Nosferatu

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should.”

Replace “scientists” with “filmmakers” and Dr. Ian Malcolm’s quote from Jurassic Park accurately sums up Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, a passable remake of the F.W. Murnau silent classic.

After so many takes on this well-worn tale, freshness is a must for any new version. Yet despite the filmmaker’s past creative takes on such tried-and-true genres as folk horror (The Witch) and Viking lore (The Northman), originality is barely present here.

Sticklers will surely pinpoint minute deviations from past Nosferatus and Draculas, but for non-obsessives, this is the same old story of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) worming his way from Transylvania to a new home, manipulating and destroying innocent lives along the way.

So, no, there's little different about this rendering of ambitious young Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) and his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) falling prey to the vampire's powers of persuasion besides Skarsgård’s blood-curdling voice work and a particularly animated and entertaining Willem Dafoe as Van Helsing substitute Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz.

Fortunately, the Bram Stoker source novel and Henrik Galeen’s freewheeling 1922 screenplay are inherently engaging stories, and while Eggers doesn't do much to make his interpretation stand apart from its previous tellings, he understands the strengths of this narrative and nicely plays up its major beats.

What he doesn't do, however, is pair it with compelling visuals — a bizarre shift for an artist whose filmography (including his huge miss, The Lighthouse) are packed with memorable images.

That flatness and the general over-familiarity of this Nosferatu drives a stake to the film’s heart that doesn't quite kill it but doesn't exactly leave it with much life.

Grade: B-minus. Rated R. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, the Fine Arts Theatre, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Focus Features)