Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers (USA, 2024)
‘Elevated horror’ is a term used to distinguish artier cinema from the cruder slash and gore brand of bloody horror mayhem. It’s a pompous label which suggests that an arthouse aesthetic raises films above the baser (and more mainstream) characteristics of the genre. This is akin to those snobbish readers who make a point of distinguishing between old school Sci-Fi novels and the weightier sounding ‘speculative fiction’.
Essentially, ‘elevated’ films are those that pay tribute to their sources but add a knowing modernist slant – The Bababook, Get Out and any recent folk horror would fit this bill. Robert Eggers’ homage to FW Murnau’s 1922 silent classic can confidently included in a list of ‘horror with something to say’ movies.
But what can be added that is truly fresh or original to a story that has been told so many times? Not much, seems to be the answer since although the bloodthirsty undead anti-hero goes by the title of Conte Orlok he is still Dracula by another name and the story faithfully follows the central plot of Bram Stoker’s classic Gothic novel published in 1897.
Eggers’ take is to all intents and purposes the second remake of Murnau after Werner Herzog’s eccentric vehicle for Klaus Kinski in 1979. There is plenty of work for plague-carrying rats and numerous references to the shadows and light of German Expression, notably in the vampire’s claw like hands and elevated fingernails.
For most of the movie, Eggers’ Orlok is half-seen lurking in the shadows. When we finally get a good view of him, he looks suitably undead, a living corpse with an impressive moustache. After playing the killer clown in IT and the titular role in the recent Crow remake, Bill Skarsgård brings his menacing prescence (and heavy accent) to the part of this new count. His deep, breathless voice has an uncanny resemblance to Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek with a bad head cold.
But the most impressive thing about the film is Lily-Rose Depp’s full-blooded performance as Ellen Hutter, the object of Orlok’s ardour. There are shades of The Exorcist as goes into devil-possessed contortions and gives full vent to some very un-ladylike imaginings. All this has the obligatory occult expert Albin Eberhart von Franz (a pipe-wielding Willem Dafoe) rhapsodising over her as a model case study for someone who is not mad just possessed.
Probably the most obvious modern touch to Eggers’s re-telling of the vampire myth is the way he emphasises the sexual nature of Ellen’s thoughts and deeds. The shame she feels, or is made to feel by the uptight men who surround her, quite openly insinuates that her rampant desires are so potent that can only be sated by the vampire (i.e. the personification of her sexuality). She goads her husband into rough sex by implying that he cannot match the prowess or passion of Conte Orlok.
All this comes to an orgasmic climax when Orlok gets his evil way with her but fatally loses track of time in the process. He is too busy feasting on Ellen’s youthful body to notice the rising sun and fries at the moment of ecstasy.
Of course the woman must also die in the process, a kind of metaphorical punishment for her sinful thoughts. Eggers probably reasoned it would be too woke and taking too many liberties with the story to allow her to survive with all her lustful thoughts intact. That would have been an elevated, post-modern step too far. Perhaps to get the gender politics more in tune with modern age he could take on the 1960 Hammer film, The Brides of Dracula as his next project.
