"Nosferatu": review

L to R: the shadow of Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and Ellen "(Lily-Rose Depp)

"Nosferatu" is a 2024 Robert Eggers film that is a remake of the 1922 silent movie "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror." The film stars Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp's daughter), Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok the Nosferatu. As you see by my use of the article "the," this movie treats Nosferatu as a title (like the Christ or the Buddha instead of just Christ and Buddha, which are not surnames). The 1922 silent movie is itself based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, a story published in 1897. A bit like the Batman movies and their many remakes, "Nosferatu" is another take on what is by now a very old story.

We begin in the city of Wisburg, Germany. Young Ellen (Depp), feeling lonely, calls out into the night for companionship. Her innocent, open heart invites the evil presence of the Nosferatu, known to most mortals as Count Orlok (Skarsgård). Orlok's visitations at first give Ellen a sense of pleasure and even ecstasy, but these feelings gradually give way to pain, distress, and terror as Orlok—spiritually—has his savage way with the girl. Later in life and still a young woman, Ellen marries the handsome Thomas "Tom" Hutter (Hoult), who has just gotten a job at a real-estate firm where he is to work under Mr. Knock (McBurney), and the very first assignment is for Tom to travel to the far-off country of Transylvania to allow Count Orlok to sign a deed for a property in Germany where Orlok claims he plans to retire. Ellen, who had suffered horrible night terrors before marrying Tom, feels a sense of foreboding as Tom prepares to go to Transylvania. Tom is chipper and reassuring, promising a safe return and having no idea what's in store for him. He puts Ellen with his friend Friedrich Harding (Taylor-Johnson), his wife Anna (Corrin), and their two daughters. Tom travels to the Carpathians, arriving at the forbidding fortress-castle of Count Orlok. Everything from here on in becomes creepy and surreal as Tom meets the huge, imposing, gravel-voiced Orlok. As the atmosphere of dread rises to a fever pitch, Tom wakes up to find his chest covered in bite marks, and he discovers his host, who only ever appears at night, is not of this world. Back in Germany, Ellen begins suffering even worse night terrors than before her marriage, and just as a plague is hitting the city, the local doctor calls in the help of a former mentor, Herr Doktor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Dafoe), who had departed from science to study the occult.

The rest of the story is about Tom's escape from Orlok's castle, Orlok's arrival in Wisburg by boat; what Orlok does (or threatens to do) to Tom, Ellen, and Friedrich's family; and von Franz's discovery of the way to combat Orlok's evil. One theme of the movie is about how science fails in the face of pure evil, a theme also touched on in both the novel The Exorcist and the movie "The Exorcist." Being unfamiliar with the 1922 movie, I was unprepared for the final solution to the Orlok problem, and my understanding is that Eggers's 2024 film hews fairly closely to the plot of the 1922 movie, albeit with a bit more sex and gore along the way. I won't spoil this movie's conclusion, but I can tell you that it does not involve a beheading or a stake through the heart.

I've seen two of Robert Eggers's previous movies: "The Lighthouse" and "The Northman." Eggers is an impressive director in terms of how he manages his actors and how he manages lighting and cinematography. There are certain directors, like Denis Villeneuve, whose very names can inspire trust and confidence. Even when they produce flawed movies, those movies remain eminently watchable. Eggers, like Villeneuve, has earned my trust, so I knew going in that this was going to be a good experience, and it was. "Nosferatu" is a visual treat, with many of the special effects being reminiscent of what Francis Ford Coppola had done in his 1992 "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Parts of Eggers's film are so lacking in color saturation that certain sequences—especially the evening and nighttime scenes—feel almost black and white. Even the daytime scenes, despite their color, feel as if some evil force is leaching away the world's chromatic beauty. The period dialogue is also of note: the characters are supposed to be German (except for Orlok, who is presumably Romanian/Transylvanian and the speaker of an ancient language that often reminded me of the Black Speech of Mordor), but the dialogue is in stylized, slightly archaic English. I can't say how well Bill Skarsgård did at speaking in Romanian or ancient-ese, but when Count Orlok spoke in English, it was with a heavy and sinister Eastern European accent. I'll also comment that the film could have been much more exploitative of women than it was: while there are instances of female nudity in the film, there are also plenty of nightgown scenes in which backlighting would have revealed the silhouette of a naked female form, but this was tastefully avoided. When there is nudity, it's always in the service of vulnerability, a way of portraying purity in the face of a predator.

Lily-Rose Depp is excellent as the beleaguered Ellen, hypnotized and even possessed by Orlok from afar (she looks a lot like her mom, Vanessa Paradis). Her role demands that she cry frequently and that she moan sensually; her possession/night-terror scenes are also unsettling—and all without special effects. Nicholas Hoult finds himself once again in a role where he plays a quivering mouse of a man, but his portrayal of sheer terror in the presence of Orlok is a performance for the ages. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin are solid as the skeptical couple who don't understand what's happening to poor Ellen (nicknamed "Leni," by the way). Simon McBurney, as Knock, is excellent as this movie's version of Renfield: as Tom's boss, he's the one who sends fresh meat to the Nosferatu. Ralph Ineson is authoritative as the doctor who calls on his old mentor to solve the unsolvable problem of Ellen's condition, and Willem Dafoe, when he finally appears, is magnificent as Doktor von Franz, this story's Van Helsing. And standing above them all is Bill Skarsgård as Orlok the Nosferatu, completely unrecognizable in his heavy, leprous makeup, but utterly owning the character of Orlok through his unearthly voice and accent. I thought this role was a much better fit for Skarsgård than the ridiculous Pennywise from "It" (see here and here). Skarsgård may have flubbed his French-speaking role in "John Wick: Chapter 4," but he's a convincingly menacing Transylvanian in this movie.

After "Heretic" and "Abigail," this is my third horror movie in a row to feature people who get lured into a domicile whose owner is evil. And as in "Heretic," Nicholas Hoult's character is drawn further into the domicile by his own politeness and inability to say no. By the time he co-signs what he thinks is the contract for Orlok's new property in Germany, Tom barely has a will of his own. In truth, the contract he's just signed—written in Orlok's original, ancient tongue—nullifies his marriage to Ellen and gives her over to Orlok, who must nevertheless not take possession of her until she accepts the situation of her own free will.

If I had a problem with the movie, it's the same one I have with so many depictions of vampires: vampires always seem capable of sudden and confusing teleportation, but only in limited spaces, like a mansion or a room. Why does Orlok need a boat to reach Germany? Why not just teleport to Ellen instead of doing the vampiric version of the Jedi Force-projection we saw in "The Last Jedi"? Aside from that, I was willing to suspend my disbelief about Orlok's other capabilities. To his credit, Orlok at least never morphed into a bat or a werewolf.

In all, "Nosferatu" wasn't a scary film, but it did build suspense well and had some rather vivid visuals. The acting was superb all around, and the Nosferatu was portrayed as a feral, hungry, implacable evil wearing only the trappings of civilization—just enough to lure people into his lair. Because of the way the story ends, I suppose this could be considered a "sad" story, but not because we discover some poignant fact about the vampire's origins or motivations. If the movie teaches any lessons, it's that science can't explain everything, that real evil does exist, and that in times of crisis, innocent people die.