A review of Robert Eggers' new film, Nosferatu, a remake of the 1922 classic. The film is praised for its stunning visuals and eerie score, but criticized for its lack of a compelling story.
Which is a shame, as one wants a dark, stylish vampire movie to be a successful and clever bit of Christmas counterprogramming. That was presumably the hope of Focus Features, which sunk no small amount of money into this film and planned a wide release. But Robert Eggers is not a filmmaker focused on entertaining audiences above all else. He’s a maximalist, yes, but his version of maximal does not closely align with, say, Marvel’s. It’s alienating, it tries patience.
Eggers’s previous film, The Northman, was his most commercial to date, full of blockbuster-y action sequences—but at root, the film just wanted to show us how miserable life probably was back in the old Viking days. Thus we weren’t likely to get anything too fun or campy in an Eggers Nosferatu, a remake of a 1922 classic that has had a measurable impact on horror filmmaking for over a century now. What we certainly could expect is grand visuals and crashing music. Here, Nosferatu delivers. Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography pays homage to the Expressionism of the original, capturing Craig Lathrop’s ornate production design in stark, evocative tones. Robin Carolan’s score conjures up the dread of an ancient horror descending upon the unwitting. Nosferatu is a sensory pleasure. But on a story level, it leaves much to be desired. Eggers follows the basic structure of the original film, and thus of Dracula. A young man, Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), working in real estate in 1800s Germany travels to the wintry, sinister Carpathian mountains to close a deal with a reclusive nobleman, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård, swiftly becoming this generation’s Lon Chaney). Orlok is looking to move to Thomas’s hometown, which is not a good sign. The familiarity of this setup is fun: it’s a bit like watching an umpteenth take on A Christmas Carol and cozily settling into that reliable narrative structure, curious how this version will distinguish itsel
NOSFERATU ROBERT EGGERS HORROR VAMPIRE EXPRESSIONISM
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