“Nosferatu” is the latest from director Robert Eggers of “The Witch”, “The Lighthouse”, and “The Northman”. “The Lighthouse” is a crazy, wild, fun movie, and “The Northman” is pretty sophisticated, so my expectations going into this re-imagining… this revision of “Nosferatu” were kinda high. I am so, so disappointed.
The plot, you may know it already, takes us to Germany in 1838. You’ve got Nicholas Hoult, who plays Thomas, who has to go visit Count Orlok from Transylvania (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgard). He leaves behind his new wife, Ellen, played by Lily-Rose Depp. But soon, the viciousness of Count Orlok goes into her, and goes into others, and messes up the town, and messes up everyone.
The main issue I have with “Nosferatu” is that most of the scenes have such a long build-up to them, with the music and the mood and the darkness and haunting shots. But every time, the payoff is so minimal at best. Not a lot happens. It’s stale. It’s cyclical. It’s kind of an endless meandering trip into an unappetizing atmosphere.
The biggest compliment I can give it is that it’s creepy. But even Willem Dafoe, who I was banking on to give a bonkers supporting role like he did in “The Lighthouse”, doesn’t deliver, and neither do the scares. They try to be the only surprises in this, because there really are no surprises in the story. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Frederich) gives one of the worst performances of the year.
“Nosferatu” got all these nominations from the Critics Choice Awards — in the cinematography, production design, costume design and makeup categories. Frankly, I wouldn’t vote for it in any of those. And I found the whole experience kind of corny. You could almost say “The Lighthouse” was corny, but sort of in a bizarre, intelligent way.
LCJ GRADE: D+
Running Time: 132 min.