Even if horror is your scene—it is certainly not mine—Nosferatu, which is one of the most talked-about shiver givers in recent times, please be cautioned: Nosferatu is a bit of a selfimportant slog. It is like one of those streetside pamphleteers who think they are changing the world. But in actuality they are merely making noise that feels urgent but is just heated humbug.
All through this bleak and burly slow-burn drama I felt a sense of mounting tension. But there is little to back up the sense of foreboding. The ostensibly Big Moments end in a whimper, sometimes literally. There is an episode where the female protagonist Ellen(Lily-Rose Depp, Johnny Depp’s Daughter) goes into a trance-like fit with loud moaning gasping, as if she has just watched the uncut version of Pushpa.
The sequence builds up to a crescendo and then simply collapses in exhaustion.
While Ellen is battling with demons of her own, her dear departed husband(no no he is not dead, although some of the seemingly alive characters are) Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) has gone a distance for better job prospects, seeking out a troublesome landlord who has nails as long and elegant as George Michael . This freak of Nature , yes the eponymous Nosferatu, is played by Bill Skarsgård who is so camouflaged in prosthetics and makeup(the long painted nails included) he could have been played by anybody, even Armie Hammer.
Nosferatu lives in a ruined castle that could have once been the location for Mrinal Sen’s Khandhar. It now seems like a fortress gone to seed.
In Nosferatu the scares are scarce. The mood of foreboding overrides all the detailing required to make the experience more substantial for the audience. Instead the narrative rides across a landscape of bleak blurps and loud belches: every fright flight underlined, every peaked yelp punctuated.
Director Robert Eggers isn’t into nuances here. The deeper the horror gets, the lighter the treatment of it. When Nosferatu traps Thomas in his perverse hospitality the film gives us the pulpy feel of one of those horror flicks where the home-owner slashes his guests one by one.
Thomas feels trapped. He is not alone.
I couldn’t wait for this, one of the over-hyped chill-up-the-spine-in-slowmo tales of the year, to end.
