Movie "Nosferatu" - A new masterpiece about vampires

Released globally on December 25, the film Nosferatu by American director Robert Eggers opened a "reverse" from modern culture to retracing the origins of vampire legends.

Of course, stories about vampires have been around for a long time. But novels Dracula by Bram Stoker (published in 1897) left the deepest impression on this image. And only 25 years later, a German film - also named Nosferatu - has been released.

Ancient origin

In 1922, director FW Murnau made the silent film Nosferatu . To avoid paying royalties to Stoker, he and the producers changed some details and the names of the characters.

Although the story is inspired by Eastern European folklore, as well as legends of historical figures, there are enough similarities between Dracula and Nosferatu Stoker's estate sues director Murnau.

Lily Rose Depp gives an excellent performance in “Nosferatu”

Both stories feature a count – Dracula and Orlok respectively – who lives in a mysterious castle in a distant land. In each story, a young secretary visits the vampire in the count’s castle and is lucky to escape with his life.

In both stories, the vampire then makes his way to the more bustling West, terrorizing the people there - Whitby in England and Wisborg in Germany - while attempting to seduce a beautiful woman.

Both Dracula and Orlok are killed, albeit in different ways. The former is stabbed through the heart, the latter by daylight after being tricked by the beautiful young girl Ellen. In Dracula Bram Stoker's, daylight only weakens the vampire's power, but in Nosferatu , that light can lead to death.

There are other differences, of course. Dracula is handsome and charming, a womanizer. He is the originator of the sexy vampire image. Orlok, on the other hand, is a hideous monster - although he is very attractive to women in the original. Nosferatu This new one. He's a freak from every angle, a giant corpse. Bill Skarsgard plays him well in Nosferatu new, with wheezing breath and threatening voice.

Back in 1922, Stoker's estate won a copyright lawsuit against director FW Murnau. But, like Count Orlok, it wasn't easy to kill the film. Copies were shipped to America and it quickly became a classic.

With Dracula , Nosferatu is one of the most influential works of art, shaping the public's perception of vampires today, inspiring filmmakers and novelists, artists and fans for generations.

Beyond the mold sample

Can say Nosferatu not a new topic. But with a new approach, Nosferatu Eggers's is being hailed as a new masterpiece in the vampire genre.

This time, American director Robert Eggers is the one who not only tells the stories but actually creates a new world .

Let's see The Lighthouse (2019) to feel like real seawater hitting the skin, waking him up. His 2015 debut, The Witch , is so steeped in 17th-century folk ritual that one can almost taste the wood smoke, the superstition, and the horror. These films are etched into the audience's subconscious.

Director Robert Eggers (center) and the cast of “Nosferatu” at a screening in Los Angeles

But even by Eggers' standards, Nosferatu is still a work with a haunted and spooky atmosphere. There is something about the horror and darkness in retelling the vampire legend that leaves a deep impression on the audience. This is not a movie experience but a kind of haunting.

Director Eggers himself is deeply obsessed with vampires. Since 2015, he has been developing Nosferatu, wrote the script himself. But in the end, he decided to delay production for nearly a decade to ponder it further.

"Vampires and Dracula are something I've been thinking about and researching for a long time," Eggers said. "I read about it as a teenager. But I think, until I started doing it, Nosferatu , I'm still too influenced by cinematic stereotypes".

He felt he had to break out of a rut: "In researching this script, I needed to have the discipline to forget what I knew. And then, start looking at the real roots of vampires."

Despite still feeling inadequate, in 2016 he continued the project with a confession: "It is stupid, blasphemous, presumptuous and disturbing that a filmmaker in my position would do this." Nosferatu next. I was actually planning on waiting a while longer, but it was fate."

Eggers' fantastical world demands performances to match, and here he has recruited a cast of Hollywood heavyweights, with Bill Skarsgard in the lead, Nicholas Hoult and LilyRose Depp as the Hutters, and a stellar supporting cast including Aaron Taylor Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe.

In a glittering, provocative opening sequence, accompanied by music that sounds like the chimes of a cursed jewelry box, we see young Ellen (Lily Rose Depp) unwittingly summon an ancient evil. Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) has been awakened from centuries of slumber in his castle by Ellen’s psychic call. For a long time, he has been invading her dreams, casting his sinister shadow over her.

Ellen's marriage to her lover, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), brings her temporary relief from her nightmares. Their life together in a small German town in 1838 is poor but extremely happy.

But the honeymoon is over when Thomas, eager to make ends meet for his young wife, takes his boss's advice and heads to Transylvania to sell a dilapidated villa to a "very old and eccentric" client. Meanwhile, Ellen goes to live with her friend Anna Harding (Emma Corrin) and her friend's rude and materialistic husband, Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). The nightmare begins.

In the film, Orkok is mostly shrouded in fur and darkness. Sometimes he’s just a shadow or long fingers swiping across a wall or Ellen’s face. Ellen’s madness hovers between terrifying and erotic. Thomas, meanwhile, is surrounded by strangers, laughing or staring or warning him. It’s all suffocating.

Eggers’s frequent collaborator Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography adds to the drama. The transitions are subtle: The camera lingers on a cross-filled temple, a hopeless bastion against Orlok’s presence. The film alternates between color and black-and-white, between deep shadows and rain-soaked Victorian streets. Orlok’s castle is more like a surrealist painting than a real place… It’s all terrifying and alluring.

Admittedly, this isn't a film for everyone. For fans of Eggers' previous work, there's plenty to soak in. But for newcomers, it may be too weird, too slow, too scary, or just plain confusing. At times, it almost feels like a stage play or an old-fashioned drama.

But in general, like it or not, it must be admitted that Nosferatu is a new masterpiece about vampires, elegantly combining all the elements of horror with classic drama, a return to old-time cinema but still keeping a modern vibe, both provocative and scary, well worth seeing on the big screen!

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