Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu fascinates but still pales in comparison to its predecessors

It’s hard not to admire the audacity of one of our grimmest living American auteurs inviting comparisons to some of the greatest filmmakers of all time. You gotta give it to Robert Eggers: if he has anything, he has confidence. Nosferatu, his interpretation of Dracula by way of Murnau and Herzog, does little to change the basic premise of the story. The beats are expected and familiar — as they should be. But his adaptation attempts to root the film within some semblance of reality, particularly in its treatment of female sexuality and mental health, and in his risky approach to Count Orlok, aka Nosferatu himself. Eggers doesn’t fail spectacularly, but he also doesn’t succeed in standing up to his predecessors, creating something that feels neither new nor especially interesting.

Part of the issue lies in the fact that the film doesn’t feel embodied. Through no obvious fault of any actors, everyone feels as though they are cosplaying. The weight of illness and death that spreads through the film lacks gravity. Despite some echoes of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s as if contemporary life has become so divorced from the stakes of life and death that most serious attempts to grapple with it feel childish and performative.

The failure to deal with the seriousness of death means that the deeply intertwined theme of desire similarly falls short. Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) suffers from an unnamed illness that is tied with her shameful sexual desire that manifests as horrific hallucinations, cold sweats and paralyzing orgasmic spasms. Her devotion first to her husband (Nicholas Hoult), and in other ways to the animalistic sexual sway of Nosferatu (Bill Skarsgård), are pathologized and treated with careless and alienating violence. 

Eggers does seem to understand that at the heart of the Dracula story exists this deeply rooted eroticism recognizing that our sex drive often serves as a way of overcoming death. The transgressive intensity of forbidden sexuality as something subversive and powerful seems to be understood within an intellectual framing, even if the movie’s otherwise conventional and naturalist approach fails to capture the aesthetic momentum of that feeling. It’s a movie that feels unfortunately ruined by its commitment to a certain realism, that downplays the role of the erotic imagination within the scope of the film’s narrative trajectory. By dealing so plainly with a social context (though, often without any real inquiry or detail), it fails to engage with the fantastic possibilities afforded by the tangible monstrosity of Count Orlok and what he comes to symbolize within the film. It also makes it difficult to connect the film’s treatment of sexuality in anything but its own context, meaning it has little to say about the erotic within a more contemporary context. 

Part of this issue has to do with how they decide to reimagine Nosferatu. He remains, for the most part, encased in shadows. His frailty and strangeness are downplayed, and the decision to have his voice echo — as if his chest is a cavernous void — may be conceptually interesting, but feels strange and uneven in execution. Though the film certainly takes some compelling risks (particularly in the last act), it seems overly cautious in its depiction of Count Orlok, as if his appearance and presence are threatening to the careful realist ecosystem of the rest of the movie.

That isn’t to say Nosferatu isn’t good or worthwhile. Though somewhat muted, it’s a fascinating companion to its predecessors — if only as an example of contemporary cinema’s aversion to great image-making. It’s a movie that feels overthought and yet unambitious in its aesthetic execution. While it passes the time, it lacks that extra something to propel it to greatness. ■

Nosferatu opens in Montreal theatres on Wednesday, Dec. 25.

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