Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Defoe, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Adéla Hesová, Milena Konstantinova, Stacy Thunes, Gregory Gudgeon, Robert Russell, Curtis Matthew, Claudiu Trandafir, Georgina Bereghianu, Jordan Haj, Katerina Bila, Maria Ion, Tereza Duskova, Liana Navrot, Mihai Verbinstschi, Karel Dobry, Andrei Sergeev, Matej Benes, Marek Pospichal, Jan Filipenský, Alex East, Christian Dunkley-Clark, Andrea Miltner, Robin Finesilver, Paul A Maynard, Charles Horne, Ella Bernstein, Meredith Digings.
The difference is too obvious, and yet they are bound by a common thread, one originally conceived in response to a denial of acquisition, the other a true defining Hollywood adaptation that spawned countless sequels, produced thousands of images and gave birth to a genre almost of all its own, and yet whilst one is seen as a human response to the attitude and romance, to the beauty inherent, it is arguably that the revulsion shown in Henrick Galeen’s 1922 black and white film of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a finer fit on how we should view vampires and the sickness that is associated with them.
In one of the more acts of fortune the fact that fans of horror are more than thankful for, the fact that the original version was saved from complete destruction, that the court order to burn all copies was ignored by forethought and a disrespect to an unjust ruling, is the reason why Robert Egger’s outstanding adaption of Nosferatu is so compulsive and demanding of attention.
Based on the genius macabre gothic novel by Bram Stoker, Dracula is the invention of film makers in the decades since the publication of the seminal work of the Dublin born author, it is there to sell the gothic idea of sex, of the beauty in the wreck of supplication to a power of dominance, and one that in every vampire novel or film since has broadly shown that vulnerable tainted sex sells above any kind of warning about disease.
The intensity of Nosferatu leaps directly off the screen, and by focusing on the festering decay, the decomposed and the rotten appearance of Count Orlok, what comes across is not decadence highlighted by so many other creatures of the night, but the corruption of the soul, the honesty of degeneracy, the flesh-crawling unpleasantness that leaves one frozen in fear and afraid of plagues, of pestilence and infection.
It is to Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, Nicholas Hoult as Thomas Hutter, Lily-Rose Depp as the haunted Ellen Hunter, and in arguably his finest role on screen, Simon McBurney as the raving, hysterical and forcibly depraved Herr Knock, that the film engages with its audience with upmost conviction.
Dracula may be the official line of established vampires on screen and in other media, but the influence of a film that was considered to be too similar to the plot laid down by Bram Stoker, that survived in print by the belief in sticking it to the law, is arguably one of the genre’s leading exponents of how cinema should be regarded; and Robert Egger’s own brilliant adaption should be seen in much the similar vein.
An outstanding piece of art and cinematography, totally direct and full of the demon images of death that make horror worthwhile. Nosferatu is cinema at its most fierce and undeniable force.
Ian D. Hall