Nosferatu (dir. Robert Eggers)
By: Adam Freed
Not even in the deepest recesses of the darkest imagination could one dream of making a film as aesthetically pleasing and simultaneously terrifying as Nosferatu. This is the gift and curse of horror virtuoso Robert Eggers. Already the king of period peace macabre, Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) breathes new life into the 102 year old lore of Nosferatu, making his latest release the most impressive of his already laudable career . Unlike his feature debut The Witch (2015), in which Eggers operated on a tight budget and employed relatively unknown performers, Nosferatu reaps the full reward of the young auteur’s past labor. Eggers wields a king's ransom of gifted performers and top tier technical talent in order to unleash absolute hell. Vampire films cannot subsist on an endless bloodlust alone, which is why the gifted filmmaker coyly invites his audience on a psychological journey that crosses the realm of horror and insidiously bores into the mind like a nightmare from which it is impossible to ever fully shake free.
Nosferatu lures its audience into a mid 19th century German Empire, a rich and tactile environment akin to that of the Victorian London captured in Tim Burton’s vision of Sweeney Todd (2007) with the added benefit of the dark and expansive visual world building that feels proprietary to Robert Eggers. The film opens, as does the 1922 silent original, with Ellen Hutter feeling the inescapable pull of a dark romantic call harking from afar. Ellen is played by Lily-Rose Depp, in a role that has far more physical demands that may be imagined. Depp (Tusk, The King) injects her performance with a captivating form of kinetic physicality that bridges the gap between nightmare and reality. What Eggers has historically done so well is create a plausible world, one in which despite its time, audiences are encouraged to imagine themselves operating within period specific constraints and hardships. To this end, Lily-Rose Depp proves the perfect vessel for the form of feminine helplessness so vital in a film of this nature. Depp is joined by the immensely gifted Nicolas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Order), who plays her recent bridegroom, Thomas Hutter. The couple are mutually haunted by the legend of Count Orlok, captured by a menacing Bill Skarsgård (It, Barbarian), as Thomas, as a matter of business, is forced to pursue the Count in his Transylvania home. From the first moment that Orlok occupies visual real estate on screen, it becomes impossible to deny the overwhelming notion that one is not just witnessing, but participating in a transcendent experience.
Robert Eggers has long established his pension for creating moving gothic masterpieces, and Nosferatu represents the master at his very best. The vampire epic glistens under snowy moonlight while its blood soaked underbelly feeds on the carnal desires that contemporary viewers have long been trained to ignore. Those brave enough to stare into the eyes of Nosferatu this holiday season will witness a form of terror nearly impossible to match on screen. Robert Eggers’ latest is certainly not for the faint of heart, a fact it bolsters on the strength of the psychological torment it inflicts upon Orlock’s victims, and the way that agony is shared by those in theater seats. Eggers now occupies the genre penthouse in which he gazes down upon all other horror films that must operate at a nearly flawless standard of execution in order to achieve even close to his level of mastery.
Target Score: 9/10 - Master of horror Robert Eggers once again sinks his teeth into the pulse of the shadowy zeitgeist. Those brave enough to see Nosferatu this holiday season will surely feel wave upon wave of dread wash over their icy bodies.
Nosferatu opens on Christmas Day in the United States and New Years Day in the United Kingdom.