REVIEW: Nosferatu is a 'gripping reinvigoration' of a classic

Nub News film critic James Burgess shares his review of Nosferatu, which arrives in cinemas this Friday.

RATING: * * * * *

Robert Eggers has gained a rapidly growing fanbase as one of the most singularly uncompromising, astonishingly stylised directors of recent years.

From the intensity of 2019's feverish, psychological two-handed chimera, The Lighthouse, to 2022's underrated Nordic vengeance powerhouse The Northman, he always exceeds his own meticulousness, proving to be poetic, experiential and colossally atmospheric.

Now creeps up his absolutely stunning, long-awaited treatment of Nosferatu; that often-filmed staple, based on Bram Stoker's seminal Dracula. Originally filmed by F.W. Murnau for the silent era in 1922, at the height of German Expressionism, Eggers's version is not at all as interested in grand-scale Hollywood grandiosity as Francis Ford-Coppola's superb, much misunderstood, divisively operatic 1992 Gary Oldman/Winona Ryder version was - which foregrounded its deliberate sense tragic romanticism, front and centre.

Instead, this is part insular chamber piece, part classicist ghost story and more often a study in pure existential terror, and the inevitability of possession. Lily-Rose Depp, (daughter of Johnny), gives a deeply tortured performance as Ellen, perpetually haunted by nightmarish visions of the titular monster.

Lily-Rose Depp gives a 'deeply tortured performance' (Credit: Focus Features/IMDB)

In a terrific opening sequence, Eggers and his astonishing cinematographer Jarin Blaschke – (Oscar-Nominated for his chilling use of black and white interiority in the aforementioned The Lighthouse), makes an equally effective use of Murnau's chiaroscuro; that is, the utilisation of light and shadow.

As Ellen is summoned in a dream, a hook-nosed phantom is seen only in silhouette, in the billowing gossamer of the bedroom drapes.

A homage to the original's most iconic image is also reconstructed; – that of the camera panning round, as Count Orlock's unrelentingly dark shadow approaches insidiously, being juxtaposed by its own reflection on the white walls…

Nicholas Hoult does very well, in the same thanklessly straight role a very solid Keanu Reeves was ridiculed over in 1992 - remember his oh-so-static British accent, anyone? (there playing Jonathan Harker, here Thomas Hutter) - tasked with taking that infamously fateful carriage to Dracula's castle. Possibly this version's best scene, is his initial meeting with the Count.

Which brings us to how to represent Dracula himself. While 1992's Oscar-winning hair and make-up designer, Greg Cannom, dialled the gothic style up to eleven, spectacularly making Gary Oldman look more like Glenn Close, here his depiction is more subtle, but extremely chilling.

Eggers's shot selection is careful not to fully reveal our antagonist's ensemble straight away; - we see eyes, or the startling imagery of his gigantic hand, clutching a high-angled view of an entire town…

He's played here, by master of prosthetics, an utterly unrecognisable Bill Skarsgard, known for another terrifying transformation, Pennywise the clown from the IT remakes.

He's terrific, clearly welcoming disappearing into a panoply of extreme grotesques. That's also true of Willem Dafoe, one of our evilest cinematic faces. While his mad professor here, might not reach Speed 2 levels of grinning, mad-eyed lunacy, he's having a lot a fun.

Add intricate, Tim Burton-esque production design and a thrumming score drenched in dread, and you have a nihilistically gripping reinvigoration. Its bloodier moments mean an acquired 'taste', but an unbelievably potent one.

Nicholas Hoult and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Credit: Focus Features/IMDB)

James Burgess is an actor and film critic with a master's degree in Film Studies.

Follow him on X - @Jamesfilmcritic