NOSFERATU (2024)
Starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Adéla Hesová, Milena Konstantinova, Stacy Thunes, Gregory Gudgeon, Robert Russell, Curtis Matthew, Claudiu Trandafir, Georgina Bereghianu, Jordan Haj, Katerina Bila, Maria Ion, Tereza Duskova and Liana Navrot.
Screenplay by Robert Eggers.
Directed by Robert Eggers.
Distributed by Focus Features. 132 minutes. Rated R.
Robert Eggers is a filmmaker who likes old-fashioned scares (check out The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman), so it’s probably not shocking that his latest film is an update of one of the first horror films ever. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) was a silent film, which to this day is known for its chilling art direction and its very notable, monstruous view of its bloodsucking villain.
The original Nosferatu was an unofficial, unauthorized take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in which writer Henrik Galeen and director F. W. Murnau mostly held on to the main storyline but changed the character names and certain plot points. In fact, Stoker’s widow successfully sued the filmmakers for plagiarism and the film was removed from the market and supposed to be destroyed, but luckily some copies of the original survived, and it has become a film classic.
This is the second remake of Nosferatu, although in the 1979 Klaus Kinski / Isabelle Adjani version (called Nosferatu the Vampyre), filmmaker Werner Herzog used the original character names from the Stoker novel.
In the new version, Robert Eggers returns to the original Nosferatu changes, returning the character names from the silent film. (For example, Count Dracula is now Count Orlok. Jonathan Harker is now Thomas Hutter. Mina Harker is now Ellen Hutter. Dr. Van Helsing is now Professor Von Franz.)
Was this completely necessary? Probably not, as Bram Stoker’s novel is now in the public domain and could easily have been remade again. (The original Nosferatu is also a public domain title.)
And yet, Nosferatu had certain interesting diversions from the original story which may have made it intriguing for Eggers. For example, the rats from the crashed ship which delivered the vampire play a much bigger role in this than the original story. It led the characters to be concerned of a plague, which is an intriguing sidetrack, particularly so soon after COVID.
Also, interesting trivia note: the idea of vampires not being able to survive in the sun came from the original Nosferatu. That particular way of defeating a vampire was not in Dracula or any of the other previous lore. So, this also plays a part in the plot, although I can say most… if not all… vampire stories that came in the wake of Nosferatu have used this idea, which has become an accepted part of the lore.
The new Nosferatu has a dirtiness (griminess, not sexuality) and desperation that is also quite affecting and chilling.
Surprisingly, Eggers decided not to use the infamous Nosferatu vision of the vampire, although it does continue the idea of not romanticizing the vampire, instead making him look horrific – just in a different way. As played by Bill Skarsgård, who has made a career of scary monsters (he also played Pennywise the Clown in the IT movies), the Count is chilling, and yet there is something a bit affected and clumsy about the way he acts and speaks.
In fact, you can sort of say that about many of the characters in the film. Eggers is trying to be true to the era, and everyone is speaking in formal, clipped, slightly unnatural ways. (This is an ongoing concern in Eggers’ work, check out the dialogue and performances in The Witch again sometime.) It is probably era-appropriate, but it feels awkward to modern ears.
Then again, that is probably the whole point. Nosferatu is supposed to take place in a slightly alien world, a long time ago and far away, and it does work as that. It’s an old-fashioned thriller which puts suspense and chills above gore and jump scares, and that works for the vampire genre. Nosferatu is a nightcrawler which will creep into your subconscious and take up residence in your bad dreams.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: December 23, 2024.
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