Nosferatu is Robert Eggers’ latest film – a somber, macabre story about the mysterious Count Orlok who has gained a rather nasty appetite for blood. Throughout the years of filmmaking, the tale of Nosferatu has been told many times over. The most notable is the original, F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, a Symphony of horror, in which he is presented in his most iconic form.
Bald head, long threatening fingers, long bat-shaped ears, and the face that will remain in one’s nightmares for the rest of their life. However, in Robert Egger’s Nosferatu 2025, certain artistic liberties have been taken to create a much more moody, artistic approach to the character. His German-inspired appearance such as bearing a long mustache and hulking back.
Join Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is joined by his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and several friends in Berlin as they hope to survive the unspeakable plague, brought over by the count himself. Is this new take of a century-old tale the new standard he shall be remembered as? The answer is certainly abnormal, to say the least.
Nosferatu (2024)
Production Company: Maiden Voyage Pictures, Studio 8, Birch Hill Road Entertainment
Distributor: Universal Pictures, Focus Features
Director: Robert Eggers
Release Date: December 25, 2024
Every actor and actress did a stellar performance making every second of footage masterfully used. Nicholas Hoult, while I am not familiar with many of his performances aside from Hulu’s original series The Great, truly embodied Thomas as the loving husband. His encounter with Nosferatu’s head truly made me feel the chills course through my body as their interactions take place rather early in the film.
Lily-Rose Depp takes Linda Blair’s performance from The Exorcist and kicks it up to eleven with her insane body performances and possessed voice impressions. Between all the performances, Willem Dafoe stole the show, more so than Bill Skarsgård, who plays the vampire.
Dafoe is born to play Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz, a man most learned of the ways of the occult, and mysticism. Seeing him perform demonstrations and ordering the rest of the cast on what they must do to save Ellen were the most exciting scenes in the movie. A lot will be left to be designed for more modern audiences going into this movie.
Clocking at 132 minutes long, Nosferatu does not feel its length, yet manages to feel uneventful. Long stretches of scenes riddled with exposition start to make one wish some action would take place to break up the dialogue.
When something finally happens, such as when Thomas wakes up realizing he was bitten, we get all the story we need by seeing his reaction alone when he examines the bitemark. I felt sometimes a lot of the talking and exchanges could have been explained through such actions and may have also shortened the film and improved its pace.
Orlok’s appearance and design are certainly a conversation worth having. His outfit suggests a much more German-inspired look. His mustache and more human-like facial features certainly take a lot away from the idea of a horrific creature of the night. The movie itself tries to lean more into what Nosferatu plans to do instead of just being a monster you don’t wanna see with the lights turned off, like a boogeyman or Pennywise.
His threat comes from a promise that essentially seduces you into his will, and inevitably punishes you and all those around you with his lust. More importantly, his plague is certainly something that should instill fear, but not something you should take your girlfriend to see if you want her to jump on your lap.
Aside from the fantastic performances, Nosferatu 2024’s greatness also leans heavily into the cinematography, camera work, and overall moodiness of the movie’s ambiance and selection of music. There truly is no other film that managed to put me into an age-old castle with nearly no visibility in the darkness aside from candlelight.
The sound design also manages to follow the same trend of excellence. I still haven’t forgotten the immensely grotesque sound of Count Orlok extracting copious amounts of blood from his victims. It’s a terrifying moment each time, which also hints at monstrous sexuality due to the position he places his victim into.
An issue past all these artisan-level features does reveal itself, however, and that would be none other than the movie’s ending. Without revealing what happens, It’s likely to leave the viewer wanting. Since the ending is very similar to most of the story’s iterations, it could be excused, however, in modern movie viewing, it certainly does not translate too well.
Nosferatu is a movie that I have trouble recommending to modern, younger audiences who loved It chapters One and Two. Not a lot of action is present, as the movie focuses more on nuance and artistic approaches to win the viewer over, and not pizzazz.
The antagonist doesn’t have an overly nightmarish menacing appearance, and a large chunk of the story is told mostly through dialogue. More tell, less show, and it gets a bit exhausting after a while. Once the story begins to show, it does not disappoint. Nosferatu certainly is an appetite for those with more refined tastes… And he does not look like a boat.
Nosferatu was reviewed with Niche Gamer providing admission. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Replicator was released in theaters on October 20, 2024.