A vampire film with ‘so much to sink your teeth into’

Bill Skarsgård plays a “terrifying old vampire” and Robert Eggers’ remake of F.W. Murnau’s silent 1922 classic starring Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult is “chilling and shocking.” ”.

many people have seen many vampire moviebut what if you haven’t seen anything? What if we’ve never heard of Dracula and only have a vague idea of ​​what vampires are like? Enter the world of Nosferatu, written and directed by Robert Eggers welcome. remake of FW Murnau’s silent classic – It was itself an unofficial but fairly faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – which stripped away all the vampire cliches that had been built up since Murnau’s original work and added mystery and mystery to the concept of the undead vampire. This is a movie that restored magic and was released in 1922.

Eggers is the ideal person for the job. Before he created “Witch”, lighthouse and The NorthmanHe became obsessed with Murnau’s Nosferatu and staged it as a school play as a teenager. He’s also known for giving horror films his own unique reputation by shooting them as if they were arthouse period pieces, and that’s what he does here as well. All costumes and props are faithful to the 19th century setting, with spectacular outdoor scenes filmed on location in the Czech Republic and Romania, and some indoor scenes lit only by candlelight. In the opening scene where a top-hatted Thomas Hatter races down a busy street to a musty office, you could easily mistake him for Bob Cratchit. christmas carol.

If you don’t know the name Hütter, it’s because the producers of the 1922 film Nosferatu changed some details of Stoker’s story in an attempt to avoid copyright issues (Anyway, the stalker’s widow sued them): Much of the action takes place in the fictional German port town of Wisborg in 1838, rather than 1890s London. But the plot summary is definitely Stoker’s. Hatter (Nicholas Hoult) is a surly lawyer who works for a cackling eccentric named Knock (played with hilarious exuberance by Simon McBurney). In order to secure his promotion, Hütter agrees to travel far to Transylvania to meet a certain count. His new wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), begs him not to go on the trip, but Hatter insists that he send Ellen to his wealthy friend Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Harding’s wife Anna (Emma Corrin). I decided to leave it there. Eventually, they need the help of a hard-working doctor named Sievers (Ralph Ineson) and his mentor, an occult professor. He was called Van Helsing in Stoker’s novel, but his name was changed to von Franz (Willem Dafoe) in Nosferatu.

As Hütter rides solo through winter forests and rocky mountains, the scenery is breathtaking. Thanks to Egger, the terrain looked rough and inhospitable, and whatever the destination, Hütter would have been able to get a promotion. However, their destination is, of course, a crumbling castle occupied by the Dracula-like Count Orlok. He is played by Bill Skarsgård (“IT,” “The Crow,” John Wick: Chapter 4), no one could recognize him under the prosthetic makeup and heavy clothing. Director Eggers wisely keeps him at a distance and hidden in the shadows in the first scenes, but the creature we are finally shown is more of a maggot than the graceful temptress of most vampire films. It resembles a moving corpse.

Rumored to be a sorcerer who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for eternal life, Orlok has the fashion sense of Vlad the Impaler, and his sonorous vowel-splitting voice is as if he were always in a tunnel. It sounds like you’re on the other side. , and the loudest wheeze since Darth Vader. He may not be as iconic as 1922’s Counterpoint, and he doesn’t look as tragically lonely as when Max Schreck played him in Murnau’s film, but he’s an impressive (and The corrupted) devil is Dracula. Orlok is unlike any other character, which is quite an accomplishment considering vampires have been appearing on screen for over a century.

When Orlok began his reign of terror in Wisborg, Eggers seemed to be influenced by: exorcist and alientwo films that put macabre trials on the human characters on Earth. Admittedly, there are some points to camp humor, some more intentional than others. Dafoe has a little too much fun as the peppy, mustachioed weirdo who walks around screaming, “The devil of the night has sucked the blood of your good wife.” And Taylor-Johnson’s strained attempts at an upper-class English accent may provide some chuckles during the film’s most serious scenes. But overall, Eggers takes his doom-laden story resolutely and seriously. Almost everyone throws themselves into the atmosphere of Gothic melodrama, and no one makes a sarcastic comment about garlic or bats.

Holt is especially moving as Hütter, a would-be hero who falls ill with a fever caused by his trip to Transylvania and his own desperate desire to rise to a higher social and economic class. Depp, on the other hand, is a revelation as the troubled Ellen. The eerie relationship between the Count and the heroine mirrors that of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, but Eggers places it at the dark heart of Nosferatu. Ellen loves her husband deeply, but for years has been haunted by nightmarish, sensual visions of another man. As Orlok preys on the people of Wisborg, she is haunted by the question of whether he is a real monster or the embodiment of her own emotional instability and unfulfilled desires.

In contrast to most vampire movies, this movie is more about sex than sexiness. So it’s not that vampires are demonically attractive, it’s that men control women’s bodies. One of Eggers’ astute points is that the doctors of the time may have been vampires themselves. When Ellen began having seizures, Seavers’ diagnosis was not that she was possessed by an evil spirit, but that the hysterical woman simply had “too much blood” in her veins.

Still, no matter how layered and innovative Nosferatu is, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s still a Dracula movie. That is, familiar events occur one after the other to familiar characters, and the inevitability of it all makes this movie more sad than scary. As Eggers moves the events steadily and methodically through Murnau’s masterpiece, one may be impressed by the intelligence and painstaking craftsmanship that went into the work, but the actors, not the real people, are historical figures. You might feel like you’re watching a character play a role. deadly danger. Horror fans need not worry, however. A similar terrifying shock exists in Nosferatu. And after years of seeing cool teenage vampires, it’s refreshing to see a scary old vampire again. But what sets Eggers’ Nosferatu apart from this body of work is how deeply it explores the imagery and themes of the vampire legend. There aren’t many Dracula movies that are as immersive as this one.

Nosferatu will be released in the US on December 25th and in the UK on January 1st.