Nosferatu review: Drips with gothic horror and launches Lily-Rose Depp

'As Ellen, Lily-Rose Depp is never quite wholly a victim' (Photo: Focus Features)[Missing Credit]

Depp’s Ellen is the object of Count Orlok’s desire but she has married the upstanding Visburg estate agent Thomas Hutter (an earnest Nicholas Hoult) who, honeymoon over, has been despatched by his boss Knock to close the deal on a mansion sale. Little does Thomas realise that Knock (Simon McBurney) is devoted to serving Orlok who is also the vampire of Elen’s portending nightmares.

Visually, Eggers’ film takes inspiration from Marnau’s black and white original. Most scenes are rendered in a slightly colourised monochrome and shot with more grainy shadow than light.

Willem Dafoe is the inevitable torch-bearing demon hunter in Nosferatu (Photo: Focus Features)[Missing Credit]

However, audibly the new film is as far from the silent movie as it is possible to get. Ambient sound is played at ear-splitting levels. When Ellen cuts a locket of her hair for Thomas to carry with him to Orlok’s castle, the snip has the volume of a scythe smiting a sheaf of wheat. Jump scares abound and are all the scarier for the cacophony of orchestral screams that accompany them.

Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård is used to playing ugly. Past roles include Pennywise of the It films. But here you can almost smell the decaying skin of his Orlok, a bent body with a landscape of volcanic skin. A duvet of live rats covers him while asleep.

Nicholas Hoult plays upstanding Visburg estate agent Thomas Hutter (Photo: Focus Features)[Missing Credit]

As Ellen, the excellent Depp is never quite wholly a victim. As much as she loathes and fears this blood-sucking lord, she is consumed also by a guilty sexual pleasure.

For the weak of heart there is solace to be found in the film being unable to quite escape the conventions of its forbears. Willem Dafoe’s Professor is the inevitable torch-bearing demon hunter. And there is unintended comedy when, still believing that Orlok is a genuine customer, Hutter says that it is his good fortune they will be neighbours after Orlok moves in. One imagines that Assad’s new neighbours in Moscow feel similarly enthusiastic.