REVIEW: Nosferatu [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 133 minutes
Release Date: December 25th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Focus Features
Director(s): Robert Eggers
Writer(s): Robert Eggers / Henrik Galeen (screenplay Nosferatu) / Bram Stoker (novel Dracula)

Does evil come from within us or from beyond?

The project itself is an intriguing one at a time where so many studios and directors try to distance themselves from the “remake” label by explaining how they “went back to the source.” You can’t really do that with F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, though, since its source is a wholly different entity that has itself been constantly remade. There’s intent then in the decision by Robert Eggers to choose that film rather than Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He wanted to put a spin on Henrik Galeen’s original spin instead—a tale with its own legacy and place in cinematic history beyond that of its literary counterpart.

The result is actually a pretty faithful adaptation with all beats remaining intact. Eggers instead adds to the silent classic by fleshing out certain moments left to interpretation while also presenting a new layer of metaphor beyond just the plague through Ellen Hutter’s (Lily-Rose Depp) more purposeful presence within Count Orlok’s (Bill Skarsgård) immigration. Because rather than the simple desire to feed in a fresh locale before catching a glimpse of Ellen’s visage in a photograph her husband (Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas) carried when traveling to Transylvania to retrieve the Lord’s signature on his German real estate papers, his destination is now fated. More than that, it’s Ellen who woke him up.

Her destiny was thus always set to meet the “angel” she called upon in her loneliness years prior. It’s only when she gets married and achieves the happiness she longed for that Orlok’s shadow returns to her nightmares. He still enlists Knock (Simon McBurney) to do his bidding, but the selection of Hutter as his agent was deliberately because of his connection to the woman whose blood he craves. Thomas’ arduous trek through Europe is therefore meant as a ruse. His fear in Orlock’s castle deeper and darker as a planned victim rather than an innocent bystander. There’s no mistaking those marks on his chest for mosquitoes this go-round. Nor is there a question that his host is Death itself.

That leveling up of intention, violence, and horror runs throughout Eggers’ adaptation. More than just expanding upon the mythology (which also allows for Thomas’ friends Friedrich, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Anna Harding, played by Emma Corrin, to have a larger role to play), he’s increasing the brutality with a greater sense of visceral potency than mere dread. It starts with an unforgettable scene of sacrifice and exhumation by the villagers outside Orlok’s castle (which might or might not have been a fever dream) and continues straight through to an inevitably gory climax at the first cock crow. Above the blood spilled, however, is also an escalation of intensity. Even those deaths that arrive in gorgeous silhouette possess a heavy physical toll.

Hoult is very good as the romantic desperate to save his beloved after spying upon the evil from her dreams with his own eyes. Ralph Ineson (Dr. Sievers) and Willem Dafoe (Professor Eberhart von Franz) make a fine pair for exposition release in their roles as doctors, scientists, and detectives searching for answers to Ellen’s seizures both in the real world and the realm of the supernatural. And Depp impresses as the woman at the center—catalyst, destination, and salvation wrapped in one. Because her part to play is much bigger than in Galeen’s script, she often becomes the embodiment of everything Orlok represents. Eggers takes us closer to possession territory than mere enchantment, utilizing dreams and delusions to blur the line between truth and fantasy.

That confusion is what makes so many sequences as powerful as they are. It allows Jarin Blaschke to really play with composition and light whenever Orlok’s shadow arrives to do his body’s bidding. And it keeps us on our toes as far as wondering just how dire and cruel things have become. Is Ellen truly turning on the man she loves or is Orlok torturing her by showing the pain Thomas would feel if she did? Has Orlok flown into the Hardings’ window to feed or have his rats done the deed to further the Black Plague cover-up? It’s as much a Freddy Krueger-esque transference of terror from the mind to reality as it is purely a vampire film. There’s truly no escaping “Nosferatu’s” hold, day or night.

Knock epitomizes this as Orlok’s lapdog servant and McBurney gives his all to steal the whole show for me. He takes Alexander Granach’s original performance to the nth degree as psychopathy takes hold to lead him towards a more satisfying (though no less tragic) end. It’s the way he acts that makes the veracity of Ellen and Thomas’ nightmares plausible. If he can go that far off the deep-end, why couldn’t they? The difference, of course, is that Orlok has embedded himself in Knock to far that he doesn’t need to keep going back into his mind. What Orlok does with Ellen and Thomas is more about playing with them. Torturing them with the prospect that they cannot escape and ensuring they’re lucid enough to watch him prove it.

And then there’s Orlok himself—a magnificent transformation by Skarsgård that one-ups his Pennywise in sheer malice. The deep Slavic accent. The heavy wheeze. The giant mustache setting him apart from Max Schreck’s immortal look. There’s an oppressive authority in the way and words he speaks. His presence in a room is massive and the deft movements that transport him through his dining room as the camera lingers on Thomas are terrifying. There’s a reason he consumes as many victims as he does in both films and why there is but one way to stop him. The best specters of evil retain an invincibility that can only be erased by their own hubris because we must believe our helplessness. This isn’t a fight to be won. It’s a massacre you hope to survive.