It's been 9 years since Egger's, alongside Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, ushered in a new era of horror with his first theatrical release THE VVITCH (2015). A well researched and deeply atmospheric home horror filmm about an evil plaguing a family. Its focus on the puritanical family at the center and folk horror made it almost an instant cult classic. His films have gone on to not only receive universal acclaim but become indicative of a new generation of horror alongside his contemporaries. Egger's arrived so abruptly on the scene but it feels as if he's reeled it in with each subsequent release following his debut. Nosferatu seems to suffer from a lack of tension in parts just as The Lighthouse did and at times is bloated and overwrought like The Northman attempted to be. This retelling of the 1922 silent film is certainly a lot more sensual between Count Orlock and his victims but that's really about it. Lily-Rose Depp, who replaced Anya Taylor-Joy as Ellen Hunter, feels so incredibly miscast in this film. There are scenes where she is contorting herself in a way clearly meant to repulse the audience but they feel so uneven with the pace that they don't do much. This feels like Eggers attempted to tell, what could have been, a very interesting story about desire that shoe-horned in elements of horror because "vampires are supposed to be scary." Orlock, what he does, and what happens doesn't feel scary.
The only performance irrefutably weaker (out of an otherwise strong cast) is Aaron Taylor-Johnson's incredibly flat Freiderch Harding. It felt difficult to buy into his snide remarks or to even empathize with him during a pivotal scene towards the later half of the film because of his lazy delivery and weak presence. They both feel so outside of this film in terms of actability that it makes the rest of the cast (Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Bill Skarsgard) superior in every scene they occupy. I tried to divorce both actors from their filmographies (which aren't great) to attempt to give them the benefit of the doubt but, I just kept asking myself "how did either of them end up here?" Especially Taylor-Johnson, who's next film Kraven is projected to open lower than Morbius. It's just strange to me as Egger's has been known to recycle actors (especially Dafoe this being his third project with him) and having a tight cast. Not only do these two stick out like sore thumbs but they detract from the beautiful and atmospheric world these characters are in. As for Orlock himself, he was much too humanoid to be horrifying. What you can make out of him lurking in the shadows is far from menacing. At no time did he come off as spooky or a real threat. Certainly not enough to garner the fear of the town folk.
Perhaps that was Egger's goal. He seemed to set out to tell a romantic gothic tale, a much more sensual film than his previous one but, between that and Depp's weak acting its difficult to really buy into this gothic love story. Beautiful aesthetics hampered by two poor performances and some pacing issues. The rottoentomatoes score debuted at an impressive 93%, several weeks before wide release, but Egger's audience score seems to sit considerably lower. Audience reception and an over 2 hour runtime may or may not hurt this films box office gross as well. At this time, there is no information on the budget but I doubt it is anywhere close to The Northman's 70-90 million budget which grossed just under 70 mill. Egger's Nosferatu is far from the worst horror movie you'll see this year but certainly isn't his best. This one is a walk out 2/5.
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