In a bleakly exquisite “Nosferatu,” Lily-Rose Depp has more bite than the titular vamp

Just a few months after the release of his gripping, gothic feature film debut “The Witch” in 2016, director Robert Eggers balked at the immensity of his next opportunity: a remake of F.W. Murnau’s legendary vampire flick “Nosterfatu.” Sitting for the “Filmmaker Toolkit” podcast, Eggers joked to host Chris O’Falt, “It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do ‘Nosferatu’ next.” He elaborated by saying that he had planned to wait before taking on his lifelong passion project. But as fate would have it, “Nosferatu” moved up on his docket.

But fate is a fickle, unreliable bedfellow, especially for directors. They plan, and the studios, production teams and scheduling conflicts laugh. Shortly after its announcement, “Nosferatu” was delayed, and more impediments would arrive well into the next decade. Fans of Eggers’ work struggled to keep the faith. Murnau’s film was a distinctly German approach to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” and its expressionist style seemed like the ideal putty for Eggers to mold after crafting a haunting debut feature that shot to the top of so many 2016 best-of lists. Unfortunately, one of the painful realities of being an artist is that the paradigm of an individual’s creative interests can often remain out of reach.

Yet, Eggers was not one to sit and twiddle his thumbs. Two more films followed, with 2019’s seafaring tale “The Lighthouse” and the epic 2022 Viking fable “The Northman” revealing new strengths in writing and directing that hadn’t been immediately visible in Eggers’ debut. These movies confirmed Eggers as a classic storyteller, the kind of person whose yarn-spinning would be as effective across a crackling campfire as it is on the silver screen. They were ambitious works that wore their excellence modestly, which would be critical when “Nosferatu” finally entered into production after years of stalling. Only a total lack of hubris could allow “Nosferatu” to arrive how it has: completely unparalleled. “Nosferatu” is more retelling than remake, like a myth that takes on new, sickly detail to petrify the curious as it’s passed down through the years. It’s both heart-stopping and frighteningly believable, a tale of desire and destruction that will go down as the definitive take on the vampire for this generation.

Eggers’ “Nosferatu” succeeds because the director’s alterations to Henrik Galeen’s original 1922 screenplay, aped from Stoker’s novel with a few tweaks, are minimal. The film shares the same narrative structure as past versions but fleshes out sequences that necessitate more introspection to enhance the story’s already enchanting framework. In its newly penned prologue, a catatonic young Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) stands shrouded in night with her hands clasped in prayer, begging the universe for a guardian angel. A newly awakened voice answers her call, telling Ellen that she is not for the living before beckoning her to the garden, asking her to promise her allegiance to the darkness. Beleaguered, she agrees, and an unholy bond is consummated atop the dewy earth.

Years later, in 1838, Ellen has quelled the melancholy that once walked beside her. Her marriage to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) dulled the voice of her despondency and filled her with love. But the sun no longer shines on their quaint German town, and Ellen prophesies that something is wrong. Thomas’ employer, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), must send Thomas away to bring the insistent Transylvanian nobleman Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) the deed to a nearby home. Ellen begs Thomas to stay, but their livelihood depends on his commission; there is no happiness that the allure of riches can’t devastate. Thomas departs, leaving Ellen in the care of their close friends Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife Anna (Emma Corrin). 

Nicholas Hoult in “Nosferatu” (Focus Features)Thomas’ journey to Orlok’s dilapidated castle in the Carpathian mountains is rife with some of the most bewitching shots of both any film this year and Eggers’ career thus far. “Nosferatu” often looks like the pages of a macabre children’s story come alive, with winding roads and endless forests that put the Brothers Grimm to shame. After making his way through a Romanian town filled with zealots warning Thomas of Orlok’s corruption, he finds himself alone, deep in the snowy woods. The figment of a carriage appears in the distance, steadily drawing closer in Thomas’ sight as the sound of horses’ hooves mimics his steadily increasing heartbeat. When the coach arrives and comes to a stop, Thomas finds it empty, with the door leisurely swinging open to invite him to ruin. It’s pure movie magic, playing with image and sound in the chimeric ways that kids do when they’re alone in their bedrooms, convincing themselves that the shadows of trees outside are monsters in the corner waiting to bite.

Atmosphere is paramount in Eggers’ film, but it doesn’t do all of the heavy lifting. Where this “Nosferatu” sets itself apart from Murnau’s original and Werner Herzog’s achingly romantic 1979 “Nosferatu the Vampyre” — itself a masterpiece, too little regarded in the conversation for my taste — is in its character writing. That is to say, Eggers’ take is the first “Nosferatu” to really have characters at all: dynamic, three-dimensional, realized people at the story’s bloody, beating heart. But the movie’s key advantage can be seen in three four-letter words: Lily-Rose Depp. Depp is nothing short of transcendent in front of Eggers’ camera, at once hypnotic and repulsive as Ellen descends into the throes of madness in Thomas’ absence. The choice to center Ellen in the story over Thomas or Orlok was the correct one. Depp supplies a truly tragic, spectral quality to the role, performing torment with rattling empathy. If I blinked when she was onscreen, I felt as though I’d cheated myself out of a millisecond’s more rapture, a curse akin to Ellen’s ethereal affliction. The performance is full-bodied and ravenous, and its nuance must be seen to be believed.

Regrettably, it’s difficult to consistently say the same of Skarsgård’s Orlok, who provides significant frights but feels almost too conventionally scary for a film so keen on being its own creation. He’s large and powerful, a far cry from Max Shreck’s frail yet imposing sight in Murnau’s original. And though it’s admirable that Eggers and Skarsgård did not simply repeat Shreck’s iconic look — which was one point against Herzog’s remake — this 8-foot tall, muscular Orlok lacks the surreptitious tranquility that has made past versions so eerie. Glimpses of that ghoulishness arrive in scenes where Orlok is plaguing Ellen, but when he’s hunting and not haunting, Skarsgård overextends himself to the point it veers on goofiness. At times, this brings a humor that makes “Nosferatu” feel credible; at others, it’s laughable. Though, I can’t say I wouldn’t listen to a half-hour breakdown about Eggers’ choice to give his hideous Count a decidedly handsome Tom Selleck mustache to make his vamp more like the real-life Vlad the Impaler. 

Lily-Rose Depp and Emma Corrin in “Nosferatu” (Focus Features)But in a film so detailed, it feels worthy to nitpick, especially because other particulars are so damn impressive. (Take note of the film’s title card, which quivers ever so slightly to evoke silent-era film projection.) The richest aspects, though, are woven into the movie’s thematic framework. Vampires have always been a way for filmmakers to explore and explode society’s soft-spoken misdeeds. These ghouls straddle the line between romance and predation, and Eggers’ Orlok is no different, although his version is more concretely steeped in the latter — particularly how carnal desire can attract vulturous beings if yearning is not wielded with care. From an early age, Ellen is rife with longing, both for love and for the flesh. Her hunger is not immoral, only reckless. This lust is the progenitor of a curse that will destroy all she loves, and as Eggers dips into that dark, woefully depressing extreme, he damns a culture so hellbent on endless, instant gratification while affirming “Nosferatu” as a generational work.

Since the nascent days of filmmaking, “Nosferatu” has been a sociological cipher. There was Murnau’s film: the groundbreaking achievement made from unauthorized artistic property. It was a renegade masterwork that would begin conversations about the importance of passion until the end of time while exploring burgeoning ideas about othering that still hold value today. Herzog’s take was the romantic’s ideal, a tale of life and death in a world broken by paranoia and the nonstop threat of global war that made its vampire antagonist into a tragic figure, begging viewers to understand that eternal life is a curse one should never wish to endure. Now, there is Eggers’ film: the aesthete’s rendition, concerned with how the past works blur into the now. He vilifies a ruthless, pleasure-hungry society and wonders if there can be piety without the loss of desire and sexual satisfaction, questioning whether that cultural paradigm was gone before we ever knew it was lost. His “Nosferatu” correctly leaves that question unanswered, allowing the door to remain ajar for the next person to posit their solution. In the absence of a single, broad truth, fear remains. Feeling terrified has never been quite so exquisite.

“Nosferatu” arrives in theaters on Christmas Day, Dec. 25.