Nosferatu

A co-worker once visited Rome and described The Eternal City as a place that astonished him. 

Everywhere he turned there was a statute, or architecture, or art that was among the greatest mankind had ever achieved. 

“You would turn around, see something else amazing and go ‘holy shirtballs.’”

He might have said something a little more crude. Robert Eggers Nosferatu is not afraid of being crude, or bloody, or sexual. 

But never mind all that because every single shot, every camera movement and practically every moment had me saying ‘holy shirtballs.’ 

Eggers has directed three other films and each of them are painterly and perfect.

As I watched Nosferatu I kept thinking of Steven Spielberg because each scene had that touch of a master craftsman. There’s a moment in War Horse (of all things) where you see a farmhouse and a barn and everything is in just the right place and it seems wonderful and impossible. Everything in the frame is just so right. 

Eggers summons not only the past but a precise vision of what a gothic horror movie should look like. Images that seem torn from a Mike Mignola comic book or a Universal horror film. A nightmare come to life. 

If it has a failing it is probably that Nosferatu is not particularly scary. Rembrandt paintings aren’t scary either.

Nosferatu is a presentation of Dracula and mostly follows the familiar beats of Bram Stoker’s most famous work. One other thought I had is that this will pair nicely with Director Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracula. Both movies are visually stunning and seem to understand, at their core, the sex and violence of the vampire myth. 

Bill Skarsgard somehow transforms into the monster. And Lily-Rose Depp becomes the troubled, insane woman who can’t defeat her own longings or her tragic past. 

I miss the show The Great but Nicholas Hoult makes it clear he’s a movie star and can do things no one else could pull off.

Also, the real victim in this movie is Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Fredrick. He’s just trying to be a good friend and he ends up with two insane houseguests who won’t leave and then must face a deeper tragedy. 

Lastly, I grinned everytime Willem Dafoe said, “Nosferatu.”