A key tonal note of “Nosferatu,” one established in a line from Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) in the film in its trailers, is the notion that is not simply a story about evil, but a story about a creature that wishes to consume everything in its path. Count Orlok is not simply out to corrupt and frighten, but to dominate; not just an undead creature but a vast and inescapable maw meant to devour. That means that from the beginning, Robert Eggers’ film has to create a sense of its characters and its world being swallowed by the title creature’s darkness.
To achieve this, Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke turn the world of the film into a series of living paintings from the Romantic era — astonishing tableaus of light and shadow in which the world never truly seems bright. The light sources are either the diffuse, pale glow of snowscapes shrouded in clouds, or the warm but precarious flicker of candle flames punctuating the inky blackness of a world still full of dark places humans can’t quite comprehend. Whether it’s night or day, the darkness always seems to be clawing back territory from the light in this movie, and that darkness is not static, but filled with movement.
Bill Skarsgård’s Orlok is a masterpiece of sound design, prosthetic makeup, and performance. His look, deliberately hidden from viewers in marketing materials, is at once surprising and reverential, presenting a living corpse whose only true life comes from his inescapable hunger and the actor’s piercing, bright eyes. He speaks in fragments, punctuated by deep, wheezing intakes of breath, and Skarsgård’s ability to pitch his voice down until it sounds like it’s extending out from the depths of hell will send chills through you that linger for days. Even beyond his physical presence, Orlok’s ability to manipulate and live in shadows themselves becomes a key feature of the film, a chance for Eggers to create a monster so inescapable that you can never exist in any room without a chance that he’s there, waiting.
But even Skarsgård’s sheer force of presence is outshone by Lily-Rose Depp, who delivers the best performance of her career as Ellen, a character who knows more than anyone is willing to believe, and whose own inner darkness is deeper than even Orlok’s. She plays this haunted young woman as a coiled, constantly trembling spring who erupts into moments of epileptic fury and pure, heartbreaking anguish. The world of Eggers’ film, dominated by learned men of authority who think they know what’s best for Ellen, sets her up as the only hope of a blighted community even as she suffers more than anyone, and Depp carries that weight with astonishing maturity and grace. The cast around her, led by Nicholas Hoult and a ferocious Dafoe, all add to the aura, building a tale of “Beauty and the Beast” that’s deeper, darker, and more primal than even longtime Eggers fans might expect.
Everything in “Nosferatu,” from the sound to the sights to the humans walking in its shadows, is designed to deliver an all-encompassing atmosphere of unfiltered, animal dread. It achieves that, but there’s something else to the film too: lights in the dark that seduce you, compel you, dig into you like hooks. It’s a film that will repulse even as you can’t look away, a film that will cast a spell even as you recoil. It’s a masterwork of modern horror, and a can’t-miss theatrical experience from one of the best directors working right now.
“Nosferatu” creeps into theaters on December 25.