Nosferatu
by Hope Madden
It’s a funny idea, revisiting Nosferatu. F. W. Murnau’s 1922 original is itself a reimagining of Dracula (criminally so, as the filmmaker was successfully sued by Bram Stoker’s estate and all prints of the film were believed destroyed at the time).
But Murnau’s changes to the vampire fable and his approach to the story were compelling enough to motivate Werner Herzog to put his own magnificently bizarre spin on Nosferatu in 1979. And the fascination and horror surrounding the forbidden original inspired E. Elias Merhige’s brilliant 2000 horror comedy Shadow of the Vampire (for which Willem Dafoe earned a much deserved Oscar nomination).
So, there is obviously something there. Something in the criminal DNA of Murnau’s macabre fantasy arouses the most fascinating reincarnations. Since the 1922 masterpiece, none is as assured, as complete or as clearly stand-alone from Stoker’s source material as Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu.
In collaboration with longtime cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and The Northman composer Robin Carolan, Eggers conjures an elegant, somber, moody Austria breathlessly awaiting death.
His film pulls in the shadow play that made Murnau’s film so eerie, as well as the plague-infested storytelling that gave Herzog’s film its touch of madness. But Eggers’s script fills in narrative gaps with a backstory that diverts from any previous tellings, enriching characters with a ripe darkness that influences the entire fable.
Eggers centers his tale on a love triangle, as so many have, but he invests in two characters the other storytellers, including Stoker, mainly wasted. Nicholas Hoult (having a banner year) plays Hutter, the intrepid real estate man sent to Transylvania to finalize accounts with an eccentric nobleman, leaving behind his beautiful bride, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp).
Hoult may be the first actor in any version—Nosferatu or Dracula—to give the Hutter/Harker character real depth. He is flawed, terrified, earnest, insecure and loyal. It’s a standout performance in an impeccable ensemble.
Depp mines for something primal, and her performance is unsettling. Isabelle Adjani’s turn in Herzog’s version hints at what obsesses this desperate bride, but Depp is given the space to create a solid, haunted character to hang the movie on.
There are three other characters that every filmmaker has fun with, and Eggers finds ways to freshen up the monster, his minion, and the mad doctor who would be his downfall. Willem Dafoe’s Professor Albin Eberhert von Franz (the Van Helsing stand in) is just manic enough to be alarming.
As Knock (known in Dracula as Renfield), Simon McBurney is a menacing, manipulative lunatic with a far meatier and messier role in society’s unraveling.
Eggers keeps the Count (Bill Skarsgård) shrouded in darkness long enough to build excitement. What the two deliver is unlike anything in the canon. It’s horrifying and perfectly in keeping with the blunt instrument they’ve made of this remorseless monster.
His monstrousness makes the seductive nature of the tale all the more unseemly. This beast, the rats, the stench of contagion infesting the elegant image of Austria and her beautiful bride—it is the stuff of nightmares.
It makes you grateful that Eggers was not intrigued by Stoker’s elegant aristocrat and his tortured love story, but drawn instead to the repulsive carnality of Nosferatu.
