Nosferatu (2024)

Until 2024 I hadn't watched the 1922 silent film that inspired this. I had seen images from it many times and understood much about its story, background, and legacy. But finally watching it gave me much to think about. The film is clearly playing off of some fairly prevalent antisemitic impulses of the audience of its day in a way that is rightfully upsetting to modern viewers. It is a film that is terrified of the foreign insidious invader. In spite of this the film quite surprisingly centres the female character, not only making the story about her, but empowering her to be the only one who has the wherewithal to confront and defeat the monster. While none of the men are able to resolve the problem, she steps up to be the hero of the piece. 

2024's Eggers adaptations upends all of this. It (thankfully) disposes of any anti-Jewish stereotypes and throws out the metaphor of an invading foreign horde, traded in for an evil that is invited in by one of our own. But in doing so it scapegoats its central woman. Instead of seeing its main female character as the power to stop evil it takes the opposite approach, basically blaming her for the problem in the first place. Eggers takes from the Garden of Eden story by having his Ellen summon the creature, tempted by the evil and guilty for the sin of giving in. The implication is that she is at fault due to her weakness and she must take the monster down with her.

Eggers' Nosferatu imports possession tropes, evoking Exorcist imagery. The vampire is less predator and more inhabiting spirit. Depp ends up acting overtly sexual while also flipping between manic states of anger and panic relentlessly. In this way the film falls into rather common horror tropes that are frankly, if not solely slut shaming, but blatantly misogynistic. Her "sacrifice" at the end is presented less as powerful or heroic and more as penance that she deserves. 

While the story is problematic, the film itself is horribly beautiful. Eggers creates the illusion of a B&W film despite being in colour. He keeps much in shadow... until he doesn't. Which is an effective way to build some horror. Skarsgård's Orlok is kept in the shadows for a long time too, not revealing his form until it best used for effect, showing us a almost completely revised nosferatu, that feels more like a corpse kept alive than a supernatural vampire. Visually the film is stunning. The problems I have with appreciating this take come down to its point of view, one that just didn't resonate for me. 

It is hard to separate this story from its inspiration, the Dracula novels and subsequent films, which tap into something for me that just connects more successfully. There is something about the nuances of this specific adaptation that just felt off. Originally Nosferatu was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel and the changes made to avoid comparisons move it in directions I find far less interesting. Despite this critique, the original's imagery remains hauntingly terrifying yet this film rarely made me unsettled or fearful. Mostly I appreciated the film's visuals and not a lot more. 

Nosferatu 
Starring: Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney

Writer/Director: Robert Eggers