In the hands of another actor, Ellen could easily have been a tragic symbol of beauty and purity, but Depp gives her just enough bite – an odd, otherworldly coldness, an unsettling unpredictability, a generous dollop of sexual hunger – to bring her wholly to life. She ends the film not a selfless saint, but more of a conquering hero. You’re a little afraid of her, and you root for her at the same time.
It also helps that she looks absolutely incredible. Her costumes – heavy, floor-skimming, puff-sleeved, ruffle-lined confections in ice-cold silks and glossy satins, courtesy of Eggers’s frequent collaborator Linda Muir – skate that thin line between ravishing beauty and an austere, slightly stuffy, skin-crawling, Victorian creepiness, at times making Depp resemble a delicate porcelain figurine, designed to be locked away and admired behind glass. She rejects this mantle most vociferously when, in one sequence, she literally tears her clothes from her body.
Eggers has a talent for crafting disconcerting shots that linger in your mind: in one scene, rather strangely, the camera remains on the back of Thomas’s head as he kisses Ellen, rather than showing us their faces; in another, Orlok is captured from a peculiar distance, as he sucks a victim’s blood, as if we’re in the room ourselves, watching him in silent horror. The director’s tongue-in-cheek script is a treat, too, rarely afraid of leaning into the absurd and gruesome. (There’s one stomach-turning moment involving Herr Knock and a pigeon that I will personally never be able to unsee.)