Review: “Nosferatu” is your holiday ticket to fear and trembling

Looking for some counter-programming to the horror holiday? Then listen up: Nosferatu, in theaters now, is your ticket to fear and trembling. This wild thing of beauty and terror, indelibly written and directed by Robert Eggers, is a remake of FW Murnau’s 1922 silent film milestone, which was itself an unauthorized version of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.

You get it, right? That’s why the vampire Nosferatu, played to creepy-crawling perfection by Bill Skarsgård – the screaming clown Pennywise from the “It” series – is called Count Orlok instead of Count Dracula. Otherwise, who are we kidding?

Eggers has already terrified us with spooky pieces like “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman,” but with “Nosferatu” he pulls out all the chiller-diller stops because it’s difficult, a horror -Milestone to meet. especially if purists have it in for you.

No need to worry. “Nosferatu” captivates you from the first terrifying scene to the last. It’s also the passion project Eggers has wanted to accomplish for years. And he has assembled a creative team in front of and behind the camera that is (pardon my language) to die for.

“Nosferatu” is set in Germany in 1838 and was shot in Prague by renowned cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, who slowly drains the color from his images, just as Orlok does with his victims.

A prologue introduces us to a cleverly cast and quite wonderful Lily-Rose Depp – her father Johnny knows the realm of the undead from “Dark Shadows” and “Sleepy Hollow” – as Ellen, a teenager with visions of a dark silhouette that she thinks is one Guardian holds angel.

Ellen couldn’t be more wrong. But the visions persist even after her marriage to Thomas Hutter (a rather naive Nicholas Hoult), who becomes worried when his boss Mr Knock (Simon McBurney) sends him to a castle in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. His job is to seal the sale of a moldy mansion for – you guessed it – Orlok, which will make the Count a cozy neighbor to the Hutters.

Stupid idea, as Ellen is already tormented by creepy dreams about Orlok beckoning her to his side. She stays with her local friends Anna (Emma Corrin) and her shipyard owner husband Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but the count is undeniable.

His stormy sea voyage leads to a plague of rats upon arrival. Yuck! With Thomas out, Ellen seeks help from Professor von France, played by a great Willem Dafoe – himself a bloodsucker in “Shadow of the Vampire” – who brings some much-needed humor to the hell in which everyone else lives. He’s a real eye-catcher.

Still, it is Ellen’s meeting with Orlok that sends “Nosferatu” into the occult orbit. Skarsgård sets the screen on fire. Painted like a rotting corpse but somehow still alluring (wait, you’ll see), he lost significant weight, spent hours a day in prosthetic makeup, and learned from an Icelandic opera singer to reduce his vocal range when speaking dead Balkan language.

It’s a hellish performance, demonically designed to haunt your darkest dreams. Skarsgård recently admitted to Esquire that “it took me a while to shake off the demon that was summoned within me.”

Audiences may never shake it. Eggers has created a new classic in dread art. Warning: You may wake up from his cinematic nightmare, but you will wake up screaming.