Nosferatu

Horses whinny upon reaching the edges of his castle. Crosses, garlic, and other deterrents are everywhere. We see all of this in the blue-grey light of the moon when outdoors and the dim glow of candles when inside. This is Nosferatu as envisioned by Robert Eggers, suffused with an atmosphere so dread-inducing you’ll find yourself holding your breath long before you catch your first glimpse of the eponymous vampire.

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It helps that this isn’t Eggers’ first time adapting the material. The writer/director first mounted a theatrical production of Nosferatu in high school and later brought it to a small theater in New Hampshire, taking great pains to capture the feel of the original silent movie. He has since said that this is his most personal film, and it’s clear that he’s been wanting to make it for as long as he’s been making movies. He previously wrote and directed The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman; the first of these remains his most compelling work, but his latest effort is the closest he’s come to matching it.

The original Nosferatu, directed by silent master F.W. Murnau and released in 1922, almost ceased to exist shortly after arriving in theaters. As an unofficial and unauthorized adaptation of Dracula, it was served with a lawsuit that resulted in a judge ordering that all prints be destroyed. A few survived, and it’s largely because of them that we have the last century of vampire movies. Few have been better than this one, fewer still that aren’t part of the same lineage: Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre is also essential viewing, as is Shadow of the Vampire.

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The premise remains more or less unchanged, which may be disorienting to anyone who’s seen or read Dracula. A real estate agent named Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) is summoned to Transylvania to complete a transaction at the behest of an enigmatic count whose true aim is to go to England and claim the young woman he believes belongs to him (Lily-Rose Depp), who happens to be married to Thomas. His (its?) name is Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), and his reputation precedes him: “He is infinity,” we’re told, and there’s no reason not to believe it.

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He moves with the lightness of a shadow and speaks in a low, unplaceable accent — like an exhumed corpse contorting its vocal chords until something resembling human speech emerges. To be in Orlok’s presence is to wonder how this creature is still alive and how much longer you will be. Eggers has true reverence for not only the material but its namesake; it’s difficult to think of another horror movie that treats the arrival of its antagonist as such a monumental event. Skarsgård, best known for playing Pennywise in It, is just as terrifying here as he was in his star-making role.

“He is infinity,” we’re told, and there’s no reason not to believe it.

For as frightful as his Rasputin-like appearance is, however, Count Orlok’s true power is psychological. His victims feel him in their bones as though possessed by him, having fits in the night and knowing it’s only a matter of time until he descends upon them. But a new husband needs new wages, and so Thomas agrees to deliver a contract to him despite how long and perilous the journey promises to be. His wife, whose name is Ellen, insists that her nightmares portend something terrible, and it isn’t much of a spoiler to say that she’s right.

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Depp is spellbinding in a way she’s never been before precisely because her character is spellbound. Ellen is a damsel, but she isn’t always in distress. As the object of Orlok’s desire, she epitomizes the film’s oddly seductive quality; though deeply off-putting, something about both Nosferatu the film and the character suggests that giving in is preferable to resisting. “You are not for the living,” Orlok tells Ellen early on, “you are not for humankind.” Nosferatu itself feels otherworldly, like a creature born of the past that refuses to stay there.