When a vampire film sucks; Gemma Creagh reviews Nosferatu remake.
The opening sequence observes one very young girl as she desperately prays for the love and protection of her guardian angel. Instead she attracts something much more sinister. A distorted disembodied voice begins to take control of young Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), filling her mind and body with darkness. Later in the 1830s, when she’s grown and newly married, Ellen finds herself haunted once again. She pleads with her new husband, Real Estate Agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), not to travel east on his planned perilous journey. Yet desperate to finalise a sale and make his fortune, he embarks anyway. The destination? Transylvania. There, he enters into a contract with the grotesque Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Unbeknownst to Thomas, however, he inadvertently signs Ellen over, much as you might sign the change of ownership section on the back of a Vehicle Registration Certificate. Now this demonic being, Orlok sets sail to claim his bride–bringing with him a deadly plague.
With Thomas overseas, and with no fortune to call her own, Ellen remains in the care of Thomas’s friend Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), living with his doting wife Anna (Emma Corrin) and their two young daughters. But as Orlok’s power grows, Ellen’s condition deteriorates. Her awkwardly sensual fits and erratic behaviour lead them to call in a doctor, then a supernatural expert, Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe). After a quick grope, he’s able to finally provide fuzzy exposition as to the nature of Ellen’s problem. Meanwhile, Thomas narrowly escapes the nightmarish realm of Orlok’s castle with his life. Reunited with Ellen and the Hardings, Thomas watches on as the entire city is drawn into Orlok’s growing web of death. Illness spreads and Orlok’s lackeys descend into feral madness; Ellen’s escape seems increasingly hopeless, building to a tragic and disgusting climax.
This is the second remake of F. W. Murnau’s iconic 1920s Nosferatu; the first remade in 1979 by Werner Herzog and visually it’s just as striking, paying a respectful homage to the original. If there’s one thing writer-director Eggers excels at, it’s creating rich, and weirdly textured worlds, there for all to see in The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman. Everything in this 19th-century setting, from the carriages to the streets to the homes to the costumes, is captured with a keen eye and attention to detail. Each cinematic element, shot by Jarin Blaschke, elevates the action and contrasts with the grotesque physicality of the monsters and violence. Eggers combines horror, disgust, and artistry in a manner that’s visceral and immersive. The sound design and score amplify the tension, tenfold, adding texture to every oozing wound, rotting piece of flesh, and unsettling moment. Also, for fans of the What We Do in the Shadows TV Series, Bill Skarsgård’s voice as the count is a true testament to Kayvan Novak’s Nandor the Relentless.
Unfortunately, however, dig any deeper into the festering scabs of the narrative, and what you’ll find is something shallow and somewhat dated. Ellen’s stakes are impossibly high from the beginning, but her role as a victim is reductive. The performances, while committed, lean to the overly theatrical, and there’s little authenticity to any of the characters. This is surprising given the calibre, talent, and track record among the entire cast, and this fact points the gnarled fingers of blame in another direction. There’s a distinct lack of nuance to the dialogue. Motivations feel unclear or inconsistent. And even despite Dafoe’s best attempts to explain the lore to us, Orlok’s power is vague – he can control people, yet requires their free will to submit. He orchestrates elaborate schemes with a network of followers and is almost omnipotent in some ways, but must resort to engaging in a Twilight-style strategy of wooing Ellen by popping in and out of windows?
This leads on to the most troubling element of Nosferatu: the portrayal of its female characters. In this adaptation, women are simply objects to be consumed. Ellen’s youth and beauty serve as a stark contrast to Orlok’s vile, decrepit desire, and her arc is markedly close to a metaphor for childhood sexual abuse. She is groomed in her youth by an older, powerful man and carries that trauma and shame into adulthood and her marriage. This dynamic is made worse by the professor’s flippant comment in the final act. He casually insists it was Ellen’s own darkness that caused these events, effectively blaming her for Orlok’s obsession.
Meanwhile, the Hardings’ relationship is framed as passionate, intimate, yet when Anna dies, Friedrich removes her from her coffin and sexually assaults her corpse. In the wake of real-life cases like Gisèle Pelicot in France, this depiction of a man’s entitlement to his wife’s body is profoundly disturbing in the worst taste possible. And let’s not forget the exploitative nature of how Ellen is presented on-screen–often topless and writhing in sexual pleasure. By contrast, when Thomas undergoes a similar process of possession, his clothes aren’t see-through nor does the camera linger on his torso. Funny that.
Then finally, adding insult to the gaping wound is the pacing. Starting the action at such an intense level of threat just leaves nowhere to go. The gratuitous violence becomes monotonous. So this, combined with an underdeveloped story without anyone to root for, and the prolonged runtime peppered with extremities, simply sitting through this film is nothing short of a graft. Egger’s iteration of Nosferatu is certainly horrifying, but for all the wrong reasons. While the film succeeds as a visual spectacle, it’s clear that some demons should stay in the grave.
In cinemas 3rd January 2025.
