02/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Most cinema fans have a blind spot: a director who has plenty of ardent fans, but who they just don’t get. Mine is the American director, Robert Eggers. Since his debut in 2015 with The Witch, each successive film has been received rapturously by a devoted following, while I remain underwhelmed. I quite enjoyed his fourth effort, The Northman, but was was left cold by its predecessor, The Lighthouse, and sadly I’m in (if you’ll forgive the pun) the same boat with Nosferatu, which has achieved Eggers’ biggest ever opening weekend. An extended director’s cut is already being seriously talked about. I view the film at my earliest opportunity, really wanting to enjoy it, ready to be pleasantly surprised, but sadly, once again, my hopes are confounded.

Nosferatu began life as a silent movie way back in 1922. Directed by FW Murnau, it was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (or to put it in modern parlance, a rip-off). It was, understandably, the subject of a court order from Stoker’s heirs, who demanded that all copies of the film should be destroyed. But, against all the odds, a few prints survived the cull and Murnau’s plagiarised brainchild went on to become a much-lauded classic.

High time for a reboot then? Well okay, provided you discount Werner Herzog’s 1979 adaptation, Nosferatu the Vampyre, which cast Klaus Kinski in the role of the evil Count Orlok, and which I thought made a pretty decent job of it.

But since childhood, apparently, Eggers has wanted to film his version, so here it is, weighing in at a ponderous two hours and twelve minutes. It feels pointless to relate the plot, since in all but a few details, it’s Dracula with the names and locations changed. Bill Skarsgård takes the thankless role of the supernatural Count, compelled to lurk in the shadows, sporting an extravagant moustache and croaking risible lines in a subsonic rumble. It sounds like he’s gargling with porridge. Lily-Rose Depp plays Ellen, the unfortunate subject of the Count’s lust, while Nicolas Hoult is her husband, estate agent Thomas Hutter. He has been charged with the task of heading out into the middle of the Carpathians to sort out Count Orlok’s plans to up-sticks and move to Thomas’s home town of Wisborg, Germany. Of course, there must also be a Van Helsing figure in the mix and that role falls to Eggers’ regular muse Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz.

To give the film its due, it looks pretty impressive in 35 mm, with many of Murnau’s original scenes recreated in meticulous detail. The costumes and makeup are handsomely done and Depp, Hoult and Dafoe all submit peerless performances, backed up by a cast of dependable actors. But the glacial pace of the proceedings makes me much too aware of how long the film is and, judging by the general restlessness of the audience at tonight’s screening, I’m not the only one suffering. There’s an endless trooping back and forth to the toilets.

What’s more, if the idea of an adaptation is to take the opportunity to offer a fresh perspective, why stick so slavishly to what has gone before? Why retain the misogynistic storyline where a woman, as punishment for her youthful sexual desires, now has to submit to a predatory man’s advances in order to save the husband she really loves? Sure, the story is set in the 1800s but we’re in the 2020s and it’s not some precious relic that can’t be tweaked.

What I mostly can’t forgive is the fact that this is supposed to be a horror film and yet nothing here is in the least bit scary, just occasionally bloody and unpleasant. Those with an aversion to rats might want to give this a swerve as there are moments where the creatures run riot across the streets of the city and, in some scenes, scamper gleefully across the bodies of the actors. I stick it out to the end but frankly, I’m glad when it’s over.

There will no doubt be plenty of devotees queuing up to tell me I’ve got it wrong, but I can do nothing more about it. I’m just not a fan of the Robert Eggers’ style. The news that his next planned film is a reboot of Jim Henson’s muppet/David Bowie crossover, Labyrinth (I promise I’m not making this up), fills me with more terror than Nosferatu ever could.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney