Sitting in the movie theatre last night, waiting for the media screening of writer/director Robert Eggers’ highly anticipated Noseferatu to begin, I struck up a conversation with a stranger beside me. We agreed we were both excited to see the film; he also asked me what my favourite horror film of the year was. I immediately cited Smile 2, which I did indeed think was excellent. We also talked about Late Night With The Devil and Strange Darling as highlights of 2024. We clearly had some similar tastes, so my seat neighbour was probably pretty surprised when, following the conclusion of Nosferatu, he asked what I thought of it, I said “I hated it.”
Now hate “may” be a strong word; I didn’t walk out of Nosferatu in a rage and it didn’t offend me in any way whatsoever. And the film, set in Germany in the late 1800s is absolutely gorgeous to look at. However, for me the problem with this remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film about the vampire Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and his pursuit of Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), is the performances, the majority of which I thought were kinda terrible.
It’s worth noting here that I have/had no vested interest in any of the previous Nosferatu films; I haven’t seen Murnau’s original or Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre that starred Klaus Kinski as the titular character. I went in blind, or as blind as someone who’s seen multiple films based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. That may have been part of the problem as well; as soon as Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas was sent off to Transylvania to broker a deal with the Count, I realized that I’d seen this story before, which immediately cut into any elements of suspense for me. Yes, I did jump three times during Nosferatu thanks to some solid quick cuts, but overall watching a remake of films I’d never seen still felt boringly familiar to me.
Back to the performances. Sadly, to these eyes Nosferatu is filled with overacting from virtually everyone involved, from Hoult and Depp to the usually outstanding Willem Dafoe, who really, really overdoes it as Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz. Nosferatu is filled with A-list, world class actors, but the only one who I really thought did good work was Ralph Ineson, who plays his character of Dr. Wilhelm Sievers as thoughtful and understated. Also, and maybe this is nitpicking, but the film is set in Germany; maybe our leads should have had German accents?
The filmmakers have left Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok out of any promo material to maintain a surprise when he first appears, so I’ll do the same, except to say that, from the moment he first speaks, I could never buy into the voice the actor uses for his character. It just didn’t work for me at all, and when you can’t invest in the main character, it’s hard to invest in a film.
I said afterwards to a few friends that Nosferatu should have been a silent film; I was partially joking. But then again, I think the dialogue may have simply worked better if Robert Eggers went all the way in his remake and the audience had to read the words he’d written versus having had to hear them. Like I mentioned, the film is gorgeous and looked stupendous on an IMAX screen; if only those pesky performances hadn’t gotten in the way.
At the end of the day, your mileage may very well vary when you see Nosferatu. It has been getting critical acclaim and that’s great! Nobody goes into a movie wanting to dislike it, and as I said to the fellow sitting next to me afterwards when he said he was surprised I hated the film, “what matters is that YOU liked it.” Who knows, maybe I’ll watch it again someday.
Just with the volume off.
