In 1922 a bunch of tight-fisted Germans made an adaptation of 'Dracula' without forking out for the rights to Bram Stoker's novel. The result was FW Murnau's Nosferatu, which immediately found itself in trouble with the Stoker estate, who ordered all prints of the movie be destroyed. Some prints survived, with Murnau's film going on to influence a century of vampire cinema. Subsequent Dracula movies have pulled as much from Murnau's film as from Stoker's novel, so much so that what we now think of as Dracula lore is a mashup of elements from Stoker's novel and Murnau's film.
With Dracula now in the public domain, it may seem an odd choice for writer/director Robert Eggers to remake Nosferatu rather than simply adapt Dracula, especially given the latter's more mainstream brand recognition. But there are some key differences that distinguish Nosferatu from the novel, and like Werner Herzog's 1979 remake, Eggers carries them over here.
The chief divergence is in centring the Mina Harker surrogate, Ellen, played here by a miscast Lily Rose-Depp (though not as miscast as Isabelle Adjani, an actress who hardly screams sexual repression, in Herzog's version). Ellen is the first character we meet, in a flashback that sees her visited in a dream by Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård, who seems determined to become known as a modern day Lon Chaney with his expanding roster of heavily made-up ghouls). We then cut to several years later and find Ellen newly wed to estate agent Thomas (Nicholas Hoult). When Thomas informs his wife that he is to set off to Transylvania to conclude the sale of a home to Orlok, Ellen begs him not to leave, but off he goes.
If you've seen any variation of Nosferatu/Dracula, you'll be familiar with most of what follows. Eggers' film may only be the third version of Nosferatu, but it's the umpteenth version of Dracula, and it doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from a crowded field. Eggers adds a sequence involving a late night gypsy ritual, but practically everything else here is all too familiar. We all have our favourite version of Dracula (mine is Terence Fisher's, of course) and Eggers' slavish devotion to the source means we inevitably find ourselves drawing comparisons to what came before.
There's little to make this one stand out. As Thomas, Hoult delivers one of the more notable portrayals of the character that originated as the novel's Jonathan Harker. In his scenes with Orlok, Hoult plays the character with the sort of terror you would expect in such a scenario, a far cry from the stiff upper lip of most previous portrayals. As soon as he sets eyes on Orlok Thomas practically shits himself, as you would. The rest of the cast fare unfavourably to their various predecessors, with Depp particularly struggling to deliver the over-written dialogue Eggers lumbers her with.
Murnau's Nosferatu is best known for giving us the terrifying version of Orlok played by Max Schreck, all bald head, pointy ears, long nails and fanged teeth. Herzog ditched the Orlok name in favour of Dracula but transferred Schreck's look to the even more imposing Klaus Kinski. Eggers keeps the Orlok name but drops his famous look in favour of something less animalistic, with Skarsgård's mustachioed Orlok bearing more resemblance to the cannibalistic antagonist played by Luigi Montefiore in Joe D'Amato's grindhouse shocker Anthropophagus. Skarsgård's vocals sound like The Count from Sesame Street is he was a 60 cigs a day man.
Like previous Nosferatus, the romance associated with Count Dracula is dropped in favour of a primal villain who preys on Ellen more out of insatiable lust than any romantic desire, describing himself as "merely an appetite," as though he were a shark in human form. The trouble with this is that the film never quite convinces us that Ellen is worth making such an arduous trip for - surely there are some hotties in Transylvania? (I'm reminded of Kurt Russell's line to James Hong in Big Trouble in Little China: "2000 years, he can't find one broad to fit the bill?").
In the previous two versions of Nosferatu, the bond between Ellen and Orlok was suggested almost exclusively through imagery, whereas here the two engage in full-on chit chats. The framing of one particular verbal flirtation is so similar to a famous moment between Ted Danson and Shelley Long in Cheers that I was expecting Ellen and Orlok to simultaneously blurt out "Are you as turned on as I am?" But in trying not to offend modern sensibilities regarding female agency, the film ties itself in knots regarding the relationship between Ellen and Orlok, Eggers simultaneously striving to create a sexual heat between the pair while wary of portraying Ellen as "asking for it." The recent excellent true crime thriller The Man in the White Van did a far more convincing job of suggesting an antagonist summoned indirectly by a young woman's confused sexual longing.
Eggers' film is symptomatic of the Nolanisation of Hollywood, where filmmakers follow a depressing compulsion to strip away as many fantastical elements as they can from the source material. The Count never turns into a bat here, because in the 21st century we're seemingly all far too cynical for such hijinks. A far cry from the sumptuous Hammer series, Eggers' Nosferatu is practically monochromatic in its lack of colour, as though its vampiric villain has sucked all the life from the print.
Perhaps what's most baffling about Eggers' film is the decision to remake such a distinctively German movie and populate it with Anglo-American actors. The action may play out in Germany, but with everyone adopting an English accent here it's impossible not to think of Eggers' Nosferatu as simply yet another Dracula adaptation, one that never quite justifies its existence.
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Willem Dafoe
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