Robert Eggers’ Remake is Super Old Fashioned, For Better and For Worse
At one point in “Nosferatu,” Bill Skargard’s eponymous ghoulie says something along the lines of “I’m only appetite and nothing else,” and I sort of feel like that statement sorta sums up all of Eggers’ take on the vampire classic.
I say that because the movie is a feast of style. It’s fucking gorgeous, with some legit breathtaking imagery, beautiful production/costume design, an eerie score, the whole thing. It’s a technical masterpiece and a complete vibe, consistently unsettling, uneasy, and unnerving. All of the “uns.”
And it’s acted with total aplomb, too. It’s wild to think that Bill Skarsgard is under all that gnarly makeup, but he does an incredible job making his Count Orlok a seriously foreboding presence. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, and Emma Corrin are all great in their supporting roles, as are Eggers filmography vets Ralph Ineson and my current Favorite Actor, the living chameleon Willem Dafoe. But this is Lily-Rose Depp’s showcase as the cursed Ellen Hutter, the source of Orlok’s obsession, who follows in the footsteps of Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe for scene-chewing in an Eggers movie. A scene late in the movie where she vacillates between villain and tortured soul is just an acting gauntlet.
But having said all that, I couldn’t help but feel that Eggers’ “Nosferatu” is almost the exact same scenario as dropping Michael Myers in 1830s Germany — a two-dimensional, pure evil baddie killing two-dimensional characters with no real moral or thematic takeaways coming away from the story. Of course, a movie doesn’t NEED those things to be good, and this is still a REALLY good movie. But to put it alongside Eggers’ previous masterpieces, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” or along even the best movies of the year, I gotta learn a little something, or have something to chew on, and I didn’t have that here.
But hot damn, did I get some serious style, vibes, and performances.