Nosferatu, 8/10
Eggers continues his streak with this one. I'd perhaps rank this my third favorite of his, just above The Witch. It doesn't quite have the unique craziness of The Lighthouse, or the scale and visual splendor of The Northman, but in what it sets out to do it achieves with flying colors. Which is kind of funny to say, because this is one of the most monochromatic color films perhaps ever. It is relentlessly grim both in tone and presentation, but to me it worked. I wouldn't necessarily call this a horror movie, more of a grandiose, horror-inflected Shakespearean melodrama. It's all about big emotions and characters grappling with larger than life events.
Perhaps this film's biggest success is Bill Skarsgård's performance as Count Orlok. It takes a lot to make a character like this to 1. not feel like something we've seen a thousand times, and 2. not feel like a ridiculous camp caricature. Skarsgård pulls it off, both with his physicality but even more with his voice. He manages to do an iteration of the classic eastern european "dracula" accent that feels both faithful to previous incarnations, yet also distinct for this character. Even though his screentime is relatively limited, you can feel his presence hanging over every scene. Not that the rest of the actors are slouches either: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Eggers alumnus Ralph Ineson and Willem Dafoe all turn in performances that would be right at home in Bloodborne. Special mention must be made for Lily Rose-Depp, whose performance is absolutely deranged and genuinely disturbing. There's a particular scene between her and Skarsgård about 3/4 through the film, and the acting was just setting the screen ablaze. The weak link here is possibly Nicholas Hoult, but I think that's more to do with his character not having a lot to do in the story.
The film looks great, as can be expected of Eggers at this point. It's almost completely devoid of color, with gloomy downcast Germany being the most vibrant the film gets. The rest is an exercise in blue-to-black nightscape, or dark interiors lit by torch- and candlelight. It all serves to pull you into the story and atmosphere, which I'm glad to report Eggers once again brings by the bucketload. I saw it in IMAX, and while there were occasional breathtaking wide shots, most of the movie is shot in relatively tight quarters and up close, which I'm not really sure the IMAX benefitted in any special way.
I have to admit there was a twinge of letdown in the experience: the trailers did their utmost to hide Nosferatu, making him seem more like an eldritch presence than a concrete entity, but in the film he's very much physically present. Not that there isn't that spectacular shadow imagery, I just wish the movie leaned into it more. But this is what you get when you watch trailers: misled expectations leading to disappointment. It was also maybe a bit long for my liking. Maybe some of Rose-Depp's character's despair over her predicament could have been cut out, it felt like it was repeating itself somewhat. While I did praise her performance previously, her acting can also be a bit hard to parse overall, because she spends so much of the movie sobbing, pleading desperately or in demonic convulsions. She does that stuff wonderfully, but it does kind of hang a question mark over her acting in other types of situations. The only other thing I know her from is that infamously panned show The Idol, in which I heard she did similar things. So while I am convinced of her acting skills with this particular type of thing, I'm not so sure of her range.
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