#1: NOSFERATU

 

STARRING: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Willem Dafoe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Simon McBurney and Bill Skarsgård. Written and directed by Robert Eggers. Cinematography by Jarin Blaschke, music by Robin Carolan. Budget $50 million. Running time 132 mintues.

1838, Wisborg, Germany. Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) are newly weds, he is an eager solicitor and estate agent and she a young women troubled by a traumatic past and plagued by bizarre seizures. When Thomas is sent by his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) to visit Count Orlok, an elderly old man and conclude a deal to sell him a derelict old house in Wisborb he believes it will secure his financial future with a promised promotion. Thomas reluctantly leaves his young wife in the care of his dear friends, Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife Anna (Emma Corrin) and embarks on a six-week trek to the castle of Orlok. Things go a wee-bit Pete Tong once he gets there and we discover that old Orlok isn't a sad old man at the end of his days but rather a undead monster trapped in a body of a corpse and only the love of a young woman can free him. Turns out when Ellen was young she accidentally awoke Orlok and he needs to her to declare her undying love to free him from his curse. And he sets out to Wisborg.

Before long Wisborg is invaded by rats, and the plague and people are dropping like flies. Ellen starts going mad and Friedrich's family doctor, Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson) realises that something else is at work and enlists the help of disgraced professor, Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), who just so happens to be an expert in the occult, mysticism and alchemy and quickly recognises the psychic link between Ellen and Orlok. And once Thomas staggers back into town our band of heroes set out to kill Orlok and save Ellen.

Obviously this is a remake of the extraordinary 1922 silent masterpiece starring Max Schreck and directed by F.W. Murnau, that was an unlicensed adaptation of Dracula. And it's also the third time the tale has been filmed.

Robert Eggers delivers yet another deeply personal and extraordinary experience with this version of Nosferatu, it's a passion project for him that was first announced in 2015. Succeeding in making the vampire something disgusting again, this version of the Dracula mythology is a deeply atmospheric cinematic experience, thanks to the skills of cinematography Jarin Blaschke, the score by Robin Carolan, which is unsettling and dream-like, the production design is glorious and the look of the whole thing boarders on perfection to such a degree you'll swear you can smell it. It's a creepy film, but never scary, it's held aloft by the performances of Lily-Rose Depp whose dedication to the role of Ellen is genuinely impressive and backed up by the likes of Hoult, Ineson, Dafoe and McBurney, who is fantastic! However, the Keanu Reeves of this Dracula-esque outing is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, whom I used to really like, but I'm now beginning to think is a bit of a personality vacuum as well as a tad on the wooden side, his clipped British delivery boarders on the comical and his performance feels awkward. 

At 132 minutes this tests your endurance and I wonder if it really needed to be this long. It's nevertheless engrossing and like all the best train crashes you just can't look away. The only fly in the gruel is Orlok himself who just doesn't look as horrific as the staggeringly iconic Schreck version. Bill Skarsgård does a fantastic job, and his voice is like liquid gravel but ultimately his Orlok is just a big-nosed, massively moustachioed old man in a big coat.

Grotesquely beautiful but somewhat disappointing and lacking in bite. 8/10