Let it never be said writer-director Robert Eggers does anything half-assed. Through his first three feature films, all three period pieces with strict period accuracy, he’s explored folk lore, isolation, and revenge. Each movie grew, both in scale and as an expression of style. For his fourth outing, Eggers is not only bringing all of that to screen once again, but is doing it reimagining one of the pillars of horror cinema, itself an adaptation of arguably the most important texts in horror literature. Nosferatu has many enormous shoes to fill and does it nearly flawlessly.
The Witch and The Lighthouse forced audiences to get on board with language and accents they might not have heard before. Both of those were small cast affairs dealing with growing madness that may or may not have supernatural influence. Those movies are frightening in small ways and employ hallucinatory imagery. The Northman, while ultimately a straight forward revenge yarn, is by far the largest production Eggers ever attempted. I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Northman. I thought it lost some of the weird darkness I loved from the earlier ones. Nosferatu, is a big huge production that has all the weird darkness.
A passion project of Eggers’ for years, Nosferatu is a reimagining of F.W. Murnau’s German expressionist classic from 1922. While not the first silent horror film by any means, it’s arguably the most important. It’s at least up there with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Phantom of the Opera. So remaking that in 2024, 102 years after initial release, is a big swing. The original was also, infamously, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In 1922, that book was only 25 years old. Now, it’s 127 years old and has been adapted a billion times. So even if you don’t know Nosferatu, you know Dracula.
I’m belaboring the point that this adaptation is tough so that I can say that Eggers and company succeed in ways I had not fully expected. The movie is simultaneously a perfectly period-accurate depiction of German society and Slavic folklore, an updating of the essence of German Expressionist cinema for the 21st century (more on that in a bit), and, chiefly, a damn scary vampire movie to boot.
The story follows Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), a newlywed with a history of “hysteria,” stemming from an accidental communion with an evil entity in her youth. Her husband, Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), a solicitor, has a positive effect on her mental state. This, unfortunately, starts to slip when Thomas’ boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) sends him deep into the Carpathian Mountains to deliver paperwork to an important client, the reclusive aristocrat, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård).
While Thomas is away, Ellen stays with her best friend Anna (Emma Corrin), Anna’s shipping magnate husband Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and their young daughters. The closer Thomas gets to Orlok’s house, the more Ellen’s sanity begins to slip. This necessitates Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson) to call upon his mentor, the eccentric but brilliant Professor Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), for assistance. All the while, Orlok gets closer, both physically and psychically, with Ellen, leading to plague and decay in his wake.
You can certainly feel the bones of Dracula, pun intended, in the story. Eggers makes sure to keep enough different so as to make it interesting. Orlok is not a Hollywood vampire and instead a repugnant creature of death and destruction borne out of Romani folklore and historical accounts. I won’t spoil Orlok’s look, but it’s unlike any version we’ve seen on film before. To add to the grotesqueries of the character, the otherworldly nature, Eggers makes his constant wheezing breathing omnipresent and every line of Orlok’s dialogue fills every channel of the sound mix. It’s supremely effective in building the terrible majesty befitting such a monster.
Additionally, Eggers has managed to keep the essence of German Expressionism without making it a parody or pastiche. The color palette is grey and dreary while the lighting is stark and distinct. Often, we’ll also get full close-ups, an especially central technique to silent-era cinema. Much harder to pull off, I think is a style of acting that features heightened emotions and slightly more exaggerated facial expressions. Again not enough to distract, but enough to pay respect to Murnau and that entire performance technique.
Some of the cast pull this off better than others. Depp has by far the hardest job, essentially acting as the focal point for all of the story’s many ups and downs. She pulls this off masterfully, allowing Ellen to be a raw nerve without ever grating or losing credulity. Hoult, also, has to remain pretty resolutely terrified throughout the movie and never once feels over the top. Dafoe also deserves applause, of course. As the Van Helsing analog, he has to be both stern and knowledgeable and weird and goofy. Much the same way McBurney’s Knock has to go slowly madder and madder through the course of the film. Great stuff.
I would be remiss if I didn’t call out the lone duff performance of the bunch. Taylor-Johnson’s rich gentleman never feels like more than dashing rogue stereotype, which is not what the character actually is. Friedrich has the unenviable position in such a movie to be the sole immovable skeptic who has to endure the consequences for that arrogance. He ought to be a tragic figure and I just never bought Taylor-Johnson’s pantomime schtick for a minute.
That aside, what truly makes Nosferatu one of the year’s best films is the sheer scale and detail behind every single aspect. The costumes, the makeup, Robin Carolan’s score, Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography, the gorgeous practical sets and locations only heightened through CGI not detracted. It’s a testament to the artistry of a team of filmmakers when the creative vision is so strong.
Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu sits apart as not merely a remake or reimagining but a wholly singular interpretation of a book and film baked into the very fabric of popular culture. You know the story, you might even know the film, but you don’t know them this way. Count Orlok is at once the most repulsive and most seductive version of the vampire we’ve ever seen. The movie is austere and refined as well as horny and animalistic. It’s a triumph, and I have faith it will scare you plenty. The perfect chiller for the chilliest time of year.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
