The vampire myth is so well drawn from by cinema that it must resemble an exsanguinated corpse. The very act of remaking a landmark moment in the medium’s depiction of the undead carries metatextual connotations of reanimated corpses. Robert Eggers’ passion project, NOSFERATU, undertakes this daunting prospect with a level of craft that is remarkably engaging but is let down slightly by the qualities of the more original embellishments to themes and characters it pursues.
F. W. Murnau’s 1922 NOSFERATU is a renowned silent-era forebear of the horror genre that was also nevertheless a copyright dodge around Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula (the film was nearly destroyed in the aftermath of a copyright suit by Florence Balcombe, Stoker’s widow). Since then, the novel itself has been adapted in numerous forms, ranging from Francis Ford Coppola’s reverentially-titled BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992) to the Hammer pictures starring Christopher Lee that began with 1958’s DRACULA. NOSFERATU itself has already seen one prominent remake from Werner Herzog, NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979), featuring a plot similar to Murnau but using the character names of Stoker’s source material. Even the comedy WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014) presents a character that is a clear visual homage to Max Schreck’s 1922 portrayal of Count Orlok. And then there are recent Dracula-adjacent oddities such as RENFIELD and EL CONDE or the broader cinematic landscape of TWILIGHT, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, and innumerable (supposedly) original stories. All of this is to say that releasing a film titled NOSFERATU in 2024 is a bold endeavour.
Eggers’ version retains the same basic plot, wherein real estate agent Thomas Hutter travels to the castle of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) in Transylvania to complete the Count’s purchase of a run-down home in Thomas’s home of Wisborg. Thomas flees upon being disturbed by the Count’s otherworldly, deathly demeanour. A connection between this undead force and Thomas’s troubled wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), tests many characters in the town as plague and darkness close in on them in Wisborg.
“That tangibility [of the production design] makes the more nightmarish edges of the interactions with Orlok all the more heightened.”
The level of detail with which Eggers approaches productions shines through in the tangible world his characters inhabit, created via costuming, makeup and set design reverential to the period. That tangibility makes the more nightmarish edges of the interactions with Orlok all the more heightened. It would be easy for Skarsgard’s vocal performance to tip over into parody, but the atmosphere and direction render it deeply unsettling, with a protracted quality in the delivery making every word tense.
The lighting and the desaturated nature of many of the shots have some stylistic overlap with THE LIGHTHOUSE, Eggers’ second feature. Given the clear inspiration that film takes from Murnau’s NOSFERATU in lighting, framing and aspect ratio, there is a neat circularity to the aesthetic presentation (which is undoubtedly the film’s strongest quality). Literal darkness comes alongside the metaphorical darkness, but the use of light to frequently provide silhouettes in shadowy spaces is remarkably (and appropriately) alluring. Thomas’s arrival at Castle Orlok best exemplifies the peak of the film’s achievements here. A breathtaking sequence of a horse-drawn carriage approaching him, evocative of a mesmerisingly beautiful nightmare, segues into his movement through liminal spaces to meet Orlok.
“The film’s thematic underpinnings and performances are where it doesn’t succeed as well in getting the blood pumping.”
The film’s thematic underpinnings and performances are where it doesn’t succeed as well in getting the blood pumping. The film opens with Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen cosmically convening with Orlok years earlier, culminating in a fit which seems equal parts seizure and orgasmic. These episodes supposedly followed her throughout life but stopped after meeting Thomas and are now resurfacing. With Depp’s performance and role, the film seeks to build its ideas around female desire. A woman clearly struggling with her pull towards Orlok is framed – by the male characters around her – within the trope of the hysterical woman. She openly refers to said metaphysical communion as her “shame”. It’s an interesting enough angle into the Orlok-Ellen dyad, but it’s not especially well-developed or innovative in vampire fiction. It sits in relief to other spins on the story, with Ellen’s desire an instigating factor rather than a consequence of events, but there’s only so original the second remake of a rip-off of an iconic 19th-century novel could be without going further.
“Depp’s performance is engaging, but there is some gothic irony in it being ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ in nature.”
Depp’s performance is engaging, but there is some gothic irony in it being ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ in nature. She frequently shows incredible physical performance skills when she portrays being overcome, and some of her best scenes recall Isabelle Adjani’s landmark work in POSSESSION. However, in other scenes, she reverts to the stereotypically wooden, clipped Received Pronunciation style that has stifled many period dramas (with Aaron Taylor-Johnson clearly having received the same memo). Scenes for which the technical approach does not amplify supernatural qualities – such as those simply chronicling the progress of plague in Wisborg – seem lifeless, as do the performances. Only Willem Dafoe as vampire hunter Von Franz and Simon McBurney as Herr Knock, Orlok’s devotee, seem to embrace the material’s inherent camp and heightened reality.
This edition of NOSFERATU is often visually remarkable, and some shots will leave viewers as awestruck as Ellen supposedly is by Orlok. However, the film falters in communicating that paralysis borne of fear and desire and is content to menacingly nibble around the edges rather than sink its teeth in.