Nosferatu is Robert Eggers’ new film paying homage to the 1922 silent film of the same name. and seems to be keeping the faith with a very similar gothic aesthetic.
The plot is quite simple. Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) is a vampire in Transylvania who dreams of a beautiful woman living in a German port town. The complication is she’s married, so Orlock tricks her husband into buying a property in the town and through various shenanigans arrives in Germany. Naturally, people start dying but since Orlock’s ship brought the plague with it, the rising body count is blamed on pestilence. Some however are wise to what’s going on and plot to bring down the beast.
Now this is not your typical 21st Century vampire flick. Oh no. Eggers has gone full goth with this one and has bought into the original’s look and feel.
What that means is that if your idea of vampires is based on True Blood, Angel, or Twilight, you are in for a very rude shock.
In Nosferatu, Count Orlok is grotesque to the point of parody. His skin looks as though it is infected with flesh-eating bacteria and his frequent wheezing makes it seem as though he is in the middle of a severe asthma attack and in need of an inhaler. It’s so overdone that it is funny rather than menacing.
In the entire film there is too much emphasis on melodrama and overwrought theatrics rather than true suspense or character development. As such the film lacks any subtlety and is not genuinely frightening. Many of the characters are two dimensional and don’t engender sympathy.
Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter did a fine job with the material she had to deliver, but the demonic possession scenes involving her again felt overdone and overwrought. The most grounded in the cast was Willem Dafoe who managed to get the balance between horror and reality just right.
A puzzling aspect of the film was the romanic subplot involving Orlok and Ellen. The vampire’s wooing and eventual love-making with the girl accompanied by overtly romantic music was just unpleasant and corny. Trust me there was nothing even remotely romantic about it.
But perhaps that was the point. I haven’t watched many gothic horror films – may this is the way they are supposed to work. But it left me wondering if it was a supernatural thriller or a black comedy?
To its credit the film has moments of visual brilliance and the sets and costuming are superb. There were some genuinely scary scenes but they were soon overshadowed by the melodrama I’ve mentioned earlier.
The film has been critically acclaimed but for me this is a movie that just doesn’t work.
NOSFERATU
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Duration: 132 Minutes
Open in New Zealand – 1st January 2025
