Nosferatu – Review

“NOSFERATU”

Nosferatu is the latest horror film to come from director Robert Eggers and is a remake of the classic silent film of the same name from Germany. Nosferatu has been one of the most influential silent films ever made, just for its sheer use of imagery and the effects used to make the ghoulish figure of Count Orlok- and of course, it was a film that people nearly never saw, due to the plagiarism lawsuit that was successfully won by Bram Stoker’s widow, a fact that’s acknowledged in the film’s credits, there are facts to the original filmmakers as well as Bram Stoker.

With that being said, I’m not sure if I want to give that much of a plot synopsis, since if you’ve read Dracula, it’s very similar to the plot of that book. If anything, you could change the character’s name to Count Dracula and this would become one of the more accurate adaptations of the book. In fact, I’d say that this version borrows more from Dracula than his movie does!

In this case, it centres around newlyweds Thomas Hutter and Ellen Hutter, played by Nicholas Hoult and Lily-Rose Depp, settling into their new life, when Thomas is called to sell a piece of real estate in Romania to the reclusive Count Orlok, played by Bill Skarsgard.

Of course, once he arrives, it becomes clear that Orlok is a vampire and his intentions of travelling back to Germany are evil. I won’t spoil too much more, but where Robert Eggers goes with the ideas for this movie is really genuinely interesting. He is a credited writer as well as a director for this film, and he has captured a lot of the ideas of vampire fiction and the original movie in very interesting ways.

For the record, I did watch the original Nosferatu in preparation for this movie- it’s in the public domain, so it’s very easy to find a copy of it. It surprised me that it held up in many regards, particularly in the use of imagery, something that Robert has really brought forward. He uses shadows to great effect, there is the shot that was in the trailer of the claw going over the town but I found it interesting that he was using it a lot more than expected, to such an extent I think he might have overdone it a bit.

My thought process was that, how do you make a vampire scary in 2025? When we have seen a lot more horrific imagery over the years. The great performances really help to sell the terror, particularly Nicholas Hoult who helped to sell how terrifying Orlok is.

The design they went with Orlok was really interesting, and the trailers were smart to not show too much of it. It pays homage to the original movie but doesn’t fully copy it.

You also have other excellent performances, like from Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgard- I actually didn’t believe it was him until I checked the credits. Willam Dafoe, who plays the Hellsing-esque character, and I want to give special accommodations to Aaron-Taloy Johnson, who gave what I would say is the best performance of his career, and I don’t say that lightly! I would like to see a lot of the actors in this be in the running for Oscars when the time comes.

Eggers uses the whole association with the vampires mixing with sex and sexuality and twists it completely to give a dark side to this interpretation, and he does it in an expert way that makes parts of the film incredibly uncomfortable but really effective.

There’s also the fact that this film does show the plague hitting the town from the original movie, which was poignant at the time because the film was made shortly after the Spanish Flu, and this film has been made shortly after the COVID pandemic, in fact this may be the first horror film sold to a wide audience that deals with the fear of sickness since the COVID pandemic began, and I think it’s very interesting to see what influence that time frame put on this film.

I truly thought that Eggers did a very good job with the team he worked with to make the special effects. Whoever came up with some of the effects for some of the sequences later on in the film, they did a great job because they made it so disturbing that I thought they would need to see a counsellor ASAP.

I’m going to be bold on this one, Nosferatu is my favourite vampire movie in years. I think Robert Eggers has hit another one out of the park. That being said, I can’t say I’ll completely recommend it because this is a very triggering movie for a lot of themes, but if that isn’t an issue for you, this is absolutely a must-see. Eggers has hit it 3 for 3 with his horror films now, he’s done an excellent job modernising a film from the 20th century and brought it to the 2020s, and it’s aided by some excellent performances in the movie, particularly from the central cast.