Take a long, deep breathe in for this one…

Yes, that’s right, Hollywood is once again going back to the remake well for a new version of superlative silent horror classic Nosferatu, as reported over at Deadline.

Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 company has put together the yet-to-be-titled remake of the 1992 F.W. Murnau German Expressionist masterpiece, with Robert Eggers hand-picked to write and direct. He made waves at Sundance for his horror The Witch, winning the directing prize, and is also working with Studio 8 – in a completely separate deal, it must be noted – on making the medieval film The Knight.

Now I must admit I felt my blood start to boil and my skin start to itch when I first heard of this remake news. However, I then reminded myself that Nosferatu is basically the age-old story of Dracula in all but name. It was actually originally made as an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 19th century novel, with certain elements changed – “vampire” became “Nosferatu,” “Dracula” became “Count Orlok” etc. – to try and get away with not being able to acquire the rights. Fascinatingly, family heirs sued the studio and a court ruled that all copies be burnt but luckily a few managed to survive.

And lest we forget the film has already been remade in a fashion back in 1979 by the one and only Werner Herzog. That version saw his frequent collaborator Klaus Kinski play Count Orlok and it put a definitive, and definitively surreal, stamp on the story while still paying immense respect to the original.

So on the one hand it’s perfectly acceptable as a concept for a new movie since the Dracula story has appeared in several different incarnations throughout the decades, from Hammer Horror and beyond. Then again, why target this specific 1922 film for the remake treatment? Didn’t we say all the new stuff we needed to say with the brilliant 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire?…

Source: Deadline