NOSFERATU Review: Robert Eggers's Vision Of The Vampire Falls Flat
An undead fiend lusts after a distraught waif in Nosferatu, Robert Eggers’s languid retelling of one of horror cinema’s most influential texts.
Thomas (Nicolas Hoult) is an ambitious and newly married real estate agent eager for promotion when his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) offers him an opportunity that he cannot refuse. Travel to Transylvania to close a monster deal with the eccentric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), and he’ll be set for life. The only downside is that he’ll have to leave behind Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), his blushing bride who happily dotes after him, but they see the chance to build something greater for themselves and accept the challenge. Little do they know that Orlok’s has ulterior motives that will put their very existence in danger, as this infernal creature will stop at nothing to sate a carnal desire for Ellen that predates them all.
There’s not much need to summarize the story of Nosferatu. Based on Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking novel, Dracula, the original 1922 film by F. W. Murnau was created when the Stoker estate would not grant him permission to officially adapt the story. Eggers’s film follows Murnau’s story and characters, but the themes and general plot remain largely the same as all of the many Dracula adaptations that would follow. Because of the popularity and universality of the story, Dracula has been made and remade dozens of times, which begs the question, why do it again?
A divisive figure even among horror fans and cinephiles, Eggers has a rather uneven list of directing credits. While many wait with bated breath for his next film, this critic has adopted a more wait-and-see attitude toward his work. His penchant for period cinema and the trappings thereof are interesting in an intellectual sense, but don’t always translate to compelling cinema. Fair warning to the reader, the only film in Eggers’s credits that I truly love is The Lighthouse, and that is because of its audacity and clear disregard for narrative form. To me, the rest often feel like exercises in cinematic masturbation, designed so that Eggers can feel self-satisfied, rather than to bring the audience into the experience. I recognize that I’m in the minority with this opinion, so I think it best to reveal myself up front.
Sadly, Nosferatu marks another journey into the banal for Eggers and me. Not original enough in narrative or execution to justify its existence, it simply reminds me of better films that I’d rather be watching. Any flourishes of originality withing Nosferatu feel as though they have teleported in from another dimension, as though they exist contrary to the vision of the film, but they were so undeniable that it would be impossible to ignore them.
There is an overly mannered formality to the central performances of Hoult and a wildly miscast Aaron Taylor-Johnson as his good friend and caretaker of Ellen while Thomas is away that immediately puts the audience at a distance from the drama and the horror inherent in the story. Hoult - an actor I typically love - turns in an inscrutable performance that I cannot for the life of my decide whether I love or hate. Depp, on the other hand, as a woman possessed of an ancient evil, attempts to channel Isabelle Adjani in Possession on multiple occasions, but she just doesn’t have the chops to make her emotional disintegration anything less than hysterical and a big miss for me.
The film regains my attention when we are introduced to Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe) – this version of the story’s analogue to Abraham Van Helsing – because Dafoe is, quite simply, incapable of being anything less than rapturous to watch. However, the injection of energy that Dafoe provides merely serves to illuminate how dull and flaccid the rest of the story around him is. He is a source of light in this otherwise dreary world.
If the monster itself was compelling to watch, a lot of the film’s sins would be forgiven, however, Skarsgård’s Orlok feels like a piss take. Sporting a hilariously over the top accent and a manner of speaking that makes every minute feel like an hour, Eggers’s Nosferatu feels less intimidating and ferocious than simply annoying. Sure, there are moments of carnage, even a few instances where the violence sneaks up on the audience, but in this incarnation Orlok is little more than a misshapen bully rather than the force of evil that the story needs him to be in order to justify the mania surrounding him.
None of this is helped by the aggressively drab look of the film, drained of all vivacity as though Orlok himself had a go at the color palette, draining it of all life. Nosferatu may be framed impeccably, but this gray and cool blue toned version of the story does little to elicit an emotional or visceral response from me. It feels like a tragic sign of the times that as technology advances and we have access to a broader range of colors and lighting schemes than ever before in history, some filmmakers seem intent upon rejecting the opportunities that provides. It’s made even more disappointing that the film teases us with flashes of warmth – once in a tavern in Transylvania, and again as von Franz’s final plan comes to fiery fruition – meaning that everyone involved was capable of making the film visually interesting but chose not to.
I fear that I’ve let my frustration with the film overwhelm my analysis of its merits, but after seeing it twice now, I can’t help but feel disappointed in the final result. If Eggers wanted to tell this story, why wouldn’t he bring something new to the telling? We all know the tale of Nosferatu, it’s so deeply ingrained in the hearts of the horror faithful that without a genuinely new and fresh angle, it’s barely worth revisiting. Unfortunately, it feels as though this version of the beloved story is satisfied playing the hits, and even then, it misses more than it should.
