PREMISE
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
THE GOOD STUFF
BILL F****** SKARSGARD- To me, one of the more beautiful things to happen in cinema is when you get a character actor like Bill Skarsgard, marinate them in about four or five hours of prosthetics and makeup, and then fully unleash them to let their freak flag fly. Men like him, Andy Serkis, Doug Jones, and Alan Tudyk are true unsung heroes of Cinema that don’t get the kind of praise that the headliners (or character actors that don’t do this kind of “creature work” for lack of a better term) tend to receive regularly.
He portrays one of the most genuinely intimidating cinematic villains I have ever seen. The vast majority of his performance is either sitting down or standing up in place. There’s not a lot of movement here, and yet, his presence is absolutely indomitable. Skarsgard is a SPECIAL kind of performer.
LILY ROSE-DEPP- Boy, oh boy, did Depp get a lot of unjustified s*** for her performance in the idol in 2023. The show was so bad that people thought that she was bad just by proxy. Welp, the stench of that show on her should be ERADICATED with this movie. This is an astonishing performance.
Her character lives this entire film in a state of terror, and the role requires the terror to be played in many different shades throughout the film. All of those shades are vividly portrayed, and it’s engrossing. This is a much more physical role than I ever could picture it being, and she attacks it with aplomb. I’ve only seen her in these two things, and I got to say she’s one of the more fearless performers in the industry right now.
EGGERS- Stylistically, I don’t believe that there is a better director in all of Hollywood than Rob Eggers. Every single shot of this movie is an absolute screensaver. This is a very darkly lit movie most of the time, and unlike a lot of slasher movies that tend to have a dark aesthetic, there’s a reason for doing it here. It’s not just some flashy s*** that he’s doing to show that he can be stylistic. All of his films to date have been grim, mean-spirited, and graphic, but none of it seems excessive. He is a master of this genre.
THE BAD STUFF
AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON- I’m not at all criticizing this performance. Or any performance that Johnson done. I’ve often said that Johnson is the most underutilized major talent in all of Hollywood. And sadly, this film does not disprove that. Yes, he does get a lot to do here… but it is overshadowed by literally everything else that everybody else is doing. He is portraying the least interesting character in this film by a lot. And it does the most with what it can, as he always does. But his character kind of has the bathroom break energy that no other character in the film tends to have. Again, not criticizing this performance. He’s fine. But man, in a movie like this it’s really weird to have an actor like him be borderline boring.
THE UGLY STUFF
THE ORLOK AESTHETIC—What really trips me out about this is how brazenly the film attempted to hide the aesthetic of this character throughout the press run, in the trailers, and even on the poster. If you’ve been anticipating this movie in any way, part of that anticipation was seeing what Nosferatu actually looked like on screen. And…
When the credits started rolling on this movie, the first question that came to my mind was, This? This was what you guys spent all that time protecting? SMFH.
THE 3RD ACT- This movie was cruising into top 10 of the year territory for me. Then, this third act happens: massive plot holes are instantaneously formed, and I’m left shaking my head at a great number of things. I can’t discuss things in detail, of course, because we don’t spoil things here, but there are no less than 3 massive plot holes that revealed themselves in the last 30 minutes or so, thoroughly ruining the climactic showdown (no pun intended) with no crescendo at all. I won’t call this ending abrupt or anything of that nature, but it doesn’t capitalize on anything it builds up to.
**************
In my humble opinion, there is an upper echelon of modern-day horror filmmakers (Jordan Peele, Fede Alvarez, Ari Aster, Alex Garland, James Wan, and, to an extent, Radio Silence) whose work can only be compared to themselves. The worst movie from any of these dudes is better than the best movie from pretty much any other modern-day horror filmmaker. The question is not if this is any good. The question here is if Nosferatu matches up with the best of the best, and I guess the appropriate answer is…. It could have. But it does not.
NOSFERATU is in theaters now
