Before Bela Lugosi created the image of an elegant Dracula in Todd Browning’s film DRACULA, F.W. Murnau made the brilliant silent film NOSFERATU, the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s eerie novel. Stoker’s estate refused to let the legendary German director use the book’s title but Murnau made the film anyway, renaming the vampire Count Orlok and re-setting the latter part of the story in Germany rather than England. Director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is an outstanding film that both honors and recreates Murnau’s great classic, while also adding a modern horror edge as well.
Fans of Murnau’s incredible silent horror film will delight in Eggers’ new NOSFERATU, which faithfully recreates several of the striking scenes in the original. NOSFERATU is visually astounding, with gorgeously eerie scenes and set pieces, often using the central, symmetric framing typical of the silent movie era. Scene after scene opens with either a perfect recreation of Murnau’s atmospheric composition or a sternly creepy vista that sets the tone for the horror to come. The dark, brooding scene of a coach wending its way through stark looming mountains, to enter the sinister castle, which is featured in the movie’s trailer, is but a small taste of the visual delights to come. Leaning into the visual power of the silent is the perfect choice.
Although there have been countless Dracula movies, only a handful have gone back to Murnau’s great silent, with his Count Orlok. Those exceptions have included SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, a chiller about the making of Murnau’s silent, and Werner Herzog’s NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE, with the great Klaus Kinski.
While Eggers’ based his script on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Henrik Galeen’s screenplay for the first NOSFERATU, there are a few changes. The source of the vampire Count’s fascination with his real estate agent’s fiancee (his wife in this tale) is different and references to Vlad the Impaler, the blood-thirsty Eastern European Medieval prince who was Bram Stoker’s partial inspiration for the vampire in his novel.
The cinematography and the script are near flawless in this homage to the brilliant original, and the modern horror elements added by director Eggers, including leaning into the psycho-sexual aspects of the story, help bring the story into the current era without violating its late Victorian gothic setting. However the pacing is a bit slow for modern horror fans. Further, Bill Skarsgard’s Count Orlok, after his first appearance, looks more like a bulky if decaying Prince Vlad than Max Streck’s skeletal Orlok, making Orlok seem more intimidating than truly scary.
The cast includes a splendid Willem Dafoe as the Van Helsing-like Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz. Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter, the first victim to aid Count Orlok’s escape from the castle, and Lily-Rose Depp plays his wife Ellen, who in this retelling is the reincarnation of Orlok’s former lover. Lily-Rose Depp’s performance is bold and over-the-top, sometimes veering into the absurd, but Nicholas Hoult’s more grounded, sincere performance helps balance things. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin do fine work as the Hutters’ friends Friedrich and Anna Harding, but the other supporting actors give the horror tale its real fire, with outstanding work by Ralph Ineson as Wilhelm Sievers and Simon McBurney as creepy Herr Knock.
This remake/update NOSFERATU is a treat in particular for fans of Murnau’s original, but may not connect for all horror fans not familiar with the silent classic. Hopefully, they will remedy that by seeing the Murnau film, ideally on a big screen with live music.
NOSFERATU opens Wednesday, Dec. 25, in theaters.
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
