Nosferatu: Film Review
With period horrors like The Witch and The Lighthouse under his belt, Robert Eggers is the perfect director to take on a remake of the 1922 Gothic horror Nosferatu. Rarely has a director and a piece of source material been so well aligned.
This film, set in Germany in the 1830s, stars Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, a tortured woman who has a psychic connection and doomed obsession with the vampire Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard). Orlok invites her estate agent husband Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) to his castle in Transylvania to sign the deed to his new mansion, the first move in his play to be with Ellen once and for all.
Nosferatu is an astounding achievement on a technical level. Jarin Blaschke‘s cinematography is stunning, with several shots making me say wow under my breath. I loved the play with light and dark and the recurring motif of a shadowy hand reaching for Ellen. Also, the costume design, production design and hair and make-up are just terrific all around.
Thankfully it’s not a case of style over substance (although the style is beautiful). The narrative – which is very loyal to the original – is chilling and gripping. Eggers masterfully creates a bleak atmosphere of dread and impending doom – Count Orlok is coming to town and there’s nothing they can do about it. He carefully ups the horror as it goes, presenting us with shocking imagery I’m not going to forget for a while.
Never has a Count Orlok (or Count Dracula, the original inspiration) looked so grotesque and horrifying. I was not prepared for what this version looked like and you don’t see him fully for a while, with him being obscured by darkness often. Skarsgard is utterly unrecognisable under all the prosthetics (and a surprising moustache!) and his otherworldly vocal performance is unbelievable.
Depp does a fantastic job nailing the English accent and the meticulously choreographed physical demands of her role. Ellen is often possessed by the demon and she has to convulse and exhibit The Exorcist-style behaviours. That must have been exhausting. While I liked all of the cast (including Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Eggers regulars Willem Dafoe and Ralph Ineson), they were clearly given a mandate to act theatrically. This is possibly to be in keeping with the time period or Gothic horror style. Whatever the reason, they speak in a highly enunciated and unnatural way.
Eggers has been wanting to remake Nosferatu for many years and you can see that passion and preparation on the screen. He knew exactly what he wanted and boy, does he deliver an odd, eerie and repulsive film.
In cinemas from New Year’s Day
Rating: 4 out of 5.
