Many recent vampire films have followed the trend of adapting other vampire films rather monotonously, but Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” (2024) has evaded this trap, celebrating its predecessors while standing its ground as one of the director’s greatest artistic accomplishments.
Eggers first rose to prominence for his debut feature “The Witch” (2016) which he followed three years later with his critically acclaimed film “The Lighthouse” (2019). Eggers’ films are founded on relentless research that steeps its characters firmly within their respective eras and his most recent project, “Nosferatu,” is no exception. An adaptation of the 1922 silent film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” — itself an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s1897 book “Dracula” (1992) — Eggers’ take on the classic horror film is a bold one, yet the director is successful in rounding out its source material without bastardizing it.
The film follows protagonist Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), a melancholic young woman whose cries for companionship during girlhood eventually bring forth a dark entity that haunts her dreams. While Ellen is pulled toward this entity by a repulsive yet inexplicable seduction, on the other side is her loving but rather incredulous husband, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult). Hoping to please his employer and secure a handsome promotion at his real estate firm, Thomas journeys eastward into Transylvania to sell a plot of land to a mysterious client by the name of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Thomas’ decision ultimately releases the dark entity from Ellen’s past — the entity’s obsession with her growing in intensity as it approaches her city to wreak havoc and smite its population with plague.
The film itself is elevated by the performances from its ensemble cast. Depp, in particular, delivers a commendable performance as Ellen Hutter. Filled with violent contortions, the physicality of her scenes is unforgiving. Eggers’ rendition also adds the character of Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), an occult doctor whose idolatrous beliefs and superstitious diagnosis of the crisis puts him at odds with the self-identified modern elites, such as that of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Friedrich Harding and his devout wife Anna Harding (Emma Corrin).
It’s hard not to point out that “Nosferatu” is a stylish film. Filmed mostly in Prague, the rolling hills and dark pines cast the 19th-century landscape in a kind of gothic romanticism. There is a uniform gloom that drapes the small German town in a palette of grey, brown and blue, and its cobblestone streets are dotted with nodding black parasols. Dark and hallucinatory, the horror film veers towards fantasy and the absurd, with the camera flying and drifting unpredictably through doorways and crevices and the characters pulled by unseen and unknown forces into carriages or towards balconies.
Markings of a classic Eggers film are certainly present in “Nosferatu.” For example, the sequence in which a troop of villagers, led by a seated virgin on horseback, marches through the woods during a vampire hunt drips with the flavor of folklore that the director is known for. However, “Nosferatu” also shocks with the bold departures that Eggers makes from his own established canon. The film is far more energetic than the slow and churning pace of his previous work. While “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” rely on a creeping nausea, “Nosferatu” is filled with scenes that are dynamic and actively frightening, unafraid to round off sequences of suspense with jumpscares.
Eggers’ film is not just an adaptation, but a celebration of the horror genre. References to the supernatural horror classic “The Exorcist” are generously sprinkled throughout the film, such as Ellen’s blousy white nightdress; her backbend and convulsive contortions; and the abundance of steep steps that occupy the alleyways of the bustling German town, recalling those that Father Karras throws himself down in the 1973 classic. But perhaps this celebration is most obvious in a scene towards the end in which Nosferatu approaches Ellen’s bedroom. His distorted silhouette cast upon the wall illuminated by moonlight, Nosferatu approaches the film’s damsel with his hands outstretched — it’s an intentional cliche, a reference to all the great monster films of the past.
Ultimately, Eggers’ adaptation does far more thematically than its source material. “Nosferatu” is a film bound by gore, seduction, heartbreak and shame. It explores ideas of female desire, carnal sexuality and romantic love and reflects a sense of disorientation with the times — its characters unable to distinguish the modern from the archaic, or the sanctified from the profane. While its titular character physically occupies the role of the monster, the film’s introspection and obscenity reveal its monsters to be everywhere.