Robert Eggers crafts a spellbinding gothic nightmare in ‘Nosferatu’

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After his feature film debut with 2016’s religious folk-horror “The Witch,” director Robert Eggers immediately established himself as one of the freshest new voices in the horror genre. His work in the years that followed proved he was capable of far more than filling us with dread and an irrational fear of farm animals. The disturbing sense of humor in “The Lighthouse” and the quiet ferocity of “The Northman” distanced Eggers from his horror roots and now his vampire tale, “Nosferatu” brings his career into perspective. 

“Nosferatu” is Eggers’ first pure horror film since “The Witch” as well as his first film based on pre-existing work. “The Northman” draws heavy inspiration from the Scandinavian legend “Amleth,” the direct inspiration for Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” but “Nosferatu” is his first ever direct adaptation of another work. 

In “Nosferatu,” Eggers weaves a gothic fairy tale that disturbingly delves further into similar themes explored in his previous work. The difference here is how much more accessible this feels to a wider audience. 

Eggers is no stranger to horror and “Nosferatu” feels like his most “traditional” horror film. The story moves at a quicker pace than “The Witch” and has a far more straightforward narrative to follow. 

The story is basically the same as Dracula, in traditional “Nosferatu” fashion, only with the hypnotically unsettling atmosphere Eggers loves to create. The film feels cold the entire time with an omnipresent fog shrouding every location and leaving a foreboding sense of dread.

The way the camera moves throughout certain scenes almost feels like its emulating a ghost drifting along, haunting the characters as the situations around them grow more and more dire. While not his most visually rich or memorable film to date, the work done by director of photography, Jarin Blashke breathes so much life into this cold and dark tale.   

Every element of the production design contributes to building an incredibly tangible world that feels lived in and authentic, while still saving room for theatrics. The costumes are all very detailed and look like so much thought went into the designs to make them look as historically accurate as possible. 

The film balances tone very well with it managing to pull off a certain degree of realism while maintaining a slightly theatrical style in its presentation and especially in the performances. 

With one minor exception, all of the performances are excellent here.

Lily-Rose Depp plays Ellen Hutter, a young new bride plagued by what seem to be nightmares of a hideous creature. Due to her history of mental illness, these nightmares are brushed off as nothing more. NIcholas Hoult plays her husband Thomas, a real estate assistant who is tasked with finalizing paperwork for the mysterious Count Orlok who has just purchased a house in the same town as Thomas and Ellen. 

The pair are essentially the co-leads of the film with Hoult receiving a surprising amount of screen time. Depp is given a lot to work with and absolutely makes the most of it. She plays the quieter scenes so well and when she’s given the opportunity to fully let loose, she does not hold back. There’s an unpredictable quality to her performance that leaves you wondering not so much what the character is going to do next, but how she’s going to feel about it. 

Hoult is only proving himself more and more as one of the most underused actors working today, which will hopefully change with the last few projects he’s chosen. He plays the everyman perfectly in this story and brings a refreshing innocence to male characters portrayed in this time period. As the events of the film begin to escalate and his character needs to rise to the occasion, Hoult makes his gradual growth feel real and earned. 

Willem Dafoe reunites with Eggers for their third collaboration playing a Van Helsing analogue named Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz and brings some very much needed vigor into the story. Dafoe plays this character with the enthusiasm of a young actor getting their big break. He has so much energy as this character and his dynamic with the rest of the skeptical main cast as a believer in the supernatural only adds to the film’s personality.

With Pennywise and now Count Dracu– I mean Count Orlok under his belt, Bill Skarsgård seems to be keeping the spirits alive of the classic monster movies that created stars like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney. His performance is transformative as Orlok and feels nothing like his previous monster work. The makeup certainly adds a lot to how intimidating he feels, but his voice and body language is what sells it. His voice is booming and at the same time, slow and hypnotic. He is a hideous looking creature, but you want to keep looking at him and listening to him. The character’s design may not be what most expect based on the original film, but it still feels iconic in its own way based on how well he’s presented throughout the film. The way he’s only shown in glimpses and usually obscured for most of the film only to gradually be shown more and more makes him feel like more of an inevitability.

The weakest performance of the main cast is definitely Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He has been a bit of a punching bag for this film amongst critics and while he is the weakest, it’s only because everyone else is so good. Johnson plays a friend of the Hutters named Friedrich Harding whose family looks after Ellen while Thomas goes to meet Orlok. Friedrich is a more traditionally masculine character and exudes more impulsive and impatient traits throughout. Johnson does a fairly good job at portraying these emotions, especially later in the film, but there are more than a few line deliveries that feel very awkward. He has to yell a lot in the film and sometimes he just does not do a convincing job. He does have a few emotional scenes that are quite effective.

Eggers continues to cement himself as one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. “Nosferatu” could have been another in a long line of endless remakes in a creatively bankrupt industry and he managed to pull off a fresh and entertaining horror film that still kept his artistic style intact. The film does lean into certain mainstream horror tropes like jumpscares here and there and a couple of shock value moments, but his voice still shines through. “Nostferatu” may not be his scariest or most memorable film, but it’s another step in what looks to be a promising career.

^{Written by Carlos De la Luz}

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