatu largely depicts Hoult’s character Thomas journeying to Transylvania and his initial meeting with Count Orlok in the vampire’s spooky castle. It is during this first act that the film is most spooky and atmospheric, evoking the very best Dracula adaptations, including the 1931 Bela Lugosi-led classic, and almost feeling like Robert Eggers’ take on Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. But, after this first act as Orlok becomes more prominent and the aforementioned main character problem emerges, Nosferatu becomes increasingly less captivating. The film becomes filled with too many dream-like sequences in which a character experiences something so viscerally terrifying before waking up and dismissing what felt so real as a dream. Willem Dafoe’s entrance into the film as the Van Helsing-type character adds some energy to the proceedings, but not enough to overcome what ends up being an overly long film. And the movie’s final moments, meanwhile, see the plot resolve with comical ease and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu comes to a disappointing conclusion, despite the stunning and horrific imagery of the film’s final moments.
VERDICT: 6.5/10
Robert Eggers and Nosferatu seem like a match made in heaven, but the new horror film is not the resounding success many predicted. Spooky, atmospheric, and dark, Eggers’ latest is a masterclass in horror tone and visuals, refreshing in its serious approach to a period-set Dracula story and featuring striking imagery that will go down as iconic in the horror genre. Particular success is found in a delightfully atmospheric first act that brilliantly builds a sense of dread. Making the film considerably less engaging, however, is its failure to ever establish a true main character, with Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson cycling in and out of the film with varying degrees of prominence. The plot, meanwhile, revolves around a connection between Depp’s Ellen and Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok that, despite being the driving force of the narrative, feels hollow and underdeveloped. The portrayal of the vampire Orlok certainly evokes fear through creative sound design and an unsettling performance from Bill Skarsgård, but ultimately falls flat as more and more of Orlok’s disappointing and perplexing Dr. Robotnik-esque design is revealed as the film progresses. As the story reaches its conclusion and the plot resolves with comical ease, it becomes clear that, while Eggers has crafted a meticulous exercise in atmosphere and tone, his remake of Nosferatu adds little of substance or novelty to the over 100 years worth of Dracula movies. A brilliantly made vampire movie that never quite sinks its teeth into the audience.