What’s the worst job imaginable? Slaughterhouse worker, World Trade Center window washer, or Facebook fact-checker might come to mind, but that onerous burden really falls on Thomas Hutter, the real estate agent tasked with selling a castle to a vampire in Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu, a haunting remake of the century-old silent classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.
The plot hews closely to the original. Nicholas Hoult (who previously dabbled in vampire movies with the comedy Renfield, though Nosferatu is about as far from Renfield as Barbie is) plays Hutter, an ambitious real estate agent eager to score a big commission by selling a castle to the enigmatic Count Orlok. Shortly after Hutter embarks on his journey, his boss, Knock (Simon McBurney), abruptly closes his practice and becomes a devout follower of Count Orlok, a manifestation of evil with an insatiable infatuation for Hutter’s bride. What follows is a tale of foreboding and terror that unfolds in true Gothic fashion, with Eggers’s distinctive touch.
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While the 1922 silent film was a pioneer in horror filmmaking, its unintentional campiness is evident by today’s standards, particularly in the scene where its menacing vampire scurries around lugging his own casket like a garment bag. Eggers, armed with the myriad conveniences of modern filmmaking — most notably sound — takes full advantage of them. If any filmmaker understands the power of sound, it’s Eggers. Bill Skarsgard disappears into the role of Count Orlok so completely that you forget the actor behind the character, a testament to casting someone who embodies the essence of a vampire.
Eggers had Skarsgard work with an opera coach to lower his voice an entire octave. The resulting baritone casts such a sinister aura with each syllable that you believe this monster has haunted the living for thousands of years. For much of the film, the camera rarely lingers on Orlok’s face. Instead, we see fleeting glimpses of his monstrous frame, as if through the terrified eyes of his victims. This perspective heightens the sense of dread and mirrors the untenable horror of being in the same room as the creature.
What sets Eggers apart from his contemporaries is the keen eye with which he builds his worlds (this was among my favorite things about his prior film, The Northman). In an early scene, the camera follows Hutter as he sets off to work, navigating the bustling cobblestone streets of 19th-century Germany. From a butcher going about his business in the background to a later scene depicting a Gypsy tribe’s ceremonial ritual, Eggers pours as much thought into the details of background action as he does into central set pieces.
This immersive perspective continues throughout the film. One standout sequence comes when Hutter meets Orlok for the first time in the vampire’s Transylvania mansion. Orlok invites him into a firelit dining room, an intimidating Gothic setting with an oversized fireplace. Even without Orlok’s presence, the room exudes menace. With the vampire looming over him, Hutter’s trembling and stuttering delivery captures the full weight of the scene’s terror.
It is no fault of Eggers, but some elements of Nosferatu’s narrative are dubious, even for a Gothic tale. For instance, the prophecy foretells that Orlok cannot win Ellen Hutter’s heart through coercion; she must willingly offer herself. Yet this seems to place no restrictions on Orlok massacring her loved ones throughout the night until she “voluntarily” submits to him, the classic extortion loophole. It’s also unclear why the townsfolk don’t simply raid Orlok’s tomb around lunchtime, given that the vampire cannot survive in daylight.
While Hoult’s and Skarsgard’s countering performances representing good and evil carry the film, the rest of the cast is equally compelling. Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter deftly captures the trapped and tormented soul of Orlok’s muse. “Does evil come from within us or beyond?” she quivers in one scene. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe, as Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz — a stand-in for Van Helsing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula — provides a dose of comic relief as an eccentric scholar who, despite his scientific erudition, refuses to deny the existence of evil and supernatural forces.
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Over the last century, Hollywood has drained vampires of their terror, adapting them into everything from teenage dramas such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer to raunchy adult fare such as True Blood and outright comedies such as What We Do in the Shadows. But Eggers’s Nosferatu is a minimalist return to form that strips away layers of complexity and humanization. Orlok isn’t some misunderstood antihero but an unvarnished embodiment of Satan: pure, irredeemable evil.
Eggers’s choice to portray Orlok as a manifestation of unrelenting darkness aligns with the original intent of Dracula. The vampire isn’t a multifaceted villain with a relatable soft side; he’s a creature meant to convey horror in its most elemental form. In doing so, Eggers reminds us why these stories terrified audiences a century ago and proves that vampires can still be truly frightening.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog and a computer engineer in Toronto, pursuing his MBA.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
