It’s not that I don’t like the set pieces, the wardrobe, or even the screenplay. But frankly, all that to recreate Nosferatu in our bedroom is becoming a bit much.
As with previous outings by Robert Eggers, Nosferatu is a masterclass in tonal horror. To bring his retelling to life, Eggers has recruited some especially iconic character/actor pairings: Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), and Count Orlok (that asshole Bill Skarsgård). Thanks to the dark magic of minimal lighting, each scene is haunted by what is shown, as much as by what is concealed.
To illustrate this point, last night my wife, Nicole, yelled “Cut,” then rolled off of me in bed. Next thing I know, she’s scolding the crew, yelling something about the fill light giving away “the mystery of his core demon.” I know she means my face, which (in spite of prosthetic makeup and an on-set acting coach) can’t hold a match to Skarsgård’s dumb expressive genius. Still, after the lighting’s readjusted, it’s hard to argue with the results.
The film begins with Ellen, a young 19th-century woman, who awakens the titular vampire from his long slumber. In a dreamlike state, Ellen pleads for Nosferatu to “come” to her, at which point we pan across the room–and there’s my wife, Nicole, panting audibly right in the middle of the theater, sweat streaking her face. Then we’re startled by a jump-scare appearance of Nosferatu in the (decayed) flesh, and I think, okay, now we can get back on track. As the vampire clutches Ellen by the throat, she lets out a series of loud, plaintive moans. No, not Ellen, who’s actually screaming for her life at this point–I mean my wife, Nicole. As I watch her practically gyrating out of her theater seat, I get the sinking realization that my sex life will never be the same.
We soon find an older Ellen, newly married to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), a real estate agent who must travel to Transylvania to finalize a sale to the mysterious Count Orlok. Ellen, whose sleep is again disturbed by her otherworldly tormentor, feels a sense of foreboding and pleads for Thomas not to go, which of course is so unlike my wife, Nicole, who would have drop-kicked Thomas for the chance to meet Count Orlok herself. At the Count’s castle, Thomas’s misgivings soon turn to panic as it becomes clear that not only is his host the vampire Nosferatu, he’s also played by that Bill Skarsgård, whose devilish charms are definitely about to ruin his sex life with his wife, Ellen.
Some viewers might be deterred by the film’s slow clip, though this usually works to heighten the tension, rather than stretching it thin: an impressive cinematic feat that my wife (Nicole) makes sure to point out each time I fail to achieve Nosferatu’s deliberate, but insistent pace in the sheets. Skarsgård’s preparation for the role will go down as nothing short of legendary, an accomplishment of pure suckage for yours truly, when I have to follow in the overachieving footsteps of that brilliant, shapeshifting shit. To capture Nosferatu’s deep, cavernous voice that’s sure to be remembered as one of cinema’s most distinctive, I, like Skarsgård who probably wasn’t even loved by his mother, had to spend my vanishingly precious free time and unreal sums of money training with an opera singer and an acting coach, all because my wife, Nicole, can’t get off now without the assistance of a goddamn Skarsgårdian monster squirming on top of her.
Throughout this portrayal of Nosferatu, we find elements of both Max Schreck’s bestial drive from the 1922 original, as well as Herzog’s 1979 remake, which offers an emotionally vulnerable Nosferatu. The latest film, however, brings both man and beast into unholy union as Skarsgård becomes the human embodiment of animal hunger, the sexy Swedish sleaze.
Sometimes I actually miss the Pennywise-the-Clown days. Back when all that was expected of me was to stay in the mood without breaking character. Which, let’s be honest, is no easy task when you have to wear a wig and talk about dead, floating bodies. And sure, I’ve performed more of those clown leg-kick dances than I’m proud to admit. Still, they were simpler times. For one, lighting demands were less fussy. And makeup-and-wardrobe took two hours, tops.
All the same, most discerning audience members will welcome this remake into the unhallowed halls of horror cinema. Nosferatu proves once again that film still holds the power to resurrect classic fears and, if Bill Skarsgård has anything to do with it, to really piss on my sex life with my wife, Nicole.
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J. Condra Smith is a queer writer with roots in both Mexico and the United States. He holds an MFA from the University of Maryland, where he also taught creative writing. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fiction International, Peatsmoke, and elsewhere.