At this point in his career, I either think Robert Eggers is either trolling us or reading his own press and thinking he’s infallible.
Granted, The Witch (or The Vvitch) is a nice broody horror story. And it was only about an hour and a half long, which is what is needed with a movie like this. But it seems Eggers thinks he can make movies as long as he wants and the critics will just eat it all up.
Nosferatu, his latest movie which is a remake of the 1922 original Nosferatu : A Symphony of Horror, the German Expressionist silent movie that itself was an unofficial adaptation of Dracula, because Bram Stoker’s widow wouldn’t allow the film rights to be sold. So characters’ names were changed as well as enough plot points to avoid a lawsuit. Nosferatu The Vampyre was made by Werner Herzog in 1979 with Klaus Kinski now officially as Count Dracula. The movie was an impressive gothic horror with surreal imagery and avant garde touches that paid homage to the 1922 original made by F.W. Murnau.
The biggest problem with the latest Nosferatu is that it’s already been made in 1992 by Francis Ford Coppola. By now, the story of Stoker’s classic novel is probably known to just about anyone thanks to several other adaptations and versions. Recently, there has been Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter, neither as good as the hype. (To be honest, I don’t think anyone is going to top Tom Waits as Renfield who was a wonderful surprise in the 1992 Dracula.)
Filming with a smaller than usual budget at $40 million, Coppola and his crew had to work on specific lighting techniques, costumes and set designs as they mostly had to film on sound stages. Adjusted for inflation, Eggers’ version has a lesser budget at $50 million, but like a lot of his movies, a lot of action takes place in the dark and the shadows. Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgard) spends most of his scenes in the dark and the shadows and he’s not as scary as Kinski and especially Max Schreck was.
One of the biggest disappoints is Nicholas Hoult as the Jonathan Harker-inspired Thomas Hutter who has mostly been doing the same role over and over for the last 10-15 years. He also played the titular character in Renfield. Willem Dafoe, a constant collaborator with Eggers, here appears wasted as Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz who is inspired by Abraham Van Helsing. Dafoe gave a better performance as Schreck in the 2000 movie Shadow of the Vampire, a meta-fictional retelling of the 1922 Nosferatu production where Schreck is actually a vampire pretending to be a human being a vampire.
At about two hours and 15 minutes with credits, this is typical of a lot of Eggers’ movies. There’s a lot of scenes of characters in darkly lit rooms some of which lack any background design overacting and mugging in scenes. But we’re saved from the burping and farting scene in The Northman. There are moments in which I just got bored mainly because I already knew the entire story. Even when Orlock is finally shown in a more lighted scene, his gruesome appearance seems done more for shock level.
I will give credit to Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, the character inspired by Mina Harker. Originally, Eggers wanted Anya Taylor-Joy for the role but I think it’s good she wasn’t available due to a scheduling conflicts. Nothing against Taylor-Joy but I felt the movie would’ve seemed too much like American Horror Story where the same actors appear all the time. She and Dafoe where in The Northman along with Skarsgard’s brother, Alexander.
Depp manages to do some impressive work with the role. She takes what could’ve been stunt casting and shines during some memorable scenes despite the tired tropes that Eggers thinks makes his movie provocative. It does look good at times but it lacks substance. The movie is drained of most of its life.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 