Beautifully creepy and unsettling, ‘Nosferatu’ is the rare kind of remake that justifies its existence

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The heart wants what it wants.

Synopsis

In 1830’s Germany, Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) is a married woman who has been having supernatural sexual encounters with a malevolent being since her teenage years. Her real estate agent husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is tasked with traveling to Transylvania to finalize a sale with the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), who wants to move to their town.

As it so happens, Count Orlok is actually a vampire and that very same being who’s been stalking and having these relations with Ellen for all these years. He now wants her all to himself, bringing a plague of death and suffering upon the town. To help him defeat Orlok and save Ellen, Thomas requests the help of Professor von Franz (Willem Dafoe), who believes Orlok may be the legendary Nosferatu.

My thoughts

It’s no secret that Hollywood has increasingly been relying on remakes, reboots, requels, sequels, and other “re’s” and “se’s” as the years have gone by. Nobody is as risk-averse as a big wig showbiz executive, so it’s only logical for them to utilize any branding they have to make a quick buck. Some audience members seem to be catching onto this, though. Even if last year’s box office says otherwise, there’s a significant subset of people sick of Hollywood constantly regurgitating old ideas.

Of course, context always matters. A studio crapping out some soulless drivel in order to maintain some IP rights or make a tiny profit? Well, it’s fair game to be cynically critical about that. When that remake is a filmmaker’s passion project, though, then that’s a whole different story. Remakes don’t normally exist because of any sort of artistic integrity, but there are those rare examples where the only reason they were made is because an actual artist wanted to do so.

Remaking a classic

Robert Eggers is no doubt my favorite working director today, at least as far as “New Guard” filmmakers are considered. He’s only been making films for about a decade now, but each one is an absolute stunner. Not every director out there can claim something like The VVitch: A New-England Folktale as their directorial debut, but all it took was that one film to show that this was an exciting new talent to be reckoned with.

So, when he mentioned in an interview that his second feature film would be a remake of the classic 1926 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, cinephiles’ ears perked up. “This guy just made one movie and he’s already talking about remaking one of the most classic movies of all time? He’s full of himself!” Funny enough, Eggers was introspective enough to realize the same thing, even at the time calling himself “egomaniacal… but that’s how fate shook out.”

Thankfully, fate didn’t quite shake out the way he hoped. Eggers still got to eventually make his own version of Nosferatu, but not until after he and his crew continued to hone their crafts with other projects like The Lighthouse and The Northman. It’s a good thing that Eggers decided to dabble in a few more original projects before tackling a remake of possibly the most iconic silent film ever because when you’re doing something as bold as that, you better make sure you and everybody else are on the top of their game.

Nosferatu is the best kind of remake because like I said above, it exists out of a place of a pure love and passion for cinema. Eggers’ approach to the material felt very similar to how Peter Jackson tackled his remake of King Kong. Like King Kong was to Jackson, Nosferatu was the picture that opened up Eggers’ eyes to the world of film, igniting the fire within him to pursue the craft. They’re both classic films that these filmmakers loved so much to the point of obsessing over producing their own incarnations.

As we all know, there’s no reason to remake a movie if it’s just going to be the exact same thing but with a fresh coat of paint. In that same vein as Jackson’s King Kong, Eggers’ Nosferatu follows the general plot and story elements as the original film, but greatly expands upon the narrative, characters, and thematic material. Eggers doesn’t get anywhere near as self-indulgent as Jackson did with a three-hour runtime, but he still indulges in all of his artistic sensibilities to make this new version of Nosferatu completely his own.

If one isn’t already aware, Nosferatu was actually an unauthorized (i.e. illegal) adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. The filmmakers just made some alterations like changing the names and whatnot, but yeah, it’s just Dracula. So, any remake of Nosferatu falls under this weird grey area where it’s both a remake and an adaptation, taking elements from both the film and the book. Eggers manages a fine balancing act of incorporating more elements from Dracula while still keeping all of the distinct Nosferatu traits intact.

Bloodlust

One aspect that’s considerably amped up in this 2024 version is the sexual nature of the story and how it ties into the themes and characters. That’s still what the original was about, with Count Orlok lusting after Ellen, but it was also the 1920s. There was only so much that was acceptable back then. We’re in 2024 now, though, and also getting a film by Eggers, so it shouldn’t be a shock that the more subtle sexual undertones of the original become far more forceful and sinister here.

While the sexual current runs strong throughout the film, the content never feels gratuitous or titillating. The way sex is treated, particularly in regards to women at the time, is very realistic and mature. As Ellen’s spiritual encounters with Orlok become more intense, the male characters surrounding her simply view it as a hysterical woman losing her mind, using many archaic methods to treat her “illness”.

As you’d expect, none of this works and our characters are forced to confront the fact that there’s something otherworldly afoot. It makes sense that people in the 1830s would turn to the irrational once they ran out of all rational explanations. It all felt very much in line with The VVitch. Even if you don’t believe in witches or vampires, the characters do, and it’s seeing humans react irrationally that’s one of the most frightening things of all.

It’s all emblematic of how people actually acted back in those times, which is the biggest reputation Eggers established for himself: his staunch detail to historical accuracy, particularly the dialogue. His films may be in English, but I challenge anybody to watch The VVitch or The Lighthouse without subtitles and comprehend even half of what the actors are saying. Nosferatu is far more accessible in that regard, but the dialogue still has that old-timey flavor.

Despite all that, Eggers wisely decided to forgo having the film be in the German language or have our actors attempt to put on phony accents. The setting and characters are German, but the actors all just speak in their regular accents, only with some inflections to fit the vibe better. It takes a bit of time to settle in and stop reminding yourself that this is Germany and not England, but when you have an actor as awesome as Dafoe to immerse you into the world, it doesn’t matter if he’s speaking English in his normal voice.

Playing up the theatrics

It’s Dafoe, so it’s no surprise that he totally rules like always, but the rest of the cast is also quite good. It’s amusing that this is the second Dracula-related movie Nicholas Hoult has starred in such a short amount of time. If anything, it shows the man’s range, where in Renfield he played a meek and mild victim of abuse who reclaims his life, but here he’s an ignorantly optimistic man who realizes the errors of his naivety as Orlok tears his world apart.

I’m still a little half and half on Lily-Rose Depp’s performance. On the physical side of it, she was absolutely incredible with how she would writhe and spaz around like she’s truly being violated by an invisible entity. Many of these scenes are genuinely uncomfortable to watch, but making the audience uncomfortable is Eggers’ bread and butter. It’s genuine horror that disturbs you to your very core.

The delivery of Depp’s dialogue is what slightly took me out at times, with her peculiar accent and how animated her facial expressions were. I feel like her overt performance was supposed to echo the theatrical type of acting from the silent film days and if that was her and Eggers’ goal, she nailed it. Regardless, she really threw herself into the role and coupled with Eggers’ writing, they’re able to make Ellen a sympathetic character with some actual depth.

It’s just the rest of the actors are playing their material far more straight, but then again, it makes sense considering their characters are meant to be the “sane” ones. They all end up tuning their performances to match the increasingly horrific stakes, but they all ride that perfect line of playing up the theatrical eccentricities while still maintaining the gravitas.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson was the perfect example of this. His exaggerated performance greatly complements the heightened nature of the character’s surroundings. It’s not often we hear him speak in his native British tongue, but he is so unequivocally British here (despite his character being German) that I was transfixed whenever he spoke. It was refreshing to see Taylor-Johnson actually doing a great job after sleepwalking through Kraven the Hunter the week prior.

You can’t talk about Nosferatu without talking about the titular vampire himself played by Skarsgård. I was a little weary about Skarsgård playing Orlok, as I feared he was becoming typecast as the “scary monster man” after IT, but his turn as Orlok could not be further than his portrayal as Pennywise. There is not one ounce of dark comedy or macabre fun for Skarsgård or the audience to have here. He’s simply a disgusting, detestable walking corpse gripping onto whatever power and control he has left.

Teamwork makes the nightmare work

While I mentioned that Eggers is undoubtedly my favorite working director, even he acknowledges that he wouldn’t be where he is today without his filmmaking team. His cinematographer Jarin Blaschke is just one of his frequent collaborators, with editor Louise Ford, production designer Craig Lathrop, composer Robin Carolan, and sound designer Damian Volpe also returning for Nosferatu.

On a technical level, Eggers and his crew keep getting better and better with each picture. This is easily the best-looking film of 2024. Blaschke’s use of darkness and shadows to highlight certain parts of the frame is beautifully atmospheric in the most haunting ways. He and Eggers do a wonderful job paying homage to the visual language of the original film, but without ripping off shots completely. Having the nighttime scenes bathed in blue to be reminiscent of the old silent film filters was just one of the many great touches.

With Blaschke’s tasteful lighting, Orlok’s face is in shadow 99% of the time, so we never really get a good look at him until the very end, but his presence is so commanding and overbearing that all you need is his shaking, yet booming, voice to get under your skin. Vampires are often portrayed as sexy in some way, so it was welcome to have one who behaved like one should: a predatory beast with no humanity left, except for that tiny bit of seduction he’s able to impress upon you.

Like Orlok’s grasp on Ellen, you’re taken hold by Eggers and his crew with them not letting go until well after the end credits started. Horror films don’t often legitimately scare or creep me out nowadays, but Eggers has this ineffable quality at making you feel sick to your stomach like you’re witnessing something you’re not supposed to see. The music is a big part of that and while I would have loved to hear Eggers’ original composer Mark Korven do the score here, Robin Carolan’s is suitably creepy. Damien Volpe’s bloodcurdling sound design only adds to that experience of revulsion.

Final verdict

At the end of it all, though, you’re still just getting the story of Dracula, which we’ve all seen a bunch of times before in one format or another. So, the narrative itself isn’t all that surprising or engaging on its own at this point, but more how the cast and crew interpret it. Much of what you see in Nosferatu will definitely come off as familiar, but everyone involved goes above and beyond in making it stand out from the crowd.

The intense, constant sexual nature of the film may turn a lot of viewers off, but Eggers is the type of filmmaker who revels in the uncomfortable. He also revels in bringing folklore back to its disturbing, primal roots, which Nosferatu does in spades. It’s all so effective that it makes you realize why vampires became such a terrifying fixture of folklore in the first place.

This results in Nosferatu being another knockout from Eggers, who finally got to live out his Gothic horror fantasies and remake one of the most iconic films of all time. Doing something like that comes with a huge risk of inflating your ego too much, but when you have a cast and crew that’s as passionate and talented as you are, then movie magic is made. They did the improbable and made a remake that actually justifies its existence.

My rating: 8.5/10

Nosferatu is currently playing in theaters nationwide and available to purchase and rent on digital platforms.

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