I don’t like Robert Eggers’ movies and you shouldn’t, too
Film | Jorge Ignacio Castillo
Nosferatu
In Theatres
I don’t get Robert Eggers and it’s becoming a problem.
I’m aware Eggers is the widely celebrated poster boy of so-called “A24 horror” (high-brow, mid-budget genre films), but I find his work dull, academic to the point of insufferable and frankly a bit holier-than-thou. I thought The Witch and The Lighthouse were utterly pretentious (scripts based on ancient ledgers? Give me a break). The Viking melodrama The Northman was a bit more fun but still, for me, cold to the touch — and not because of the locations.
So here I am again, reviewing a beloved Robert Eggers movie that excels at period accuracy and every formal aspect of filmmaking but has no soul or reason to exist.
Part of the problem is the subject. In every incarnation, Nosferatu has been a dollar-store Dracula: the same parts as Bram Stoker’s masterpiece, but more nihilistic. Unlike dear old Vlad the Impaler, Count Orlok has no redeeming pathos. He’s a one-note monster who wants who he wants—a creature of wanton, selfish desire.
Besides, Orlok is not to be mistaken with Dracula. He has a moustache, see?
Set in early 1800’s Germany, Eggers’ Nosferatu uses a similar approach as 1992’s Dracula, only the gothic cinematography isn’t as lively as Francis Ford Coppola’s. Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult, good at looking terrified), an ambitious estate agent, is tricked into travelling to Transylvania to seal a property transaction with the reclusive Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård, Pennywise in It). But then! Hutter is trapped by Orlok in his decrepit castle while the vampire heads to Germany to make a move on the realtor’s wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp, The Idol).
A variety of Dracula-equivalents show up to support or hinder the charmless Orlov’s enterprise, led by Willem Dafoe as Costco Van Helsing.
Is there anything in this movie that sheds new light on a story a thousand times told? No. At most, Ellen — the damsel in distress — has slightly more input on the strategy to bring the monster down (unlike, say, Winona Ryder’s inert Mina Harker). Unfortunately for Ellen, Depp’s dead stare doesn’t convey much of anything (she was livelier in those terrible late-period Kevin Smith movies). I know people will argue with me here, but casting isn’t the film’s forte: Bill Skarsgård is buried under prosthetics and can’t make the character his own (unlike Klaus Kinski in Herzog’s Nosferatu), and the reliably excellent Emma Corrin (young Diana in The Crown) is wasted as a neutered Lucy Westenra.
At least this weak movie excels in period accuracy. Nosferatu’s recreation of Germany and Transylvania is exquisite and supercharges the expressionistic vibe. And though the above-mentioned vampire heavy makeup undermines Bill Skarsgård’s performance, it exudes decay. So that’s nice.
I commend Robert Eggers for taking the most roundabout route possible to not cover new ground, but the truth is you can do historic horror with fresh thrills. Take the superb The Devil’s Bath (available on demand and Shudder): it’s a gloomy tale about noxious patriarchy in 1700s Germany that doesn’t use a single cheap gimmick. Now, that’s worth praise.