This is actually pretty, pretty, pretty good for an umpteenth go-round with the old bloodsucker—vampires being near and dear to my heart ever since I read a paperback copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula with a photo of Christopher Lee on the cover while at summer camp in 1963. In fact, as a boy, I aspired to grow up to become either a vampire or a rabbi. I'm not kidding. It must be my double Gemini natural. This archetypal pair of opposites attract as they embody the age-old dialectic of Good and Evil/Love and Hate—sometimes even in a single cinematic pair of hands:
Director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) was extremely engaging and forthright in the Q&A at the Directors Guild of America screening on Sunday night, Dec. 15th. He discussed his lifelong obsession with Dracula/Nosferatu (my obsession, also), even directing and acting in a high school theatrical production of Nosferatu.
He frankly admitted he'd seen Werner Herzog's 1979 version Nosferatu the Vampire multiple times as a teenager—an influence which is fairly obvious on his film, as much of Eggers's mise-en-scene adheres closely to Herzog's, including the casting of Lily-Rose Depp's Ellen, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Herzog's star, pale-cheeked and wide-eyed Isabelle Adjani. Adjani and Depp also share a propensity for evoking deep hysterical cum epileptic states (for said twitch, Adjani won a Cesar Award for her freakout in the Paris Metro scene in Andrezj Zulawski's shocker 1981's Possession.
My buddy Willem Dafoe is excellent as always as a less than perspicacious, on the verge of bumbling, benighted Van Helsing-like vampire hunter. Willem provides some necessary comic relief in his portrayal, and the DGA audience cheered his name (a local hero!) when it appeared in the opening credits.
Bill Skarsgård is stupendous as the hulking, fetid, cadaverous Count Orlock—the name was changed from Dracula in the original by screenwriter Henrik Galeen, as director F. W. Murnau was unable to obtain the rights to Dracula from the Bram Stoker Estate and did not want to be held liable for copyright infringement.
Eggers's big twist plot-wise herein is of a feminist take on the material, to wit that Lily-Rose Depp's character Ellen is revealed to be the preternatural architect of her own peril (and everyone else in the German town of Wismar)—and ultimately, she and she alone is the key to bringing the monster she has summoned across space and time to ground, so to speak.
I was really prepared to dislike this movie, but seeing was believing.
With three solid forays into the horror genre under his belt, Eggers has proved himself to be one of the most impressive directors of our generation, certainly in the horror and supernatural genres.
Now I wonder what he'd do with a straight-up comedy…