Nosferatu (2024) Review

Nosferatu (2024)
Director: Robert Eggers
Screenwriter: Robert Eggers
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Willem Dafoe

Robert Eggers was already one of the best film artists working in the 2020s even before this release. The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman are all engrossing, fascinating works of folk horror and mythic storytelling. But it’s Nosferatu that shows Eggers at his peak, and that should be no surprise.

F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (officially subtitled A Symphony of Horror) is regarded as an all-time classic of horror, and of silent cinema as a whole. The original version was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, changing names and details, but not enough to fool Stoker’s widow. It was made during the era of German Expressionism in the Weimar Republic, bending shape and emphasizing shadow to create a horrific atmosphere, and introducing an iconic representation of vampires on screen. Werner Herzog’s 1979 adaptation united Nosferatu with “Dracula”, using the names from the latter, but the vampire’s design mirrored the creepy, bald beast of the former. Eggers’ Nosferatu is a near-direct remake of Murnau’s masterpiece, but very much in his own style, and updated for the sound and color eras.

Nosferatu follows Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) Hutter, a newlywed couple in Germany. Thomas is sent to finalize the sale of a home to the Transylvanian Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), and the mysterious Count begins to haunt Ellen’s dreams. Ellen isn’t believed, but she and Thomas work to end the dark reign of the vampire as he brings death and plague to their home.

While modern audiences may not find the images and techniques of Murnau’s film frightening, Eggers’ film is like a waking nightmare. There’s an effective marriage of spooky visuals and eerie sounds that serve to unnerve. Small animals having their heads ripped off, possession scenes, and vampire bites (and slurps) are incredibly effective because they work on so many sensory levels. Perhaps the best examples are the rasping breaths of Orlok, which place the audience as directly in Orlok’s ghastly presence as Thomas. The camera work and editing create the nightmarish atmosphere through surrealism. During his journey to the castle, Thomas appears distant from the camera as a demonic horse carriage approaches him in slow motion, followed by a spatially disorienting shot of him entering the carriage that gives the sequence a dreamlike quality. Characters wake up after witnessing someone else’s horrifying visions. Every horror scene is immersive, which ups the ante on scares.

Nicholas Hoult initially comes across as out of place as Thomas following his recent performance in 2023’s Renfield, a comedic Dracula film starring Nicolas Cage. On a first watch (yes, there should be more), he is fairly standard, and could have been any number of young British actors. It’s his arrival in Transylvania that really sells why he was cast. His fear is palpable in his meetings with Orlok; his body shudders and voice stutters as he tries to accomplish his job. Lily-Rose Depp fits perfectly into the film, and is stunning in many of her scenes. While Hoult may shake the Renfield association, Depp is flawless from her first appearance. As her character endures societal perceptions of herself and women, she perseveres, and her arc offers a wide range of powerful emotions. Skarsgård is unrecognizable as Orlok, and may as well be a (perhaps controversially) mustachioed, super-powered corpse walking among the living. Ralph Ineson and Simon McBurney are excellent in their roles, but it’s Willem Dafoe who may be the weakest of the cast. His performance is solid, but Dafoe’s casting is like having Nicolas Cage or The Rock in a role; he stands out a bit too much as his own presence.

The color is an important point in Nosferatu. Eggers has worked with black and white before on The Lighthouse, and his experience clearly helped to transform this film. The opening sequence appears as if it is in black and white, as do many important scenes in the film. There’s stark contrast between the deep blacks and white lights that makes for aesthetically pleasing images that hearken back to the silent film era. Much of the color is desaturated; greys and brown (in addition to the black and white) contribute to the bleak visual tone of the film, and help to emphasize the red blood. There’s also striking contrast between the moonlit dark and golden tones of daytime, the fleeting moments of reprieve from the vampire’s curse.

What stands out from this, and all of Eggers’ films, is his ability to create a sense of (Anglicized) naturalism that allows the supernatural to truly exist. The detail that went into creating The Witch’s world – the clothes, the materials, the language – create a film world where evil is real on a level that conventional horror cannot achieve. Orlok’s voice and mustache aid the idea that he is a ruler like Vlad the Impaler, a human at one point in time. This “realistic” take on the vampire enhances the disgust and grotesqueness of his devilish seduction of Ellen. The natural lighting of the film is an extraordinary achievement of Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, and maintains a balance between real and expressive. Seeing dark rituals using blood and gore, reminiscent of the ones in The Witch, are sickening. Nosferatu is horror on a level few have reached in their careers.

Nosferatu is the kind of Christmas release that makes an excellent end to a wonderful year of film; an auteur work that is sure to meet and exceed the expectations of cinephiles who have been anticipating Eggers’ version of Nosferatu since he announced his intent in 2015. It has been a long journey, but the wait was worth it. From the silent era to 2024, Nosferatu will continue to be a cinematic icon, a unique telling of a familiar story on the silver screen. Long live cinema, the seventh art.

[Robert Eggers, I apologize we published our magazine before this came out.]

Score: 23/24

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