Nosferatu movie review: A stunning, faithful remake

But, but, if the rats that overtake the German town of Winsburg at his coming give you more creeps than Nosferatu himself, then surely this vampire’s fangs are far from sharp.

Played by Bill Skarsgård in unrecognisable prosthetics, giving him claws, a hawk nose, talons and scaly, scarred skin, Nosferatu or Count Orlok is more a caricature and never a being – scary or otherwise. Even if he is not meant to draw sympathy, a few more scenes with his beloved Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) may have done the trick.

However, while the story of Nosferatu is meant to be about the bond, involving emotional support but also sexual passion, that Ellen unknowingly strikes with Orlok, director-co-writer Robert Eggers is too tentative to explore this. (Not to mention that our Censors are too generous in clipping it.)

Instead, Eggers shoots a long, and more impressive, sequence between Orlok and Ellen’s husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult). Thomas’s treacherous journey to Orlok’s dilapidated castle, in the snow, marked by warnings of mysterious gypsies, and his growing realisation of the horror he has walked into, even as Orlok sneaks or looms around him and he wakes up with bite marks on the chest, is Nosferatu’s most effective part.

Hoult also has the most effective performance in the film, his face almost as angelic as his bride Ellen’s, conveying both his terrors and his tenderness.

The others (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, even Dafoe) have precious little to do apart from stand wringing their hands around Ellen’s bed, as she writhes and twists, and at least once has that raised-torso-in-bed shot. Corrin is especially wasted as Ellen’s pregnant and mother-of-two friend Anna, who doesn’t know better than to put her children in clear danger.

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If Dafoe’s occult specialist Prof von Franz talks of Ellen as “the fair maiden”, she is referred to as “beautiful… non pareil… sylph-like” by Thomas’s boss Knock (Simon McBurney), who has – as we would say it these days – “sold his soul to the devil”. Thomas clearly should have his antennas up, with or without the Orlok link. But, newly hired, he needs the money, and hence proceeds on to the job given to him of signing Orlok up for a house in the neighbourhood.

The bigger problem is that Depp, beauty and all, is so wan, dark-circle-eyed, and morose throughout Nosferatu that you have to wonder what the fuss is all about. If not the beauty and the beast’s passion, the film could have given us a glimpse of Thomas and Ellen’s love before Orlok re-enters her life.

The closest the film gets to describing what Ellen and Orlok may have is in Prof von Franz words. Such demons, he tells a receptive audience, have a tendency to latch on to women in whom “lower animal functions dominate”.

Nosferatu movie director: Robert Eggers
Nosferatu movie cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Simon McBurney, Ralph Ineson
Nosferatu movie rating: 2.5 stars