Brilliant shadow play that eventually feels fleeting in the end.
In director Robert Eggers' 2024 adaptation of Nosferatu, the story is set in 19th-century Germany. Ellen (played by Lily-Rose Depp) suffers from fits and fevered dreams until she met her husband, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult). In order to secure a better life for the two of them, Thomas, a real estate agent, is tasked with facilitating Count Orlok's (Bill Skarsgård) acquisition of a property in their hometown of Wisburg. This endeavour will set off a series of events that leads to Wisburg to be the apex for a coming evil...
(If the story of Eggers' Nosferatu sounds familiar, that's because this version of Nosferatu is a remake of the original 1922 silent film (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror), which is a knock-off version from Bram Stoker's Dracula due to rights issues.)
It's dark; like, real dark. This isn't a dig at the cinematography, rather Eggers’ direction brings forth that gothic eeriness with the shadows being a living element. Known for his economic use of cuts, you can see the effort that goes into a scene—extensive blocking, the planning of the camera movement. It feels like a scene with characters positioned in ways that highlight their isolation or entrapment. Many sequences play out in extended, unbroken takes, allowing the tension to simmer rather than explode. The sets—grand yet decayed—feel like painted backdrops, enhancing the film’s dreamlike quality. Even the dialogue delivery has a heightened, almost poetic cadence, reinforcing the sense that we are watching a grim fable unfold rather than a traditional horror story.
Skarsgård’s Count Orlok is a mesmerising presence—grotesque, tragic, and otherworldly. Promo images of Count Orlok were scant, probably in a bid to maintain the mystique but Count Orlok isn't the gaunt ghoul from Murnau's version. This iteration is a Romanian noble—tall, proud, topped with a fur hat. Prosthetics fill in the rest like the elongated fingers and sharp teeth; careful blocking wraps the count in shadows, heightening his presence. Eggers frequently isolates Count Orlok within the frame; like a black mass on an X-ray scan. Yes, he melts in the shadows but unlike Max Schreck’s terrifying silent portrayal, Skarsgård’s Count Orlok exudes a strange melancholy. Skarsgård reportedly worked with an opera singer to lower his voice and added laboured breathing to make it sound like every issued syllable is done through immense pain.
But despite every effort to sculpt Count Orlok as an embodiment of evil, he is felled by two references from pop culture: Sonic the Hedgehog and What We Do in the Shadows.
Every time Count Orlok appears on screen, my brain can't help put pull up this frame of reference from the film Sonic the Hedgehog, starring Jim Carrey as Dr Robotnik. I mean, look at him.
And if you've seen the comedy series, What We Do in the Shadows, Count Orlok sounds like Nandor the Relentless. But Skarsgård really goes to town with the rhoticity, even in parts of a sentence that doesn't even require a rhotic "r". (I bet top dollars that Count Orlok would be gangbusters on "Talk Like a Pirate Day".)
I don't know what that says about me but as a voracious media consumer, Count Orlok's menace is thwarted by a video game adaptation and a mockumentary spin-off. What a strange time we live in.
Depp, who plays Ellen Hutter, does so with a quiet ferocity. There’s fragility, yes, but it’s a delicate thread woven with something more primal. She moves through the film with this hauntedness, as though, at any moment, she'll break apart. It’s a performance that lingers. An afterimage in your mind's eye. All the contortions and herky-jerkiness that she displayed in Nosferatu were all Depp; no CGI. Her study into butoh and 19th-century female hysteria paid off greatly for her.
No stranger to the slow burn, Eggers' long shots revel in tension but it falters at certain parts of the film. The slow pacing slows down the story; scenes stretch on, not to build suspense, but to admire their own artistry. There's a constant dread but it circles the same dark corridors without ever breaking into a sprint. Because each frame is painstakingly composed, that beauty comes at a cost. So wrapped up in its own gothic allure, the horror becomes distant. You admire it, but you don’t feel it.
And the script is lacking. Especially the ending, which felt unsatisfactory. Despite the performances, the script doesn't dig into the chracterisations of the cast. gives her nothing to dig into. And because scenes play out like a play, some of the acting feels... well, flat.
Observe the blocking of the scene. Look at where the camera is positioned and how the characters move in the scene.
Because this is a remake of previous Nosferatu adaptations, Eggers shoots with his heart on his sleeve with shots that are inspired by them, from the crucifixes at the beach to how certain scenes are played out. In fact, we ask that you watch the OG online, just to get a sense of how the original walked so the future adaptations could fly.
Nosferatu is now out in theatres.
