Nosferatu
Nosferatu
Starring Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgard, Willem Dafoe
Directed by Robert Eggers
In 1838, Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) lives with her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) in Wisborg, Germany, when Thomas is sent by his employer to Transylvania to visit the reclusive Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) who wishes to purchase a decrepit stately home in Wisborg. Ellen - who's been plagued by visions and nightmares of an evil being known as Nosferatu - begs Thomas to stay, but he heads out and falls under Orlok's spell, leaving him injured and battered as Orlok makes his way to Wisborg. Upon arrival, a plague befalls the town, and Thomas turns to Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) who is an expert in the occult to find the cause of the plague. Meanwhile, Nosferatu continues to haunt Ellen and gives her an ultimatum: divorce Thomas and go with him, or he'll kill Thomas and let the plague consume the town.
There is a lot of positives to say about "Nosferatu" but only one small negative, which I'll address first. Smartly, Eggers kept the appearance of Nosferatu from being shown in any trailers, so the first time you see him is on the big screen. When compared to the 1924 version, it's not as menacing or terrifying, but rather a mix of the classic Nosferatu with Stoker's Dracula, as Eggers blended both stories into one movie. It's not a deal-breaker in the sense that it took me away from the movie or the events happening in it, but with such buildup I was expecting something more...naturally terrifying, I suppose. It's still terrifying, but Nosferatu looks more human than monster, although it's still a decent blend of the two.
With that being said, to say it's been a roller coaster year for Bill Skarsgard is an understatement. He starred in three major motion pictures, with incredibly varying results. The first film was the vengeance flick "Boy Kills World" which, to me, was criminally underrated and missed out on a wider audience, a great blend of "John Wick" style action with laugh-out-loud humor with Skarsgard starring as the titular Boy who can't speak, so we hear his inner monologue delivered through the voice of "Bob's Burgers" and "Archer" voice actor H. Jon Benjamin. Then there's the re-imagining of "The Crow," which was easily one of the worst films of the year, so Skarsgard has gone from underrated to a terrible film, and now he finishes out 2024 strong with his best performance to date. He's somewhat typecast into the horror genre since "It," but it works for him - he pulls off villainy better than anyone, and comparisons have already been made to him being the modern day equivalent of Lon Chaney, and I can see that.
If you hadn't told me Skarsgard was playing Count Orlok/Nosferatu, I would've believed it. The makeup done to him is nothing short of Oscar-worthy (I'll just leave that here, because the entire movie should receive multiple Oscar nominations, but it being a horror film I don't see that happening, sadly), and he produces this deep, threatening voice that I've never heard from him - a voice that's equally tragic as it is menacing, one that causes your blood to turn cold and a shudder envelop your very being, especially listening to it on the big screen: it's like his voice echoes everywhere.
Staying on the performance track, Nicholas Hoult once again returns to the "Dracula" lore (after a much different version of Dracula in 2023's "Renfield"), and as Thomas he once again proves his acting prowess. Thomas is a good, kind-hearted man who loves his wife and will do anything for her, and when he finds that she's fallen under Nosferatu's spell, he stops at nothing to protect her. While his character is a bit on-the-nose when it comes to the stereotypes like this, he still pulls it off. So too does Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin as Thomas's rich friends Friedrich and Anna Harding, who take Ellen in when Thomas departs for Transylvania. They don't do anything too over-the-top, but both are grounded in their performances like you'd expect people from that time to act. Willem Dafoe is always scene-stealing, and does so again with Eggers' version of Van Helsing, as he plays the eccentric Albin Eberhart Von Franz with his effortless charm and antics.
But the film rises and falls on its female lead, which was originally supposed to be Anya Taylor-Joy, but had to pull out to do "Furiosa." In her place is Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose Depp, and she absolutely, positively, unequivocally nails the performance (and I know I said I wouldn't mention it again, but it'll be a shame that she won't get an Oscar nod for her performance). She manages to contort her body in horrifying ways (according to sources she did this with no help from any outside influence, which, if true, makes her a true contortionist with probably no literal backbone, and I mean that in the best sense), and gives an ethereal, eerie performance as she sleepwalks through the performance but in a way that is natural and organic, like again how people of the era would've been. Her psychic connection with Nosferatu is the movie's driving force, and she nails it with perfection.
The music in the film echoes in your very soul, thanks to Robin Carolan's score that teleports you to the time and gives you an ever-present sense of dread. Yet the true hero of the film is cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, who fully encompasses you into the story by pulling you in and throwing you dead center into the proceedings - all the dark, depressing, soul-crushing moments. Each scene is a cinematic masterpiece, a painting come to life, and it's not like you're watching a modern-day movie, but rather something that's been uncovered in the deep catacombs that hasn't been viewed by another human being in centuries. This allows the curse of Nosferatu to permeate into your psyche, as every moment in the film is flooded with his curse that envelops the town entirely, leaving little to no hope of escape.
Proving himself a fourth time over as an exemplary director, Robert Eggers' "Nosferatu" is already his crowning opus, providing a truly unique and immersive cinematic experience that will linger in your nightmares for many nights to come.
The Score: A+
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