The 594th film I have seen in theaters…

Spoilers below

---

The villainous Count Orlock uses his dark magic to find a new home outside of Transylvania in this adaptation of the Dracula knockoff. Yes, this is not an entirely fair synopsis, but it is nevertheless true.

---

---

Eggers fills his cast with outstanding talent. Leading us here are Lily-Rose Depp as Elllen, the psychic wife who inadvertently summons Count Orlock back from the dead. Nicholas Hoult is Thomas, her husband. This is the Harker character. This man has yet to let me down with a performance. He’s just terrific. Bill Skarsgård is our Count Orlock, the Nosferatu. CREEPY AF. I like that they made him not sexy, as Dracula is often portrayed. He is a corpse, a rotting corpse. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Harding, wealthy friend of Hutter and Emma Corrin is his wife Anna. We’ve got Ralph Ineson as Doctor Sievers, apparently the only doctor in town, and Simon McBurney as our Renfield analogue: Knock. Willem Dafoe finishes the main cast as Professor Von Franz, the Van Helsing character. As is often the case, Dafoe is the standout here. I especially liked seeing him in this after his portrayal in Shadow the Vampire 20+ years ago.

This movie suffers from a problem that plagues all Dracula adaptations: We’ve seen it 50 times. This is, at least, the 4^th adaptation of Nosferatu. I doubt anyone knows the exact Count (lol) of Dracula movies. There is little surprise happening here, but I did still enjoy it. Eggers is a fantastic director that truly understands mood. This guy is a true artist, working with other true artists to create something evocative and beautiful. I know it’s a cliché to say “every frame is a painting” but this movie fits that bill. The cinematography here, by Jarin Blaschke, is beautiful. Robin Carolan’s music was well suited to the film and added to the overall creepiness. While I preferred the Herzog approach of using the original character names with the imagery of Murnau’s film, this was a nice tribute to 1922 while moving it forward and (hopefully) setting a new standard for future horror films to follow.

8/10

---