Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a masterclass in building movie atmosphere from one of contemporary American cinema’s most distinctive young auteurs. With just four films, Eggers has carved out a signature as an exacting writer-director with a personal stamp, blending meticulous attention to folklore and myth with resolutely offbeat storytelling. As his budgets and studio collaborations have grown, his voice has stood firm—crafting films that feel unique, always cinematic yet defiantly uncommercial. On paper, his movies sound as though they might be crowd pleasers, but in execution, they are artily singular.
While The Witch cast a supernatural puritan spell to launch both Robert Eggers’ career and that of its young star Anya Taylor-Joy, his follow-up, the claustrophobic The Lighthouse, was a stylized, two-man power struggle between Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson. Then came his best film, mystical The Northman, where Alexander Skarsgård’s blood-and-mud-drenched 10th century Viking sparred with savage foes and a fiercely Oedipal mom, played by Nicole Kidman. Each of these pictures was immersive and historically rich—but also idiosyncratic, more arty than entertainment.
Nosferatu is no exception, steeped in detail-rich artistry but calibrated more for frills than thrills. Eggers take on the classic vampire tale—first brought to life 102 years ago in F.W. Murnau’s silent, German expressionist landmark and resurrected in Werner Herzog’s haunting 1979 version—is an ambitious adaptation that fuses elements from both its predecessors. While it lacks the fear of Murnau’s original and doesn’t quite capture the melancholy of the villain—or the unforgettable Klaus Kinski factor—of Herzog’s remake, Eggers’ elaborate Nosferatu is an impressive homage to its 1922 inspiration, loaded with plenty of gothic reverence and dark beauty. The extent to which audiences take to this new version will depend upon their willingness to be more seduced by its world than by its villain.
Eggars opens in 1938 Germany, in the foggy, fictional seaside village of Wisborg, where ambitious real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicolas Hoult) is eager to prove himself. His newlywed bliss with Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) shrouds her dark secret: chilling visions of an otherworldly figure foretelling their future union in a mesmerizing early sequence. When Thomas travels to Romania’s remote Carpathian Mountains to meet a mysterious new client, Count Orlok (Skarsgård), Ellen senses the sinister—and sexual—force awakening.
And awaken it does. When Thomas arrives in Transylvania, he meets the mysterious Count Orlok, who claims to be interested in purchasing property in Wisborg. But this is merely a ruse to lure the eager agent to his eerie abode—filmed, coincidentally (Eggers was unaware), at the same Czech location Herzog used: Pernštejn Castle. While Thomas is distracted, the vampire sets his sights on Ellen, slipping into her nightmares.
Meanwhile, Orlok embarks on a chilling seafaring voyage (complete with a plague-carrying infestation of rats) to make their long-awaited communion—sexual, spiritual, bodily—a reality, with plans to spread his vampiric reign across Europe (or something like that). As this reunion draws near the terrific Depp, in a hypnotic performance, convulses and writhes in emotional torture and physical heat, to the confusion of the couple’s best friends (Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson) both unwittingly in danger.
But what about its villain? Is he frightening? The film shrewdly withholds its creepy count, building tension before the full reveal. Departing from the pale, bald, fanged menace of Max Schreck and Klaus Kinski, this Orlok is all grimy decay—grizzled and bedraggled, with a hushed, raspy voice, willowy yet imposing stature and an almost spectral quality. While The Northman capitalized on Alexander Skarsgård’s physical prowess and leading-man charisma, brother Bill—known for his turns in It (scarier than here) and this year’s unnecessary The Crow—is wholly unrecognizable here. This deliberate obfuscation intensifies Orlok’s threat, and Skarsgård renders him the embodiment of dread.
What else to do but contact a fearless vampire killer? In a role reminiscent of Van Helsing from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Willem Dafoe steps in as Allbin Eberhart Von Franz, a former academic turned supernatural expert (because why not?) on a mission to destroy Orlok. Dafoe’s arrival injects the film—at times prone to a plodding pace—with a needed jolt of energy amidst the film’s heavy aesthetic focus, which can feel insular and heavy for such a straightforward story. While the superbly crafted sets, swirling fog and chiaroscuro-esque lighting are certainly effective, Dafoe demonstrates that such an approach needs character engagement to keep its, um, blood pumping.
The deliberate pacing of Nosferatu might feel sluggish at times, especially for viewers accustomed to the cheap shocks of modern horror films. But Eggers isn’t here to dole out easy scares—he’s playing the long game. The supporting cast adds emotional texture and increases tension: Taylor-Johnson delivers capably, and, as ever, Emma Corrin brings an intensity suggesting she’d have made a terrific Ellen. Special mention goes to the climactic reunion between Orlok and Ellen, evil and its innocence to be deflowered, gorgeously rendered by Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and acted by Skarsgård with such beauty and terror that is horrifyingly moving.
Nosferatu is gothic horror as high art craft. Sure, it’s chilly, and slow at times (like most of Eggers canon), but those willing to embrace its haunting mood will find considerable soul within its shadows.
3 stars
