Nosferatu Review

“I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother's womb! We are not so enlightened as we are blinded by the gaseous light of science.”

- Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz

Nosferatu – the Romanian word for vampire, and there’s no more appropriate a title for the first out and out vampire movie that was released back in 1922, before even the advent of sound in movies. The full title of the original was Nosferatu: Die Symphonie des Grauens, Nosferatu a Symphony of the Undead. When I was in my early teens, a very long time ago in the early to mid-seventies, Nosferatu was a legendary “lost” film that I never thought I’d get to see. I saw several stills from the film featuring a skeletal Count Orlock played by German actor Max Schreck. The film makers had made a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with no thought to copyright infringement. Stoker’s wife sued and all copies were ordered to be destroyed, but over time some surviving copies emerged which is how this silent masterpiece is still around for us to enjoy now. My full coverage of the original Nosferatu is at this link.

It was remade in 1979, but I’ve never felt the urge to check it out. With that in mind, when I heard it was being remade again, I was enthusiastic to see this latest version. Especially when I found it was being directed by Robert Eggers. Not a familiar name? Okay, he directed The Witch (2015) an atmospheric horror tone poem, a film I’m very high on. He has also directed The Lighthouse, which I haven’t checked out yet, but I’ll be rectifying that oversight very soon.

Nosferatu is a straight remake of the original, with some added scenes to expand the story a little more. Plus, of course – there’s dialogue now. And having said that, it’s a towering gothic masterpiece of cinema. A hell of an achievement. From the second the BBFC certificate left the screen, I was hooked – not least by the vintage era Universal Pictures logo. It all set the tone perfectly.

The story, as I alluded earlier, is basically the familiar Dracula story with names and locations changed. Instead of Count Dracula, we have Count Orlock played by Bill Skarsgard who seems to be carving out a decent career in the horror genre. Okay, I will admit that my loyalties still lie with Max Schreck in the original because he’s so spindly and almost spider-like, he’s practically a living special effect. In place of Jonathan Harker, we have Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) Mina Harker becomes Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) and Van Helsing in this instance is Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe). We even get Aaron Taylor-Johnson salvaging his acting career after Kraven the Hunter as Hutter’s friend Friedrich Harding.

Back to the plot, essentially, Hutter takes the lease to a property for signature by a strange, reclusive nobleman Orlock, not knowing he’s a vampire looking to more to a fresh pasture.

Hutter becomes ill, falling under Orlock’s spell, and Orlock becomes enamoured of Ellen, Hutter’s wife who is a melancholic depressive.

The trailer alone had told me that this was going to be a visual feast, and I wasn’t disappointed. The arrival of Orlock in the home town of the Hutters is shown affectively as an overhead shot of the town, with the skeletal hand of Orlock in shadow over it. When Orlock’s ship docks, it’s considered a plague ship, over run with rats – which Orlock hold dominion over. The rats not only bring the plague, but the plague itself is a metaphor for the pestilence of vampirism now in the town.

This is a triumph on every level. It’s a horror movie with appeal to non-horror fans, and will at the same time appeal to us horror movie maniacs who like our vampires feral and hungry. I couldn’t shake the notion that this does a better job of telling the Dracula story than Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula did back in 1992. (Yes, I know – big words, tall statement, but check it out and see if I’m wrong.)

I think the most surprising thing to me was the size of the audience in the screening I attended at 2:30 on a Thursday afternoon – usually a graveyard shift in the multiplex. Not what I really expected for a remake of a 102- year-old vampire movie. But it cements my notion that a well-made horror movie will always pack ‘em in. And that’s exactly what this is.

I can’t believe that for the first time ever, my first movie of the year is a straight-up-no-argument ten.

Rob rating = 10