Robert Eggers’s new Nosferatu might have been a masterpiece if it weren’t quite so long. Or so gross. Or so sexually explicit.
That’s three strikes, I guess. And in terms of being “out,” I came perilously close to exiting the theater after one horrific scene with a harmless, hapless (and eventually headless) pigeon.
Why must modern horror be so appallingly violent? I’m almost at the point where I can’t even see these movies anymore.
Which is a danged shame, because Gothic horror has a long and distinguished cinematic history.
In fact, Eggers’s lurid, atmospheric chiller is actually a remake of the first major vampire film — which is now a whopping 103 years old.
That would be F. W. Murnau’s seminal, same-titled silent German film from 1922.
Made inexpensively, and fully 40 minutes shorter than the new one, the first Nosferatu followed Bram Stoker’s Dracula so closely that the author’s heirs won a lawsuit ordering the destruction of all copies. (Happily, some survived; so that creepy classic is readily available online, if you’re interested.)
Both the old and new versions take place in a 19th-century German village — from which the recently married Thomas Hutter departs for Transylvania to arrange a real-estate sale with the ailing and reclusive Count Orlok. (His name was changed from Dracula, in a failed attempt to avoiding legal problems.)
But it turns out Hutter’s wife, Ellen, had a long-ago relationship with Orlok; in fact, the mysterious predator — a vampire, of course — had prearranged all this to get himself back to his long-lost love in Wisbourg. And when he finally manages this voyage, Orlok brings not only blood-sucking horror, but also something much, much worse: a deadly and contagious rat-borne plague.
Eggers, whose brief but well-reviewed resume comprises The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, has made Nosferatu a visual love-letter to German Expressionism. Patented by directors Murnau and Robert Weine (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), that cinematic style exerted a profound influence on such later masters as James Whale, Val Lewton and Alfred Hitchcock.
Eggers’s film boasts viscerally spooky sets and landscapes; careful camerawork with mesmerizing movements; lots of creepy shadows and half-seen figures; and muted colors that sometimes leach right down to black-and-white. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and so inherently unnerving that they certainly didn’t need to add graphic bloodshed for any further frights.
The performances are likewise exemplary, highlighted by Bill Skarsgard’s uncanny vocal work as Orlok. Ellen Hutter is played by a truly excellent Lily-Rose Depp (yes, Johnny’s daughter). I don’t even wanna know how Depp managed some of her bodily contortions onscreen; it’s like watching outtakes from The Exorcist — only with better acting.
And the veteran Willem Dafoe proves a revelation as an expert in the occult; his character brings a welcome — and somewhat unexpected — vivacity and compassion to these grim proceedings.
Perhaps best of all, the film gradually assumes an almost epic feel as Orlok’s reign of terror spreads like wildfire — while the stakes in defeating him grow correspondingly desperate.
Now as for the explicit content:
In some scenes, Eggers seems determined not to show too much; but several moments really cross the line. The late death of some particularly innocent characters is terribly hard to stomach (though again, not much is shown there); and the graphic vampire sex-scene is simply indefensible. (Let’s just say it goes a good deal farther than the shadowy neck-kiss of 1922.)
I’ve always been uncomfortable with the blend of sexuality and violence that seems inherent in the vampire genre; and this instance is by far the most disturbing one I’ve seen.
And again, that’s really too bad — because there’s much redemptive hope in Ellen’s final decision; on the whole, I wish I could recommend this film more warmly. Nosferatu is made with consummate skill in every department, and it’s genuinely scary. Hardcore horror-fans will love it.
More sensitive souls might want to stick with Lewton, Whale and Hitchcock.
