Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: A gothic tale of an ancient vampire’s infatuation with an innocent young woman, Robert Egger’s “Nosferatu” is a reimaging of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 expressionist horror masterpiece “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.”

CAST: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe. Directed by Robert Eggers.

REVIEW: In a showstopper of an opening, the story of “Nosferatu” begins as Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) telepathically awakens an ancient evil in the form of Count Orlock, a.k.a. Nosferatu from the dead.

Years later this story of evil and sacrifice continues in 1838 Germany with Ellen, now newly wed to real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult).

Recently, Ellen’s nights have been flooded with terrifying dreams she doesn’t understand. Thomas dismisses them as “enchanted memories,” but she thinks her visions portend something terrible for the couple.

When Thomas’s boss Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) asks him to travel to the Carpathian Mountains to meet with an elderly new client named Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård)—“He has one foot in the grave,” jokes Herr Knock—Ellen doesn’t want him to go, but the job offers the kind of money they need to start a family and soon Thomas is off.

Weeks pass. Ellen’s dreams become so intense her doctor calls in Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), a metaphysician and occult scientist who declares, “I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into the womb!”

Meanwhile, at Orlock’s creepy castle, the arduous journey and sleep deprivation caused by strange dreams has left Thomas weakened and afraid. Are his dreams morbid fairy tales, as Orlock suggests, or has the Count, a.k.a. Nosferatu, placed a spell on him, as it appears he has on Ellen?

In Germany, as Orlock’s ship heads for their shores, Ellen and others are held in his telepathic sway. “There is,” Von Franz says, “a dread storm rising.”

Director Robert Eggers breathes new life into “Nosferatu’s” withered lungs, staying true to his gorgeously gothic aesthetic while at the same time paying tribute to F. W. Murnau’s classic 1922 film. Immaculately crafted, unsettling images of scurrying rats, crumbling castles and ominous shadows projected by flickering candlelight create a nightmarish canvas onto which this story of dark obsession and sacrifice is projected.

It will be categorized as a horror film, and there are elements of gore, death and the unnerving auditory experience of hearing Count Orlock drain his victims, but it is an old-school horror movie that aims to unnerve its audience with just a few jump scares and no vats of fake blood. Eggers conveys terror with the film’s atmosphere of dread and depiction of madness, decay and unrelenting, elemental evil.

As the film’s tragic heroine Ellen, Depp carries much of the story’s emotional darkness. Ellen is tormented by visions she doesn’t understand, but Depp doesn’t play her as a victim. It’s more like she’s trapped in a toxic relationship and, as such, carries a complex panoply of feelings. Fear and lust top the list, but ultimately it is the steeliness Depp gives her that makes Ellen a compelling but helplessness and hunted character.

The beating—or, in this case, non-beating—heart of the story is Bill Skarsgård as the vampiric Count Orlock. The Dracula stereotype of the vampire with a cape is out of the window. Instead, Orlock is a long-dead Transylvanian noble man, a figure from some folk tale mythology, complete with a bushy moustache and opulent clothing befitting his aristocratic status. But whatever he was when he was alive, he has transformed into a sinister being, a partially decomposed primordial vision of terror. Unseen for most of the film, save for some stunning shadow play early on, Orlock is an avatar of evil and entitlement.

From Orlock’s slow, deliberate speech to his ferocity, Skarsgård, unrecognizable under an inch of make-up, plays him as though he’s just stepped out of a nightmare.

As Thomas, Hoult is a sturdy leading man, and Dafoe, continuing his exploration of off kilter old timey doctors, is obviously having fun, and brings a hint of lightness to this very dark tale.

“Nosferatu” is a story of shadows and light, both thematically and in its visual style.

In one creepy flourish Eggers utilizes shadows to represent the spread of Orlock’s influence. The image of his hand slowly casting shade over Thomas and Ellen’s hometown of Wisborg is eye popping, both visually and metaphorically. As a stylist Eggers creates an atmosphere of evil that emerges from the darkness, painstakingly enveloping all in its path. There is a terrible beauty in these images, one that plumbs the depths of Orlock’s depravity in ways that is both spellbinding and repulsive.

By the time the end credits roll “Nosferatu” is both a compelling homage to, and a reimaging of, Murnau’s original film. The atmosphere of dread remains, given new life with impressive visuals, but it is in Egger’s revision of the core story of obsession and sacrifice that the film becomes truly horrific.