Once a serious horror movie has you giggling at it, it's almost impossible for it to win you back. A scene at the opening of Nosferatu features a young woman's bedroom being breached by a creature appearing in shadow (which is captured on the film's poster). It's a cool effect, seeing the outline of our vampire only shown in the shadow of the bellowing curtain. For me, it's the first, and sadly last, creepy moment of the film. And once you can't take the film that so desperately needs to be taken seriously, Nosferatu devolves quite quickly into silly nonsense.
Don't get me wrong, writer/director Robert Eggers spares no expense in this lush and artistically crafted remake of the classic film of the same name featuring a young man (Nicholas Hoult) sent to Transylvania to do business with his firm's client, an eccentric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) who lives deep in the Carpathian Mountains. Falling under under the vampire's spell, Thomas Hutter (Hoult) eventually needs the help of his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), going through her own torture being haunted by the vampire in her dreams, to defeat him.
In a post-Buffy world where the vampire genre has been deconstructed, this throwback to the romanticism of classic vampires feels a bit dated. The choice to play events as serious but have the actors engage in something more akin to a melodramatic radio play also creates a weird tone that adds to the film's emotional disconnect. And the absence of terror (or even mild fright), only further exposes the ridiculousness of classic vampire stories and the often stupefying actions of the script's two-dimensional characters. Even Orlock's design, at first only shown in glimpses, quickly loses its effectiveness once fully revealed on-screen.
Seeing the response the film is getting, I'll likely be in the smallest minority here as the film seems destined for both critical and financial success. And, had I seen in the film in a packed theater with others on the edge of their seat I might be more inclined to give this version of Nosferatu more of a break. It certainly has the trappings to garner an audience. However, my viewing experience proved anything but thrilling.
I didn't feel compelled to root for or against Orlock. I had no emotional stake in either Ellen nor her husband nor Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the couple's uppity friend who's less likable here than in Kraven. Their performances are often too big (and in Depp's case way, way too over-the-top) yet too simplistic for what the story calls for in needing to craft true horror from the threat of Orlock. And Willem Dafoe is phoning it in as the occult expert who might as well be named Willem Dafoe. For me, Nosferatu is silly nonsense. It's expensive. often beautifully framed silly nonsense, to be sure, but silly nonsense all the same.
- Title: Nosferatu
- IMDb: link
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