Nosferatu (2024): All Fang, Some Bite
I’d like to apologise to the friends I arranged to see Nosferatu with. We should’ve experienced this in the cinema together but I couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. Sorry Gaz and Jazz. At least you've been spared this post being transmitted to you in unedited rant form.
Robert Eggers is en vogue. He might literally be in Vogue. It wouldn’t surprise me because he’s become a superstar, the hottest director in town who doesn’t speak French.1 What does his take on the classic vampyre have to offer?
Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) is a young woman plagued by dark nightmares of a foul, supernatural being. Her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is an estate agent who takes on Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) as a client; the same evil creature obsessed with the young bride.
The biggest change that Eggers makes is shifting the focus of the story from Orlok or the male characters, to Ellen. It provides freshness to a familiar story. Depp’s performance is central to many scenes and thankfully so. Her convulsing, writhing movements are hypnotising and the emotional states she reaches are compelling.
Equally hypnotic was the direction and cinematography. The camera movements, notably in scenes at Orlok’s castle, were fluid and disorienting in a great way. A few Wes Anderson-esque compositions create a theatrical quality, highlighted by the faux-expressionist colour palettes on display. The nocturnal scenes have a sumptuous, inky feel to them.
However there were many shots and affectations that reminded me not of Murnau or Herzog, but Coppolla’s Dracula. I found it odd considering the marked difference in tone between the source material and the inspiration. In a further clash of style, Eggers eschews expressionistic elements from the original Nosferatu in favour of his trademark obsession with folkloric realism.
Not inherently a bad thing but in that case why remake this vampire film?
Story-wise I saw no improvement from Eggers’ previous works 2, which have been criticised for their lack of emotional depth. This applies here too. It’s rigid, lurching from scene to scene. The effect is a stop-start feel which dampens the momentum of the plot.
Every actor delivered at least one clunker of a line 3 but Willem DaFoe’s Von Franz stands out. His performance is hammy and awkward, tasked with delivering exposition more than others. You’d expect better from a seasoned character actor.
I was expecting better from the cast in general. A lot of uptight, theatrical performances. Some were one-note (Herr Knock), others were simply silly (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Perhaps it’s an effect of the stylised worlds Eggers enjoys building. All it did was put distance between me and the performers.
But I must stress that I did enjoy Nosferatu. It’s much easier to explain what went wrong than it is to analyse how the good things work. There’s plenty of horrifying imagery and chilling moments. It’s competent and a fine film.
But when you’re remaking an iconic story as this, one that’s your passion project no less, is that good enough?
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