Movie Reviews: Nosferatwo More

In the past two years, two remakes (or perhaps reimaginings) of F. W. Murnau's class Nosferatu have been made. I reviewed Murnau's version and Werner Herzog's 1970s remake. I found out about the first remake thanks to Hypnogoria Podcast #280. Here's reviews of the 2020s remakes...

Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror (2023) directed by David Lee Fisher

This movie follows the same plot as Murnau's original, with Hutter (Emrhys Cooper) being sent to Transylvania to get the paperwork in order with Count Orlok (Doug Jones) to buy the abandoned building across from Hutter's Wisborn home. The movie retains the characters, plot beats, and even most of the backgrounds. The movie digitally copies sets from the 1922 version and places the actors onto them via green-screen. Some scenes are added or expanded to include more information and characterizations.

The visual style is a bit odd. It reminded me of Sin City, with the fake-looking backgrounds as if the characters did not really inhabit the world being presented. This use, which could have amped up the surreality of the story, only looks cheap. Just as I would get used to it, a scene would look poorly done, throwing me back into mild disrespect. Sure, the original movie's effects are antiquated but they still give an odd aura to the proceedings that works with the performances and the overall style, part of German Expressionism. 

Also, this new version has almost no scenes with more than two to four characters in them, which becomes very obvious in the tavern scene before Hutter goes to Orlok's castle. It's another instance where the film seems extremely low budget. Jones is good as Orlok but Cooper as Hutter can't quite strike the right balance with his character. His crazy employer Knock (Eddie Allen) is so over the top he feels like he's supposed to be in a different version of the film, not this one. 

The added scenes and dialogue don't help a lot either. Too much stuff is explained rather than shown, or a character explains what he or she just did. The filmmakers spend a lot on the unfulfilled nature of Hutter's marriage to Ellen (Sarah Carter), who has a mystical link to what is going on. That link is unexplained in the 1922 version but here everything is laid out for the viewer, making it less spooky and threatening. Hutter's dubious choices come off as really dumb, especially when he sleeps with the tavern maid. He comes around to the sincerity of the first film by the end, when it is too late for their marriage. The scripting could have been stronger. Also, Cooper and Carter don't have the chemistry needed and do not give convincing performances (though she is better than he is).

This movie does not have a lot to recommend it. Doug Jones is good in the Orlok role and his makeup is excellent. The marital tension is interesting but not well developed enough. The style is so eclectic, a viewer needs to be very sympathetic to buy into it. I ran out of sympathy (I didn't really like Sin City either, though that was more about the content than the style).

Not recommended.

Nosferatu (2024) written and directed by Robert Eggers

This movie also follows the same plot as Murnau's original, with Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) being sent to Transylvania to get the paperwork in order with Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) to buy an abandoned building in Wisborn. Eggers' previous films show a lot of attention to detail along with interesting, period dialogue that feels authentic to the time of the film's action. He generally gets great performances from his cast. 

The movie diverges in the introduction, showing Hutter's wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) having a seizure while communicating with a disembodied voice that's not speaking English. The scene sets the tone for the horror to come. Ellen has a much deeper and longer connection to Orlok in this film. She's also found some relief from that connection in meeting and marrying Hutter. She has more control over herself and nightmares are less. When he says he has to leave town for his career and their happiness, she does not want him to go. He insists, putting her in the care of their friend Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who is married with two daughters and another child on the way. Ellen has her usual trouble at the friends' place while Hutter is tormented by Orlok. Hutter's pre-castle visit to an inn is dominated by a gypsy group outside the inn, with its strange performances and odd behavior. He has a dream (or did it really happen?) of the locals offering a naked woman to a vampire's grave, though they dig up the coffin and impale the corpse. When asking Orlok about it, the count dismisses it as superstitious nonsense, though confirming in a way that it did happen. 

When the action returns to Wisborn, the plague breaks out and Knock is blamed, though Ellen and Hutter blame Orlok. Orlok threatens to kill all of Ellen's beloved if she does not consent to be with him in the next three days. Three days of agony and death ensue. On the third day, Hutter is finally able to convince some guys to go to Orlok's abandoned building to destroy the vampire while Ellen invites Orlok to their home so she can trick him into staying until after "cock crows."

The movie is very stylized in a different way from the original's German Expressionism. Eggers delves into the grittiness of early 1800s Germany, with a lot of bleakness and hardship. Night scenes often look black and white, a nod to the original. Eggers is also a lot more graphic, with some very bloody moments and more nudity and sex than in other Nosferatus. Skarsgard is great vocally as the vampire. Visually, he is mostly in shadows and hard to see till the end of the film. He's ugly but doesn't have the stark appearance of Shreck or other Orlok performances. His mustache is an odd choice that makes him less believable. 

Eggers is good at crafting an uncomfortable tone but the movie does not horrify enough. The relationship between Ellen and Orlok is underdeveloped and not quite convincing, even though it is central to the plot for this film. Eggers throws in some blood and mayhem to compensate. Those scenes feel more like add-ons than necessary to the story. I anitcipated a lot of the deaths in Wisborn before they came so they were less traumatizing. Overall, the movie was not satisfying enough for me.

Barely recommended.

So, if I had to rewatch one of these, I guess I'd go with Eggers, though I would rather re-watch the earlier movies.