Nosferatu Review

 Nosferatu (2024) is a remake of the 1922 F.W. Murau’s film of the same name. This time at the helm is Robert Eggers. He’s the director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman, and now… The Nosferatu. He typically does folk horror, but with The Northman he branched out to an epic viking saga whilst maintaining this atmosphere of religious superstitions that Nordic people would’ve held. Now he tackles the Germanic interpretation of Dram Stoker’s Dracula in Nosferatu. When asked what the difference between Nosferatu and Dracula is, the answer usually lies in atmosphere. Dracula is usually a more horror approach while Nosferatu is more of a gothic, dreadful take on the same story. 

1922’s Nosferatu is by all means a cult classic that practically gave us what horror is today. Max Schreck’s performance and design as Count Orlok is still such a striking presence when watching. The long fingers, how pale he is, the sharp teeth, the wide eyes, the pointed ears, how rigid he is when he moves. It’s uncanny to look at him. It’s iconic.

In 2022, the Erie Horror Fest had a screening of Nosferatu (1922) with a live organ accompaniment soundtrack for its 100th anniversary. A friend of mine and I attended, and it was quite magical being in the Warner Theater that itself has this aura of a history nearly long gone with a horror film that was 100 years old that it felt like being in the 1920’s to see this film for the first time.

It’s a film that has this prestige and mystique to it, and when it was reported that Robert Eggers wanted to have his own spin on the story, I was… actually looking forward to it. You can go the ol’ boomer route of ranting to the skies about how “THERE’S ONLY REMAKES AND SEQUELS AND SUCH,” until your throat starts bleeding, but some stories get told over and over again. A Star is Born, Sherlock Holmes, Batman, A Christmas Carol, etc. Dracula is definitely one of those stories. 

With Dracula, you can picture Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, the Hammer horror films that Christopher Lee brought to (un)life, Gary Oldman’s more romantic approach in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, or more recently with Claes Bang’s iteration of the character in Netflix’s Dracula. Or the bat shit insane version with Nicholas Cage in Renfield. Any way, there’s always room to have a fresh spin the vampire, including Nosferatu himself when F.W. Murnau couldn’t secure the rights from Bram Stoker’s widow about 30 years after the publication of the novel. So Murnau said, “Fuck that.” and did it anyway with changing some names around. 

Apparently you can’t do that and all copies of Nosferatu were ordered to be destroyed. Luckily, some copies survived and we still have it to this day. Robert Eggers was one of those people who saw it as a young kid, and wanted to make his spin of it when he became a director. Interestingly he was a theater director before going into film and had put on an off-Broadway version of Nosferatu. He’s been thinking about the story for a long, long time. 

So how was it?

Well, I saw it twice. Eggers’ has this unique fairytale-like quality to his films and adapts them to their specific setting and time period. The Witch in 1630’s New England, The Lighthouse in 1890’s New England, The Northman in 900’s Iceland, and now 1830’s Germany in Nosferatu. Eggers has this point for time period accuracy in each of his films. This comes down to language, clothing style (and material in many cases), and architecture, but also in philosophy. So watching one of his films feels like being set in time and experiencing the supernatural how his characters would. 

So for Nosferatu, you get the old Romanian castles, the usage of the Dacian language that Romanians would’ve spoken 1,500 years ago, and a 1830’s Germany. I’ll say the production design of this film is phenomenal. There’s not really a thing that can be pointed as inaccurate. Aaron Taylor Johnson’s character even wears a male corset that a Germanic upper class gentleman would wear. Like us as the audience would never notice such a detail unless you looked for it. 

Though a detail that’s pretty funny is that Bill Skarsgard’s Count Orlok has a heavy Romanian accent, but the Germanic characters speak in a posh British accent. It’s a trick that I learned from HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries. Where instead of speaking in a Russian accent, they had their actors speak in a British accent as well so American audiences can understand that it takes place in a foreign land, but aren’t distracted by a Ruskie-esque accent. Which I think is what Eggers elected to do here to avoid a Kraut-esque accent that the actors may fall into. Which I forgive because it works. 

Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is also something else. He uses mainly natural lighting and captures this whimsy yet supernatural evil that pervades the atmosphere of the film. The man is truly doing wonders here and doesn’t get enough credit in Eggers’ comparison. Speaking of, Eggers is top form this time around as always. You can tell he’s hungry to nail this story and his direction does not falter and really above what he’s previously done. The score by Robin Carolan is eerie and enhances the gothic cinematography. Everything in terms of production was just about perfect and can easily see it being nominated in all the categories at the Oscars. 

The acting is also terrific as there really isn’t a weak performance in this movie. Especially in the performances of Lily Rose Depp, Nicholas Holt, and Bill Skarsgard. Incredibly strong performances. You could not even tell it was Bill underneath all make up design of Count Orlok. He quite actually disappeared in that role, there was only an old, undead Romanian nobleman. One of my particularly favorite performances was Simon McBurney as Herr Knock. He is just such a little freak and is fantastic to see lose his shit. Probably the best performance of that character since Dwilight Fry’s Renfield in 1931’s Dracula. 

Nosferatu this time around approaches through Ellen Hutter (Lily Rose Depp)’s point of view and makes for a tighter story. There’s also a focus on the eroticism and points to grooming allegory in the dynamics between Ellen and Count Orlok. Though if I were to make a complaint about the film, it would be the writing. Only because I’ve seen the Dracula story told so many times that I know what I’m getting into. But the second time I watched the movie I had a much more fun time with it. My two favorite scenes in Dracula/Nosferatu is with Thomas Hutter staying in Orlok’s castle and the ship delivering Orlok’s coffins to Germany. In this version those two scenes were rather short and was kind of bummed out, but I realized my problem: That I just want a 5 hour cut of any Dracula interpretation because I want that gothic horror atmosphere to last forever and am never really satisfied with what any two hour movie can do. 

Overall, Nosferatu takes a fresh approach and is a remake that earns its justification to exist and is a worthy successor to such a well known story. I’d definitely recommend it if you like gothic horror films. Just don’t watch it with your folks as these characters get FREAKY and have some freaky 1830’s horror sex. Which, hey if that’s your thing, there you go. Nosferatu’s some great stuff.