The Lighthouse director/writer Robert Eggers returns with his newest work, Nosferatu, a remake—or is it a based-upon?—of one of the most enduring films of all time: 1922’s Nosferatu. With twinges of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 style-over-substance take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and a whole lot of gorgeous cinematography, Eggers maintains his signature visual and atmospheric style, but other than some beautiful design and a notable performance or two, this one can’t quite escape the terrifying boredom lurking in the shadows.
In New-sferatu, Nicholas Hoult (The Great) gets back into the vampire game following last year’s Renfield, only this time he’s Thomas, a rising late-1800s German businessman and Eggers’ Jonathan Harker-esque character who travels to Transylvania to close a real estate deal with one Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård, who rarely performs without wild makeup and a wilder voice). Orlock is your basic Dracula type who came here to chew gum and suck blood, only he’s all out of gum. Turns out Orlock had a questionable relationship with Thomas’ new wife Ellen (a terrible, horrible, no-good, very hammy Lily-Rose Depp) some years ago, and now he’s prepared to cross oceans of time to claim her soul. With the real estate deal closed, Orlock brings himself and a plague to Thomas’ town, and no one—from Thomas’ shipping magnate buddy Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to a pair of occult-lovin’ doctors (Ralph Ineson and Willem Dafoe)—seems prepared to deal with the fallout. And so, like goddamn always, the ladies are left to suffer and deal with the hard stuff while the gents rush about not asking for help and breaking shit with their impatience.
As he’s done in his previous films, Eggers subtly digs into toxic masculinity and mental illness. In nearly every exchange, a man won’t hear or abide by a woman, and in nearly every case, their bullheadedness makes everything worse. In some cases, certain characters act like mental illness is a conscious choice made by the sufferer, which is both timely and timeless and maddening, just as it is in the real world. Through dreamlike sequences, he also explores the subconscious and hidden sexual desire. How does boning a decaying demon seem hot? Eggers found a way. Sadly, this is where most of Nosferatu’s more interesting aspects come to a screeching halt.
Hoult is ok as the wide-eyed innocent, and Dafoe’s restrained madness against Taylor-Johnson’s descent into misery are both strangely fun to obverse, but Depp insists on chewing the scenery at every turn. Worse yet, Emma Corrin (Deadpool & Wolverine) is given precious little time to stretch into her character’s much-needed portrayal of the innocent, but then, Eggers has always seemed to be a visual filmmaker first and foremost. This mostly translates into tedium. Whereas a film like The Lighthouse lassoed ideas of inner darkness and isolation into concepts worth examining, Nosferatu becomes ammunition for those decrying Hollywood’s lack of original ideas. It doesn’t suck outright, but some of it feels like a bloody mess.
7
+Drop-dead gorgeous; Orlock is certainly creepy
-Tedium; breakneck conclusion feels sudden
Nosferatu
Directed by Eggers
With Hoult, Depp, Dafoe, Taylor-Johnson, Ineson and Corrin
Center for Contemporary Arts, Violet Crown, R, 132 min.
