Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Robert Eggers
Nosferatu is a staggering accomplishment. Visually stunning, with sublime acting, Nosferatu is everything you would hope for in a horror costume drama. It helps that the director is the master of the period-piece horror movie. Most importantly, this film puts the horror of the vampire to the front of the story.
Rebooting classic monsters is usually problematic because there is so much familiarity with the original. With Nosferatu, the context is a little more complicated. The story of Dracula is universally known, a character passed down from generation to generation. He is such a cliche that, for many, he isn’t scary anymore. Though most casual horror fans know that Nosferatu is derived closely from Bram Stoker’s original Dracula tale, Count Orlok is not the dashing, if a little creepy, Count Dracula. This vampire is a fiend, a plague bringer, a loathsome creature. There is nothing elegant about Nosferatu. No sexy bloodsuckers here.
The other contextual difference with Nosferatu is that the majority of audience members are unlikely to know F.W. Murnau’s adapted story. His tale was of sacrifice and longing. Murnau also puts the spotlight on Ellen rather than on Count Orlok or even the presumed protagonist, Thomas. Eggers managed to pay homage to the story of Nosferatu but leveled up the drama with powerful set pieces, stunning imagery, and a top-shelf cast providing award-worthy performances.
The Cast of Nosferatu:
- Lily-Rose Depp plays Ellen Hutter, a woman haunted by an ominous presence since her youth. She is newlywed to Thomas Hutter, who she credits for saving her from her horrible melancholy.
- Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter, a young solicitor assigned to deliver a deed to a mysterious noble in Carpathia. Thomas insists that this contract will give him the professional assistance needed to make a new life for himself and his new bride.
- Bill Skarsgård plays Count Orlok. Hint: He’s a vampire, the Nosferatu. Bad news!
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Friedrich Harding, the young harbormaster of Wisberg. A highly successful man and a good friend of Thomas.
- Emma Corrin plays Anna Harding, Ellen’s best friend and confidant, and Harding’s wife. She has two young daughters who fear monsters in the house.
- Willem Dafoe plays Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, an eccentric scholar of the occult and alchemy. He is perhaps the only man alive who knows how to unravel the mysteries brought on by Orlok and his evil plans.
- Ralph Ineson plays Dr. Wilhelm Sievers, a medical doctor in charge of the city infirmary, who has been attending to Ellen’s melancholy episodes.
- Simon McBurney plays Herr Knock, Thomas’ boss who sends Hutter off on assignment. He knows far more about the client than he lets on.
I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb. We are not so enlightened as we are blinded by the gaseous light of science! “
Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz
A Short Summary of Nosferatu:
(Minor Spoilers… skip ahead to Evaluation if you don’t want to know)
Ellen has been troubled with intense visions, her melancholy, as she calls it, that are both rapturous and convulsive. Her seizures suggest a powerful spirit has overcome her. Years later, she married Thomas, whose mere presence calms her condition. However, he has been instructed to deliver a deed and title of a big decaying manor in the city for a reclusive noble in the Carpathian Alps (Transylvania… hint… hint.). She begs Thomas not to go, but he insists that this is the very break he needs to afford the two of them a home. Their friends, the Hardings, allow Ellen to stay with them while Thomas is away. They have an impressive manor in the heart of Wisberg, and they are pleased to have her stay with them.
Hutter travels by horse to the remote Romanian castle as instructed. He stops in a village on the way, and the locals warn him of the evil in the castle, but he is steadfast in doing his job. Thomas heads up the mountain path by foot since the villagers took his horse. He is greeted by an unattended horse and carriage team, which delivers him to Count Orlok’s decrepit castle. Once arriving, Hutter is coolly greeted by his patron, who shrouds himself in shadows and speaks in a guttural, gravelly growl.
The count insists on signing the contracts right away. Bathed in the light of a fireplace, the two men proceed to sign the documents provided. One of the documents is in an ancient indecipherable text, and Orlok insists that Hutter sign as the solicitor of record. With the deed done, Thomas suffers the soul-sucking presence of Count Orlok, and he is overcome.
Meanwhile, Ellen’s melancholy has returned in Thomas’ absence. She goes into raving convulsions, so the Hardings summon Doctor Sievers. Sievers cannot find anything medically identifiable with her, so he summons the controversial academic Dr. Eberhardt von Franz, a colorful character with a reputation of thinking considerably outside of conventional thinking.
Thomas has been a de facto prisoner of Count Orlok. He has been blacking out and suffering terrifying visions. Discovering bite marks on his torso, his visions of being attacked bear evidence. A failed attempt to kill the Count only extends his internment, and he learns that Orlok knows of Ellen. Thomas is desperate to return to Wisberg to rescue Ellen, as the vampyre intends to take up residence (as contracted) in the city to unleash a plague of death upon the world. Eberhardt von Franz knows that Ellen is the key to defeating the monster, but will they have enough time?
Evaluation:
If you know the original Nosferatu plot, you’ll recognize it here. It’s not new, but it is effective. The translation from a herky-jerky silent black-and-white (or slightly colorized) film is a massive advance. It isn’t easy to compare since the medium has changed so much. Taken on its own, this is one of the best-crafted horror movies ever made. It also effectively brings back the scary. The movie executes real fear from characters who should be terrified.
Eggers established a reputation of excellence with his naturalistic style and historical accuracy. I fully expect this film to receive Oscar nominations for the technical awards in costume, makeup, sound, and cinematography. I can’t wait for YouTube Victorian-age costume expert Bernadette Banner’s take on Linda Muir’s costumes. Additional authenticity is added by using an authentic decaying Romanian castle as Orlok’s castle. It looks real because it IS real. Egger’s trademark use of only natural lighting, either daylight, moonlight, or candlelight, is on full display here. Whether it is real snow or digital snow, the effect of this lighting strategy worked magic, particularly in Thomas’ approach to the castle.
Even if you’ve never watched the 1924 film, you know what Nosferatu looks like. Eggers intentionally keeps Orlok in the shadows, shrouded in darkness, and you strain to see him through the gloom. The Count appears distinctively Romanian when revealed, like a hulking and decaying Cossack. Skarsgård is a master of physical contortion, and he makes Count Orlok genuinely fearsome.
Depp is a revelation, not having had to carry a film of this magnitude, and she is astonishingly good. Her possession moments are cringe-inducing in the right way, and she puts an emotional charge into every dialogue she is given. Ellen feels like a Bronte character, a figure of great sadness but also great willpower. Dafoe, as expected, seems delighted to be partnered up with Eggars again. This nuttier version of the Van Helsing trope is a great leavening agent to an otherwise heavy film. He roars, chuckles, cajoles, and injects vitality into the plot.
Though not spoken in German (to be true to the locale), the language feels period-appropriate. The dialogue has a bit of poetry to it, and it keeps you engaged for the duration of the film. For those of you who might shy away from a period-piece costume drama, fear not: this film never feels slow or overwrought. It hits a great pace. Every moment seems essential. There are no good times to leave for the restroom!
Conclusion:
I am glad this was a Focus Features production, not a bigger studio. A larger studio, like Warner Brothers or Universal, would have been more likely to try and tinker with the project rather than let Eggars do what Eggars does best. It appears that $50 million was sufficient to complete the astonishing feat. Whether it hits Big at the Box Office remains to be seen. Grosses worldwide right now shows that it has made up that initial budget, but in order to be profitable, it will need to have long legs.
Again, this movie looks to be headed to the Oscars with some real potential. In a year that did not start off so great with horror films, it has ended quite well. I would not be surprised if both The Substance and Nosferatu claim multiple Oscar nods. It’s violent and scary but not overly graphic (which cannot be said about The Substance). I suspect Nosferatu will open more doors for Eggars and Depp for bigger projects in the future. I hope Eggars will be careful with his future projects, but maybe he will take a Del Toro or Peele-level leap into the first rank of hot genre directors.
Nosferatu is currently on wide release in cinemas across the US. It is rated R for violence, nudity, sexual situations, and creepiness.