​Eggers Unwraps New “Nosferatu” on Christmas Day

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

For the better part of a decade, filmmaker Robert Eggers has worked toward the realization of an adaptation of “Nosferatu,” the genre-defining horror masterpiece originally brought to the screen by F. W. Murnau in 1922. The wait, as it turns out, has been well worth it. Murnau’s German Expressionist creepshow, still commanding attention more than a century after its unholy birth, previously inspired Werner Herzog’s 1979 stab featuring Isabelle Adjani and Klaus Kinski. Several other big and small screen iterations, cameos and spin-offs, including David Lee Fisher’s recent take, attest to the spell cast by Murnau and his collaborators, including Max Schreck as the repellent title creature.

In the Eggers version, Bill Skarsgård takes on the role of Count Orlok, the otherworldly Transylvanian ghoul at the center of a sticky and malevolent web that draws Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) into a vortex of madness and evil. Famously, Murnau failed to secure the screen rights for Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.” And even more fortunately for generations of horror fans, when Stoker’s widow successfully brought legal action against the very existence of the unauthorized film, the court ruling that would have seen the destruction of the negative and all existing copies of “Nosferatu” failed to net every print. Compelling history lesson aside, Eggers draws on Murnau and Stoker in ways that will satisfy fans of the world’s best-known vampire tale.

Together with his longtime director of photography Jarin Blaschke (the Oscar-nominee who has lensed all four of Eggers’ features), the director showcases a gallery of sumptuous and painterly compositions. “Nosferatu” was shot principally in the Czech Republic, and both indoor and outdoor settings extend the filmmaker’s detail-oriented penchant for fluid camera movement and internal framings. The work of artists including Johan Christian Dahl and Caspar David Friedrich informs the romanticism of the 1838 setting. Eggers is too good a storyteller to lose sight of his cast even amidst the stunning settings. Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson join the indispensable Willem Dafoe, who played Max Schreck once upon a time in E. Elias Merhige’s “Shadow of the Vampire.”

Anya Taylor-Joy was the original choice to star as Ellen, and she would have no doubt been excellent. Scheduling conflicts necessitated a different casting configuration, however, and the change clearly benefited Depp, who manages the impossible by commanding a level of viewer attention that somehow surpasses Skarsgård’s bold rendering of Orlok. Press materials have touted the extent of Depp’s preparation. Ryan Lattanzio’s Indiewire summary of a recent NYC screening mentions the performer’s training with “interdisciplinary movement artist” and butoh specialist Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, who worked with the actor on the movie’s incredibly physical (and CGI-free) choreography.

Akin to the thematic preoccupations of Coppola’s florid 1992 edition, Eggers fully engages with the eroticized thanatopsis between Ellen and Orlok, conjuring a climax — in more than one sense of the word — that stamps this latest version with distinction. It’s impossible to surpass the visceral and immediate cinematic originality accompanying several of Murnau’s uncanny moments, but Eggers pays respect to key elements, including those haunting shadows. The late, great horror historian and Stoker biographer David Skal called Dracula the “most mediagenic superstar of all time,” and Eggers, imagining a grown-up fairytale teeming with dread, humor, sexuality, mystery, and lots and lots of rats, perfectly understands the assignment. Sink your fangs and drink deep.

“Nosferatu” opens in cinemas on Christmas Day.