REVIEW: Nosferatu (2024)

Movie Reviews

Sometimes, happenstance works out for the best. Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu will be the last movie I see in theaters in 2024, and it’s a spectacular way to close out the year in film, if not particularly fitting. I say that because I think pretty much everyone will agree that these are not the best of times for cinema, and more often than not, moviegoers walk out of the theater disappointed. But every so often, a movie can still knock your socks off, and Nosferatu is certainly a diamond in the rough, one I’d encourage everyone to make an effort to see at the movies. Well, almost everyone; this is not a film for the squeamish, and it has not only the bloody violence one would expect from a vampire movie but adult themes and elements like sexuality, the nature of evil, religion vs. the occult, and other disturbing facets that will not be for all. But if you don’t mind this and are hungry for a smart, human, terrifying adult movie, Nosferatu is a must-see.

In 1838, German real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) travels to a castle in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania to finalize the sale of a decrepit old castle to the mysterious Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård). When he arrives, the locals warn him of the evil he will soon face, and his experiences at Orlock’s castle chill him to the bone and may cost him his soul. Meanwhile, Thomas’ wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), has vivid dreams of an otherworldly figure beckoning her, a call she can’t resist.

Does this sound familiar? I’m sure it does, and to fully appreciate what this movie does with its story and characters, you need to understand a piece of film history. Nosferatu is a remake of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, a 1922 silent film from the German Expressionist movement. The original Nosferatu was an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and it makes no bones about it. To cover for using a story they didn’t have the rights to, the filmmakers and studio came up with a new title, moved the setting from London to the small town of Wisborg, Germany, and changed the characters’ names – Count Dracula became Count Orlock, Mina Murray became Ellen Hutter, and so on. Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence Stoker, eventually sued the studio that made Nosferatu with help from the British Society of Authors, and when she won, all copies of the film were ordered destroyed. For many years, the original Nosferatu did not officially exist; it was even remade by Werner Herzog in 1979, though this version dropped the pretense and used the names of the characters from Dracula, which was in the public domain at that time. However, some copies of Nosferatu were preserved, and it was eventually restored in several versions. Amusingly, as of 2019, both Dracula and Nosferatu are in the public domain, so anyone can make their own version of either one now. (If you want more details about this, check out this piece.)

Sorry for going on about that for so long, but knowing this history makes some of Robert Eggers’ filmmaking decisions fascinating. The new Nosferatu is mostly a remake of its namesake, but it takes elements from Dracula the novel as well, and it melds them into something that honors both its source material and the book from which it shamelessly pilfered. The names and setting are retained from the film, so Nosferatu takes place in Wisborg, Germany (and Transylvania, of course), and the vampire is called Count Orlock, with the other names from the movie being retained as well. However, certain things differ from the old Nosferatu and are reminiscent of Dracula, like the villain’s facial hair, the religious themes and symbolism, and the expanded role of the Van Helsing stand-in, who was barely a factor in the old one. It also has the richer characterizations of Dracula, with an arc for Thomas Hutter that is much closer to Jonathan Harker’s than his silent movie counterpart. The story, though it follows many of the beats of its forebears, becomes something new as a result, and watching Nosferatu is different from sitting through the usual boring remakes and checking your watch to see how long it’ll be before you get to scene X, Y, or Z. This is a new version of a story that has become a seminal part of Western culture, a sort of reinvention for a different age (but not in the annoying way that usually means nowadays). It works beautifully, and whether you’ve seen the silent Nosferatu or are coming into this fresh – save whatever knowledge of Dracula you have – you’re in for a new experience.

It also allows Eggers to say a lot with the characters in Nosferatu. Count Orlock – and I won’t be too descriptive about him since Eggers and Focus Features/Universal Pictures went to great lengths to keep his appearance a mystery – is a melding of Count Orlock and the literary Count Dracula, much like the film surrounding him. He has the creepy, monstrous elements of the original Orlock while retaining the sensuality and dark romanticism of Stoker’s Dracula (his effect on the women he enthralls is… not subtle), with each side of him both his true self and a mask for the other. The result is a captivating monster that is never ambiguous in his evil but surprisingly, and perhaps uncomfortably, human. Bill Skarsgård is wonderful in the part, completely unrecognizable in looks and voice, completely disappearing into the character. I was most impressed by his booming voice, the harsh Eastern European accent giving him the feel of a foreign lord who is used to being obeyed. Nicholas Hoult gives probably the best performance I’ve seen from him yet (and I’ve liked him in pretty much everything I’ve seen him in) as Thomas Hutter, a fairly normal guy who’s thrown into a nightmare he never imagined could be real and is forced to become the man he believed a civilized world wouldn’t need him to be. Lily-Rose Depp similarly runs the gamut as Ellen Hutter, scared, confused, loving, lustful, and, like her husband, forced to rise to the occasion when faced with unspeakable evil. The same goes for Aaron-Taylor Johnson (lot of hyphenates in this cast) as Thomas’ friend Friedrich Harding, a rational man who pushes back on the supernatural even when it’s knocking at his door. Everyone is great, but the other standout is, of course, Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz. Von Franz is the Van Helsing character, and I’m exceedingly glad this version of Nosferatu gives him his due; Dafoe is fantastic, as always, and he creates a character that is closer to Stoker’s vision than any of the other film versions of Abraham Van Helsing, with his friendly, avuncular personality (until vampire stuff happens, of course).

As terrific as they are, though, the cast, story, and characterizations aren’t the main draw of Nosferatu. This is pure cinema in the strictest, film-snobbiest sense, with outstanding cinematography that creates striking, beautiful imagery. In this way, Eggers pays great homage to Nosferatu’s silent film origins; the original was a masterclass in the use of shadow and light, and Eggers and his team recreate that imagery without simply copying it. Count Orlock’s shadow feels like a character in itself, but Eggers uses it differently, including that brilliant shot of Ellen talking to the shadow cast on a billowing curtain from the trailer. Orlock is alive in the world around us, his shadows creeping through castles, across landscapes, and into the houses of his victims, and while the other characters have wonderful shadow work as well, theirs are more subdued, a result of their human limitations. Conversely, when Orlock is framed in the light, he’s always out of focus, obscured by the world of the living, even if it’s just a fireplace or candle, with his features only truly visible in the dark. Meanwhile, the camera captures amazing images, like Thomas standing on a snowswept forest road as he makes his way to Orlock’s castle, the snow around him peppered with dirt and grime to suggest the corrupting influence of his demonic client. Early shots of Thomas in Wisborg look almost like Dickensian London (another nod to Dracula), all the better to contrast with the coming darkness, as well as Thomas’ stay in Transylvania even before he gets to Orlock, with its smoke-filled rooms and dancing Gypsies.

The imagery is essential to what makes Nosferatu so terrifying: the atmosphere. I’ve always thought that atmosphere is the key to effective horror, and Eggers gets that. The imagery is off-putting, even when nothing outwardly sinister is happening; there’s always the feeling that evil is just around the corner, waiting to leap from the shadows. When it arrives, Eggers uses long takes that show characters transforming when they’re in Orlock’s thrall, with hypnotized or possessed victims losing their humanity as evil consumes them. (Much of this is due to the wonderful performances as well, which are physical at least as much as they are verbal.) And it’s not just the imagery; the sound design is incredible, with scrapes, pounding, and the rusty metallic turning of locks sending shivers up your spine while the crawling rats make you twist your legs in vicarious disgust. I was particularly impressed with the sounds of the wolves, which didn’t growl the way they usually do in movies but sounded like real, ravenous animals ready to rend flesh from bone. It’s stunning work, and it comes together to make what will almost certainly be a new horror classic creepy from beginning to end.

And that’s not hyperbole; it’s hard to imagine Nosferatu fading from the cinematic horror landscape. This is an outstanding achievement in filmmaking, storytelling, and sheer terror, something to be studied alongside the classics that influenced it. I hope it leads to more imaginative, thoughtful, human horror movies that refuse to let the general critical dismissal of the genre make them phone it in. Ironically, the result will probably be a bunch of inferior copycats. But as with the original Nosferatu (though it took a while in that case), we’ll always have this one.

Let us know what you thought of Nosferatu in the comments!

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