NOSFERATU

I’ve been looking forward to this. Recycling a title that’s almost more iconic than Dracula. But this version is a disappointing rehash. The core story isn’t strong enough to sustain the long running time (132 mins).

The beginning is especially slow: Thomas Hutter, the Jonathan Harker character (Nicolas Hoult), taking papers to Count Orlov (Bill Skarsgard) in his gothic castle. The long middle section is equally slow: Hutter’s wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) becoming as obsessed with the vampire as he is with her. Various elements from the Dracula story are mixed in: the Renfield insect-eater, here called Knock (Simon McBurney) and Professor Eberhart, the Van Helsing know-it-all (Willem Dafoe).

The music is loud, but the scares are few until the last half-hour. Of the performances, only Ms Depp stands out, a beauty both haunting and haunted. Skarsgard’s Orlov is nowhere near as sinister as Max Schreck was a hundred years ago.

Production values are possibly a degree or two higher than in the Francis Coppola Dracula (1992), which for me remains the number-one. This version has great style but lacks pace and substance. That said, I’ll watch it again when it turns up on TV. Good, bad or indifferent, I find vampire movies endlessly watchable.