Rent Nosferatu (2024)

This is Lily Rose's show (spoilers). - Nosferatu review by NP

Robert Eggars has proven a divisive director. Some hail him as a true visionary whereas others, myself included, often find little to enjoy in his often overblown, over-produced films. My favourite up until now, has been 2015’s ‘The VVitch’ – his others have left me pretty cold. Eggars expressed an interest in adapting ‘Nosferatu’ many years ago, and I enjoyed the results a lot.

From his impressive build-up, swathed in dark shadow, Bill Skarsgård as Nosferatu is the film’s weakest link. As played by Max Schreck and Klaus Kinski before him, Nosferatu was always a very physical performance, and displayed odd, often lizard-like mannerisms via eccentric contortions of the body. This version is so bunged up with prosthetics, often utilising a full body suit, that there’s very little natural (or unnatural) physicality on display. Therefore, our vampire here is very static and brooding, relying mainly on the face to accentuate the strangeness vital to any blood-sucker; even that is a prosthetic that surprisingly doesn’t include the trademark rat-like ears or pointed incisors. To that end, the titular character is more of an effect than a character, albeit in impressive one. Unlike earlier unearthly vampires, this thin-nosed, heavily moustachioed incarnation looks like a malevolent geography teacher.

To me, the film belongs to Lily-Rose Depp. Her playing of Elen Hutter requires several varied extremes of emotion, and she is utterly convincing playing them all. As far as I can tell, her performance is mostly natural and unencumbered by much in the way of effects work.

The score, by Robin Carolan, is standard for a horror film – lots of doomy, swirling strings and jump-scares. It’s bombastic and adds weight to some more frightening scenes, but is never a character in its own right like Popol Vuh’s extraordinary music for Werner Herzog’s 1979 film.

I’ve been honest in my criticisms here, but it is my favourite Robert Eggers film by far, and has clearly been a labour of love for him. Everything about the production shines – the locations are immersive stunning, the CGI work subtle and natural looking and the thinned-down colours (cold, cold blues and warming reds) are a skilful homage, it seems, to the monochrome original. It just surprises me that Eggar has chosen to deviate from the more traditional look of Count Orlok.

Interesting New Take on the Vampire Film - Nosferatu review by GI

Writer and director Robert Eggers' passion piece, his remake of the infamous 1922 German Expressionist classic Nosferatu: A Symphony Of Horror. If you don't know it's essentially the Dracula story with some differences and name changes but most of the elements will be recognisable for anyone familiar with the Dracula novel and various film versions. Eggers talent lies in his atmospheric creation of his cinematic worlds and here he has the sombre, grey and dour world of 19th century Germany as his backdrop and where an ancient evil is awakened from slumber by the naive sexual appetites of a young woman. Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen is the heart of this film, Depp gives this role an erotically charged core as her dreams summon the vampire Count Orlok who becomes obsessed with her. We only see the creature in shadow form for much of the film keeping the tenseness there but the reveal is slow in coming. It's the voice that stirs the film and Bill Skarsgård as the vampire in full prosthetics gives us a unique presentation of the vampire. However what the film lacks is a sense of dread, it's just not scary and the scenes of vampire attack are more disgusting than frightening. Willem Dafoe as the eccentric Professor who arrives with knowledge to help destroy the creature hovers between being a comedy character and the key to the film's narrative progress. Sadly Aaron Taylor-Johnson is trapped in an underwritten role and never gets to shine here. Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson are all good in their roles with Simon McBurney excelling as the Count's weird acolyte. Anyway essentially the story is that having strange erotic yet frightening dreams young married woman Ellen inadvertently awakens the long 'undead' vampire Orlok. His lust for her results in Ellen's husband, Thomas (Hoult), an estate agent, being sent to Transylvania by his boss to finalise Orlok's purchase of a house in their town. Orlok makes his way to the German town where Ellen awaits and causes mayhem on his way there and eventually with those closest to Ellen but a Doctor (Ineson) and a batty Professor (Dafoe) team up with Thomas and others to bring him down. Eggers cinematography is quite exquisite throughout this film and it's this that gives the film its unique approach to the story but narratively it's a film that is somewhat underwhelming. It never seems to lift the expected heights of terror that is implied by the atmosphere and build up in the beginning of the film. In many ways this has extraordinary cinematic traits but I came away a little disappointed overall.