Nosferatu

The Plot: Germany, 1838. Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is sent on an assignment deep into the Carpathian Mountains, to arrange a property transfer to Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard). The Count is not so welcoming though and instills fear in Thomas with his strange behaviour and hulking appearance. Back home, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) wonders what has happened to her husband Thomas and is caught in a deep trance from afar, as Count Orlok plans to spread his vampiric presence far beyond his own borders. Concerned friend Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) brings in Dr Wilhelm (Ralph Ineson) and the eccentric Prof. Albin (Willem Dafoe) to investigate Ellen’s malady…

The Verdict: It started with an evil goat who tempted a teenager into a coven, continued with murky goings-on at a lighthouse and heightened more recently with a full-blooded Viking saga. Writer/director Robert Eggers is nothing if not consistent, making each of his films stronger than the one before and establishing himself as one of the most interesting contemporary horror directors around, along with the likes of Ari Aster and Coralie Fargeat. It’s all been an exercise in building towards his true passion project: a new adaptation of Nosferatu. F.W. Murnau’s silent classic of German Expressionist Cinema is a hugely influential film that has lost none of its entrancing power over a century later. It was of course an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, furiously hunted down and staked by Bram Stoker’s widow Florence… but thankfully some prints survived being dusted. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have Murnau’s film, Werner Herzog’s 1979 take or this riveting new adaptation.

‘Succumb to the Darkness’ is the tagline for the film and Eggers makes no bones about that (and there are plenty of bones in the film, poking out in unnatural directions). While the film credits both the original’s screenwriter Henrik Galeen and Stoker, this is very much Eggers own take on a familiar story. His script is refined to the pointy end of a stake, not wasting any time in establishing its dark, then darker, then really dark tone before emerging back into the light like waking up from a vivid nightmare. It’s an apt description for the film itself, which has a persistent, pervasive aura of monstrous evil from the opening scene right through to the beautifully grotesque closing shot. Sustaining that level of menacing dread for over two hours as Count Orlok extends his icy grasp takes some guts, but Eggers has plenty of them and also knows when to judiciously throw them at the screen too. This is a film that knows exactly what it is, what it wants to say and how to say it without ever feeling like a carbon copy of something that came before it.

Eggers was interested in re-focusing the story on Ellen and that much is evident in the way the film portrays possessive seduction from afar as Count Orlok arrives in Germany like a plague – an infestation of boat-fleeing rats in a respectful nod to the original. It’s hinted that Ellen has had special abilities for some time, so her erratic behaviour is on the same frequency as Count Orlok who is driving her mad with desire and hysteria. There’s a fascinating performance from Lily-Rose Depp here, who channelled Isabelle Adjani’s memorably livewire performance in the notorious Possession rather than Adjani’s performance in Herzog’s film. It’s a strong physical and emotional performance that is infused with the deteriorating effect of evil. It falls in that oddly suitable intersection between sex and death that so dominantly occupies vampire lore, but here it’s magnified to thrilling effect.

Credit too to an unrecognisable Bill Skarsgard as Count Orlok, buried in prosthetics as heavy as his rasping, gasping Romanian accent. He’s been kept in the dark shadows for the film’s marketing, but it’s enough to say that his ghastly vampire look is impressive enough to stand on its own without relying on the rat-like look that came before. He’s not playing the doomed, romantic vampire of Stoker here. His Orlok is a creature of pure, unrelenting evil that infects not just one woman but a whole town in the lead up to the most wonderful time of the year (a cheery alternative Christmas film then). The way that Eggers executes all this is nothing short of impressive at times, from the way he guides his actors to pitch-perfect performances to the way he maintains that dripping atmosphere of terror like it was quickly going out of fashion and needed to make it a mission statement. Eggers has been busily working away for several years now, honing his craft to the point where he can master the multiple elements on a film set with confidence and ease. Nosferatu is his most accomplished, exciting, spine-tingling and impactful film to date. Get your fangs into it.

Rating: 4 / 5

Review by Gareth O’Connor