Nosferatu

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts behind awards season’s most talked-about movies continues with Nosferatu , Focus Features ‘ gothic horror from writer-director Robert Eggers . Set in 1830s Baltic Germany, Eggers reimagines the tale with Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, a fictional character who originally appeared in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror directed by F.W. Murnau. Focus Features released the film on Christmas Day, since becoming Eggers’ highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office with $53 million and counting. It picked up five Critics Choice nominations among its recognition this season among critics groups. In Eggers’ Nosferatu , estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) travels to Transylvania for a fateful meeting with Orlok, a vampiric prospective client. Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), Hutter’s new bride, is left under the care of their friends Friedrich and Anna Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin) in his absence. Plagued by visions and an increasing sense of dread, Ellen encounters a force far beyond her control. Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe also star. Eggers’ early fascination with Nosferatu ignited a passion for filmmaking that would shape his career. He became inspired by both Henrik Galeen’s screenplay and Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula , and with high school classmate Ashley Kelly-Tata adapted the story for the stage, performing it at their school. Their production caught the eye of Edouard Langlois, who invited them to transfer it to New York’s Edwin Booth Theatre. “Of course, it was the image and performance of Max Schreck that haunted me as a kid. There was something essential about the mysterious vampire and the simple fairytale of Nosferatu. And I am certain that when Hutter threw open the lid of Orlok’s sarcophagus, audiences gasped at the terror and imagined the stench of the undead monster. How could I find my own way there?” Eggers explains of his lifelong fascination since childhood about adapting the film. Eggers’ reimagining of the Count is a masterclass in cinematic horror. His dark, rotting character, shrouded in shadow and amplified by an eerie soundtrack, is both terrifying and seductive. The stunning chiaroscuro visuals draw the audience into a world of Eggers’ gothic nightmare. Crappy English accents in Germany? What’s the deal with that horrible mustache? Parts of the movie looked good but the acting sucked for the most part. Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them. The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices. Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice. Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you. Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction w