December 31, 2024 Samuel Hames 0

‘Nosferatu’ – Review

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Filmmaker Robert Eggers is an auteur filmmaker of the new generation, and his fantastical artistry captures a true individual spirit and breathtaking creative spark every time he steps behind the camera, with audiences guaranteed an experience of incredible originality and pulse-pounding emotion and tension. Now, with his re-interpretation of the 1922 F.W. Murnau classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, Eggers crafts his magnum opus with this hauntingly beautiful piece of horror cinema, and your blood will run cold as he summons the darkest shadows of the night to the big screen.

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

F.W. Murnau’s seminal 1922 horror work, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, is often regarded as the original progenitor of the horror genre and to which all that follows owe a debt. Its release was shocking, unexpected, original and lauded, and it has left an indelible imprint on cinematic history ever since. One young man who fell under its spell was filmmaker Robert Eggers, who ever since childhood as long held it as one of his greatest influences, and now, after more than a decade of work, he finally brings his interpretation of this classic vampire mythos to the big screen. And the result is his magnum opus work. So much thought, feeling, and concentration of Eggers as an artist has been placed into this production, and you feel his presence and original voice in every frame. Inspired by the original tale, Eggers’ Nosferatu is no mere remake but his own interpretation of the story, and he takes an original view of the subject matter and its characters that feel right for his own interpretation.

Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic fairytale, dripping in romance and horror, and its chilling and ghostly ambience washes over the audience and hypnotises them to this frightening story of a cursed love affair. Every part of this picture, from narrative to performance, artistry and score, is fed from Eggers’s complete vision for this dark story, and the result will wrestle with all of your emotions, and the shadows of this picture will cover you entirely. In choosing three words to describe Nosferatu, I would use Gothic, Authenticity and Madness. While Nosferatu is a film of pure horror, its presentation and deeper narrative play out as a true gothic fairytale, and the focus on trauma and unrequited love add to the horrors that Eggers brings to the screen. The director’s fascination with the past and his total focus on period-correct detail of both the past and the supernatural is felt in everything, and this makes it a transformative experience for audiences. Eggers also conjures scenes of pure, barking madness, and it’s these moments when the characters lose themselves to the evil that surrounds them where the scares truly come, and this gothic insanity is damn haunting to watch.

Nosferatu is driven in its narrative by the presence of Lily-Rose Depp as haunted ingenue Ellen Hutter and her commitment to a whipped-up frenzy of hysteria, anguish and frenzy in a performance that rockets from A to Z in an instant. Depp has been a rising star in recent years, but until now, no filmmaker has tapped the well of talent that she can pull from, and she totally loses herself in the role of this cursed young woman. The object and desire of a sinister, unearthly evil, Depp’s Ellen Hutter, is pulled deeper and deeper under the spell of a demonic entity, and she desperately tries to claw her way back to the light. Pain and turmoil, as well as her fractured spirit, all play a part in Depp’s performance, and her presence as the seemingly perfect fiance is soon shattered as a growing darkness shapes around her. Delving into manic fits of hysteria, her possession is one of crazed physical performance, and audiences will be transfixed on her portrayal of a heroine who must make the ultimate sacrifice.

Cast opposite Depp and the object of her love in the mortal world is young estate lawyer Thomas Hutter, who is brought to the screen in a truly terrorized performance by Nicholas Hoult. Hoult begins as the perfect upper-class gentleman, a man of promise with a bright future ahead of him who soon becomes a pawn in a dark and dangerous game of evil seduction and is put through a meat grinder of physical, mental and spiritual anguish and pain. Becoming the toyed plaything of a dark entity, Hoult’s Hutter is dispatched to be used by this satanic presence, which leaves Hoult as a bruised, emaciated wreck, and when he sees his beloved fall under the creature’s spell, his horror only intensifies. Hoult brings out Hutters’ mortal humanity against this growing evil, and he shares a tremendous chemistry with Depp that is cut to ribbons as the curse and plague around them build. One particularly powerful scene between the two of them at the height of Ellen’s possession will send shivers down your spine, and Hoult does a tremendous job as the horrified and hazed Hutter.

A key level of support for the film’s narrative appears in the form of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe, and all three leave their mark on the picture. As an enterprising businessman and a sceptic of the devilish happenings about him Taylor-Johnson’s Friedrich Harding is a bull of man, but his commanding presence is soon dashed as he tries everything to tear this growing nightmare from himself. Emma Corrin is particularly exposed as Harding’s wife, Anna, who becomes a way for the undead presence of the story to torment the waifish Ellen further, and she pays the ultimate price as an example of his evil. Finally celebrated performance, Willem Dafoe brings a frenzied derangement in his presence as occultist academic turned vampire hunter Albin Eberhart Von Franz, and he’s utterly wild in his presence and performance.

But one cannot whisper of Robert Eggers Nosferatu without mentioning the beast himself, the devilish form of the undead, the Vampyre, Count Orlock, who is played as evil incarnate by Bill Skarsgard. And his mere presence will send a shiver of fear down your spine. Orlock has long brought fear to cinemagoers for more than a hundred years, and he is radically re-imagined as a folk Vampyre by Eggers’s mind, and his undead presence will scare the living hell out of audiences. Skarsgard is a performer of deep intensity, and it’s almost as if he went to hell and back in order to embody the pure evil of Orlock. Transformed from the living to the dead, with incredible make-up, and lowering his voice a full octave with a guttural, gnashing vocal tone, Skarsgard falls into the sheer ferocity of Orlock’s imposing presence and the audience will feel the chill of fear when he is fully unleashed upon them.

As a cinematic experience, Nosferatu is a true work of art, and Robert Eggers hand guides all of it from afar. Leaning on the trappings of gothic romance, and looking to ideas of Romanticism and the works of Caspar David Friedrich for inspiration in bringing his Nosferatu to life, Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke have captured the film with an incredible monochromatic palette of blacks, whites, navy, greys and sepias that harken back to Murnau’s original presentation, but also hold to expression of the clash of the individual and nature as seen through the film’s Romantic expression.

Every frame is a work of flawless art. The attention to detail and presence of imagery captured in shards of cascading natural light or the flicker of candles adds to the ambience and expression of this picture. It thus makes your emotions rise further. Mixed with the stunning camera work and artistry of the picture is the evocative score of composer Robin Carolin, and with his eerie, ghostly sound, a tension and fright builds about the picture that will scare the living hell of you as the plague and presence of Count Orlock grows ever closer to Ellen.

Nosferatu is a masterful and haunting portrayal of gothic horror, showcasing a filmmaker at the height of his craft. Robert Eggers vision for the ultimate gothic vampire film has been brilliantly realized. The darkness envelops the audience, fully immersing them in a unique and powerful depiction of the vampire’s true essence, unlike anything seen before.