“Nosferatu” (2024) Review

Director Robert Eggers always has an ease for the accuracy in how he stages his many historical horrors. His take on Nosferatu is no different, staging the classic Gothic horror in a manner that never feels stiff. There’s such faith in this material that Eggers does away with the slow staging and fully embraces that surreal nightmare that can explore something deeper than a contemporary gloss.

Eggers would have to make this vampire story his own given how many times it’s been retold and revised from the German expressionist Nosferatu of F. W. Murnau to the sexually-charged Bram Stoker’s Dracula from Francis Ford Coppola. He plunges deep into the romance of Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) and his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), plagued by the mysterious force of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). The vampiric monster appears to Ellen in the darkness of bedrooms while using Thomas for his business dealings and passage for pasture. Orlock is kept to the shadows, and his monstrous form is revealed progressively throughout the film with his long nails, sharp teeth, and grotesque visage.

As Thomas and Ellen try to work against the creature, tearing their marriage apart in more ways than one, they are aided by some knowledgeable figures. Doctor Wilhelm Siever (Ralph Ineson) assesses the plague striking when Orlock comes to town, while Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) divulges the supernatural element he forces others to take seriously. Their debates and diagnosis could become the film’s weak point, but they are just as compelling for the dangers they assert in their richly written dialogue. Dafoe is a master of playing masters but doesn’t hold back in his proclamation of demons and his attempts to save the cursed Ellen.

Playing into the nightmare angle, Eggers’s film has the editing and pacing of the most intoxicating surrealness. Scenes effortlessly transition into one another when something as routine as Thomas’s trip to Orlock’s castle becomes a trippy voyage into another realm. Haunting visions surprise at every turn as Ellen experiences a gauntlet of possessed emotions that dart from the frightening expulsions of blood to the erotic submission of her desires. The smooth blocking and camera work creates this eerie pull, where the audience is just as caught in the anxiety-inducing grip that Orlock holds over his prey.

Eggers’ ambition is unparalleled in how he crafts this folklore film. Here’s a film that has the confidence for Bill Skarsgård to deliver a scowling monologue about setting a deadline for Ellen’s body and then proceed to a sex scene of him chewing on naked flesh in a fit of passionate hunger. It all plays so well into establishing Orlock as a force of evil that is not as simplistic as feasting on humanity, nor is it as overly complex to shroud the villain completely in the shadows. The omnipresence can be felt in more than just the film’s iconic shot of Orlock’s shadowy land eclipsing a town. Although, it can’t be stressed enough just how damn good this film looks, from the bold lighting to the engrossing sets.

Nosferatu is every bit the horror masterpiece one would expect from Robert Eggers. He adheres to one of the most common recommendations for writing horror, ensuring that something scary occurs frequently in the script. There’s always some frightening, alluring, or bizarre presentation in this film that it never bores, zooming past stuffy retro retellings and down into the depths of the human soul. Eggers manages to probe to the darkest corners of humanity while still using the familiar vampire story as lattice for something far grander, unlike any previous vampire film with its decadent amounts of beauty, blood, and boldness.