Review: Nosferatu

There’s something wonderfully subversive about releasing Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu on Christmas Day. It isn’t only that this remake of the silent vampire classic is an often gross, always grim movie that doesn’t read as traditional holiday fare or good family viewing. It’s also that Eggers has made a wildly profane movie, and it is opening on one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar. “Succumb to the darkness,” the tagline beckons, tempting you away from attending Christmas mass or whatever good religious people do on December 25 each year.

As with The Witch, Eggers has crafted a movie that feels like he’s touching something he shouldn’t, something truly depraved. Nosferatu’s MPA-deemed “bloody violent content” means it’s not for the faint of heart, even from its opening moments. Old-timey titles and logos pay homage to both its 1922 predecessor and its 19th-century setting, which predates the medium of film itself. We are given an early glimpse of Bill Skarsgår as the vampire Count Orlok, marking a rare jump scare in a movie more concerned about building a constant sense of dread and nausea.

Before we’re properly introduced to Count Orlok, Eggers winks at the knowing audience with dialogue featuring phrases like “in the flesh” and “one foot in the grave.” The characters might think they’re only in 1838 Germany rather than a horror movie, but we know better. Newlyweds Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) and Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) are still in the honeymoon phase; their hungry kisses are driven by lust and affection. He wants a better life for his new wife in their town of Wisborg, so when his estate agent boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), tells him to close a deal for a local, decaying manse with a near-dead count (Skarsgård) in Transylvania, he agrees. Thomas may be reluctant to leave his new bride but eager to please. The journey to the Carpathians is arduous, but Thomas’s nightmare has only just begun. 

Meanwhile, Ellen grows sickly while staying at the home of her childhood friend (Emma Corrin) and her husband (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but it’s not just Thomas’s absence that causes her illness. Ellen feels a psychic connection to Orlok from a mysterious encounter years before, and she knows his arrival in Wisborg — and the ensuing violence — is inevitable. 

Shot by Eggers’ regular cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu is bleak and dark, its images matching its themes. Some scenes appear to be in black and white, as they are so stripped of brightness and warmth. The sun never seems to shine in this corner of the world, and candlelight creates shadows that harbor horrors. Blaschke’s shots echo specific ones in F.W. Murmau’s masterpiece, evoking its eeriness. However, Eggers also takes advantage of advances in movie technology and contemporary appetites for sex and gore to differentiate it. Lust runs far closer to the surface of this film than the 1922 version, and its combination with violence is especially disturbing. The silent film remains wildly creepy, but Eggers revels in the terrors that sound can add. The timbre of Orlok’s voice is unsettling, but it’s nothing compared to the shudder-inducing noise of him slurping up blood. 

Orlok’s look is equally horrifying, leaning into the idea that this thing has been alive for centuries and is probably not in the best condition, physically (which is particularly funny when you think about Skarsgård’s brother Alexander’s vampiric turn as chiseled seducer Eric Northman on True Blood). It’s a credit to both Skarsgård’s unnerving portrayal as well as the character design that he feels scary in different ways than his Pennywise did in It

Yet as scary as Orlok is, I was more unsettled by McBurney’s Knock, a human in thrall to Orlok who does unspeakable things to serve his master. It’s a wildly unpleasant turn from the character actor, and I mean that as the highest praise. Eggers fave Willem Dafoe shows up as a scholar of the occult, being the weirdo we always hope he will be, and fellow standby Ralph Ineson makes a welcome appearance as a doctor perplexed by all the weird shit happening in Wisborg.

For all the weird shit in Wisborg, the section with Thomas’s trip to Transylvania is even wilder. Hoult’s performance really sells it — not that it has to with Eggers’ attention to mood and detail. Hoult has proven talented for decades, but he’s having an especially strong year with Nosferatu, Juror #2, and The Order (I refuse to acknowledge that he was Jon in The Garfield Movie). Meanwhile, this is the first time I’ve taken notice of Depp, but she’s impossible to ignore in a role with a lot of physical demands that she gamely meets. 

This story has been told countless times on screen by some of cinema’s greatest directors, including Murnau, Tod Browning, Werner Herzog, and Francis Ford Coppola. While Eggers remains marvelously faithful to the original in his version’s dark visuals and spirit, he has still created his own monster. Nosferatu is the best kind of remake of an already great film: it further establishes the greatness of the original, while justifying its own existence. This is a wonderfully creepy, deliciously icky movie made by a master worthy of standing alongside his predecessors who have told this same story in their own way. 

“Nosferatu” is in theaters on Christmas Day.

Kimber Myers is a freelance film and TV critic for 'The Los Angeles Times' and other outlets. Her day job is at a tech company in their content studio, and she has also worked at several entertainment-focused startups, building media partnerships, developing content marketing strategies, and arguing for consistent use of the serial comma in push notification copy.

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