Nosferatu (2024) Review

Nosferatu (2024) Review

 

By the final week of 2024 I had felt like I didn’t see a truly exceptional, mind-blowing, 10/10 movie all year, and wrote a dejected year-end piece about how I had no favourite new movie from the past twelve months. Then, right after Christmas, I saw one of my most-anticipated movies of the year, the last of its kind, and the last new movie I would see from 2024. In the final hour, I saw my favourite movie of the year. Nosferatu lived up to the hype and delivered what I found to be a genuinely entrancing, frightening, and entertaining horror tragedy that far outshined anything else I had seen. Now that it’s been the better part of an entire year since I first saw it and the hype surrounding its release has died down, I figured it would be the perfect way for me to start off my second Shocktober Showcase, since the first Shocktober Showcase ended with my Nosferatu triple feature review, and this year is all about remakes, so I better start with one of the best!

In the first two minutes there is an expertly executed jump scare, and before the title even came up, I was frightened. I don’t hate jump scares by design, but they can be a cheap method in a lesser horror movie. There are not many in writer/director Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake, but this early one is satisfyingly shocking. Also established right away is the remarkable cinematography. The opening scene makes it look almost black and white like the original (this recurs for all subsequent shots at night), then post-opening title it’s colourful in the daytime, but still purposefully washed out and drab to add to the unsettling atmosphere. The whole film is just dripping with dread; there’s some extremely disturbing imagery doled out at an appropriate pace, and more than one shot stands out as so incredible I would hang it on my wall like a piece of gothic art. Though it’s visually haunting, the cinematography also makes it feel like an oddly cozy film, because of the authentically cold, desolate looking landscapes and interior sets.

Can we call this remake one of the new best Christmas horror movies? I was surprised it was actually set at Christmas for a minute there; we even see an old-timey decorated tree. I’ll spare the plot summary, since I’ve already covered it before. Much like Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake, it’s a loving tribute to the source material, with its own distinct look and feel courtesy of a caring, skillful director, that expands on the original in nearly all respects, but unlike Jackson’s Kong, Eggers’ Nosferatu does not stretch it out to the three hour mark, though still exceeds the length of the original considerably. There are more characters, there’s more vampire lore, and more scenes with the monster, but one surprising change of note comes very early on, and isn’t really a spoiler, but the character of Ellen, played by Lily Rose Depp, is given a supernatural ability beyond our understanding, which connects to the vampire’s fixation with her. Some might not care for this change, but I found it meaningful because it gave a simple but logical reason for the monster to go after her with such intention and raised the stakes in terms of their relationship being more unpredictable. It lifts all the best elements of both the original and Werner Herzog’s 1979 version and blends them together into what I think is the perfect modern version of this classic vampire tale.

I think it’s worth noting that an extended version was made available upon home video and streaming release, though it is only slightly longer and doesn’t add anything extremely significant. I’ve only seen the theatrical version the one time as of writing this review and the extended version one time at home. The theatrical cut already felt a tad long, perhaps because of the deliberate pacing, but the extended cut does not feel any longer because of the additional material, and if you liked it in theatres, it’s worth the few extra minutes. In terms of other critiques, I have few, if any others, because it really did live up to my expectations, and surpassed them.  

There are some familiar faces in the cast from previous Robert Eggers films, but Willem Dafoe stands out in particular because of previous ties to Nosferatu film history, having played Count Orlok in Shadow of the Vampire. He’s excellent, with some of the best lines, but doesn’t come into the film until about halfway through, this time playing the de-facto role of Van Helsing. This is the first Nosferatu remake to use the same character names from the silent version, and any similarities to Dracula are automatically forgiven, due to the nature of Nosferatu originating as an unofficial Dracula adaptation. Lily Rose Depp commits fully to the role of Ellen and performs some quite extreme moments of emotion and supernatural contortion. Nicholas Hoult is also great as Thomas Hutter, and does an effective job of acting genuinely frightened in an appropriate way; his performance isn’t undercooked or overcooked.

And then there’s the vampire itself. First Bill Skarsgård freaked us out as Pennywise in IT, then he did it all over again as Count Orlok in a completely different way. His commitment to his line delivery might be too over the top for some and come off as more amusing than scary, but for me it worked. His look is also a bit different from previous versions but not so different that it feels like a different character. Orlok is scary on his own, but the characters in the film build up his legendary status as the ultimate evil throughout, and the mounting suspense of him arriving on the ship to Wisburg is palpable. For being one of the most repulsive vampires in terms of appearance, it is surprising how much the film leans into the sexual nature of vampirism, but it isn’t done in a forced or cheesy way, it’s played very serious and very twisted.

I don’t think it’s essential to have seen the silent version or the 1979 version to fully appreciate what Eggers achieved with his faithful adaptation that doesn’t feel like a slave to either version, but I certainly got a kick out of recognizing visual callbacks and seeing ideas remixed and retooled in new ways to make them more frightening for modern audiences. The final few shots of the movie were burned into my mind after I saw it the first time, and the whole thing reinforced that Eggers has one of the most distinct and confident visions of any director working in the horror genre today. One of the nicest (and most unnerving) aspects is how he will hold on one shot for longer than most modern directors dare to; even when two characters are having a conversation, he doesn’t rely on shot-reverse-shot. The longer shot length helps build the tension and draw the viewer in. I was hooked from beginning to end, and it lost very little of the impact upon rewatch.

Nosferatu is not a perfect film, but I think it’s Robert Eggers’ most broadly accessible one in the genre of horror, and as far as remakes of vintage examples are concerned, one of the greatest achievements up to this point. Unlike so many other films before it, Nosferatu did need an update, and for me, this one easily usurps the previous colour and sound version and stands out as one of the best vampire films of the decade.