Over the course of film history, there have been six versions of the story of “Nosferatu” (or at least six that I can find on the internet). And that’s to say nothing of the countless “Dracula” films that have also graced our screens over the years.
The first of these films, from German Expressionist director F.W. Murnau, debuted in 1922, an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.” The first official version of Stoker’s work would come out in 1931, directed by Tod Browning.
Suffice it to say, “Nosferatu” is a property synonymous with film history, and a tale older than Hollywood itself. But, as evidenced by his previous work – “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse,” “The Northman” – writer/director Robert Eggers has an affinity for legends. And “Nosferatu,” which in part involves a strange creature who brings a plague unto humanity, certainly feels ripe for reimagination in 2024. Eggers brings his signature weirdness and the height of filmmaking craft to the endeavor, and while the story might not change all that much, that’s sort of the thing about legends –there’s always something new to mine.
“Nosferatu” takes place in 1830s Germany, opening with a woman named Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) begging for connection. “Come to me,” she keeps saying, asking for someone out there to hear her, see her – anything. Unfortunately for Ellen, an ancient creature named Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) is the one who answers, damning her to a psychic connection with an obsessive vampire for the rest of her life. She manages to ignore the bond for a while, marrying Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) – a kind, if a little dopey, real estate agent – and living some semblance of a nice, normal life. But when Hutter is sent away to play real estate agent to Count Orlok himself, the connection starts to drive Ellen mad.
Eggers recently wrote a letter to the Critics Choice Association explaining his love for the 1922 “Nosferatu” and explaining what he and the rest of the crew sought to achieve in remaking the film. As is par for the course with Eggers, a lot of work went into period accuracy at every turn – in the lighting, the costumes, the production design, etc. That realism comes into mesmerizing contrast with the storybook-like compositions that are littered throughout the movie, particularly when it comes to Count Orlok’s castle and Hutter’s interaction with the building and its inhabitants.
Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s detailed, painterly compositions operate in a dream world of sorts. The scene where Hutter first shows up to Orlok’s home unravels in a trancelike state, Hutter pushed along not of his own volition, the visual language of the film just as mystical as the forces at play. Color and light also play a huge part in creating that gothic fairytale-like atmosphere. When we’re with Ellen at home in Germany, the daytimes feel muted, almost stifled, not unlike Ellen herself. The nighttime scenes descend into black and white, and when color seeps into the frame it comes in searing oranges and reds from the candles and fires lit within the room. When those flames disappear, actors nearly fade into the darkness behind them, swallowed by the literal blackness of their circumstances.
The words “meticulous” and “serious” tend to surface about Eggers any time he has a new movie on the horizon, mainly because he does extensive research for all of his films and stresses about making them as historically accurate as possible (he was reportedly very upset about the fact that he had to use three-wick candles in “The Witch” – those types of candles were NOT period appropriate, but they needed the extra wicks to adequately light certain scenes).
I don’t want to take any of Eggers’ meticulousness or seriousness as a filmmaker away from him. But I feel those descriptors often cause people to overlook just how strange and silly he can be, and “Nosferatu” is anything but humorless. In the scene where Hutter first receives the order from his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), to visit Count Orlok, Knock gives himself away as a vampiric accomplice immediately. He’s unable to control his glee about the irony of the situation, that he knows the reality of what Hutter will be walking into better than Hutter does. When Knock can barely contain his laughter as he tells Hutter that Orlok requested “an agent … in the flesh!”, you can feel Eggers’ joy seeping into the frame. When Knock sneeringly tells Hutter that Orlok lives in a tiny, unknown country as the camera moves its way slowly across a map before landing on the word “Transylvania,” you can feel Eggers’ delight at the silliness of the movement. He’s having so much fun with all of these vampire story markers that we’re all familiar with – little winks at the audience as Hutter remains cheerfully ignorant to it all.
“Nosferatu” walks the line of creepy and funny with care, the performances also fine-tuned to ride that spectrum to its logical conclusion. Hoult plays Hutter – naive, pathetic Hutter – with the earnestness of a guy who thinks he’s the hero, but is a little too slow on the uptake to truly step into that role (he initially speaks with Count Orlok’s mustachioed, walking corpse as if he were a regular guy). The ensemble is full of character actors who are all dependably attacking the material with intensity and delight. As Dr. Wilhelm Siever, Ralph Ineson’s reaction to Herr Knock tweaking out in a prison cell – quite literally horny for an ancient, undead being – is one of the funniest line readings of the year.
Herr Knock is not the only one who can’t help but be drawn in by Count Orlok’s grotesque appeal. The manifestation of Ellen’s connection to the vampire oscillates between hypersexual and straight exorcism territory. Depp delivers the most impressive performance in the film, which might surprise some viewers whose main interaction with her as an actress was in HBO’s “The Idol.” If the plague storyline is reminiscent of the COVID pandemic, Ellen connects to sexual repression, and even, in some aspects, the #MeToo movement. Here is a woman haunted by a monstrous man who, when she attempts to tell anyone about it, is told she’s crazy, or that her visions are nothing more than fits of madness. Depp doesn’t necessarily feel like a woman from the 1800s – she has a very modern look about her, but that almost works in her favor here. She feels out of a time, trapped by the status of her gender and her circumstances – a trap she might find herself in no matter the decade.
“Nosferatu” will be in theaters Christmas Day, Dec. 25.