3.5/5 ***-
Content warning: childhood trauma and sexual content
On Christmas Day 2024, director Robert Eggers finally released “Nosferatu,” a remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German silent film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” which was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.” Last term, I wrote an article about Murnau’s original film, where I went more into the film’s history (including its lawsuit). Silent films and sound films are very different media with different methods of storytelling. While obviously there have been sound remakes of silent films, most of them were made between the 1930s and 1950s. Needless to say, I was very intrigued to see how this film would go. As a lover of Murnau’s original film, Stoker’s novel and Eggers’ previous work, I was super hyped for this film. And, for the most part, Eggers delivered.
The story follows Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) and his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) as they are being haunted by Thomas’ real-estate client, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), who is a vampire or … Nosferatu. They are aided in defeating the vampire by Thomas’ friend Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson) and the eccentric Professor von Franz (Willem Dafoe). While the plot’s bare bones are the same as that of Stoker’s novel and essentially the same as Murnau’s film, Eggers still manages to fit in his own story. Eggers takes elements of both the novel and original film to create a truly terrifying experience.
The scenery and aesthetic of this film is on point. Eggers’ films are well known for being extremely well researched and for their historical accuracy. This leads to a fully immersive film experience that makes the viewer feel like they have gone back to a different time. Eggers also crafts extremely beautiful and eerie shots to get the viewer in the headspace of the characters. My favorite shots are in the beginning when Thomas is traveling to and staying in Orlok’s castle. I could almost feel the isolation, cold and fear that Thomas experiences. Eggers also makes it so that Orlok is kept obscure for most of the film’s first act. He is mostly depicted in shadows, silhouettes, out-of-focus shots or extreme closeups. I loved this because everyone watching is familiar with Max Schreck’s Count Orlok, and so in the shadows the audience uses that image to fill in the blanks. However, that image slowly cracks and clashes with Skarsgård’s depiction of Orlok, allowing for Eggers to add suspense to what a 100-year-old character looks like.
One element from the novel that was kept was the relationship between Jonathan and Mina Harker (Murnau changed the names to Thomas and Ellen Hutter to avoid copyright infringement). Eggers (like Murnau before him) clearly understood Jonathan and Mina’s characters and how important and compelling their relationship is. While their stories are different, Eggers’ Thomas and Ellen’s devotion is very similar to Jonathan and Mina’s. Even if the execution is different, this film (along with the 1922 original) is the best onscreen representation of Jonmina I have seen.
Eggers also includes small details and homages from the original that were both so much fun to see but also gave so much depth and symbolism to the characters, especially Ellen. In the beginning we see Ellen’s cat, Greta, a reference to a scene in the original film where Ellen plays with a cat. (The name Greta also comes from Greta Schröder, the actress who played the original Ellen Hutter.) Depp’s Ellen says that Greta has no master, representing Ellen as someone who longs to be free. There is also the line which Ellen says “Why have you killed these beautiful flowers?” after Thomas hands her a bouquet of lilacs. This is taken from a very similar line and scene in the original movie. Eggers uses that line to weave flower symbolism into Ellen’s story. Ellen is seen with purple and white lilacs, which represent obsession and youthful innocence, respectively.
The main theme of the film is female sexual desire and how predators can take advantage of that. When Ellen was a child, Orlok took advantage of her desperation to ease her loneliness and desires. Ellen describes how Orlok’s presence on her mind turned from pleasure to torturous, and how marrying Thomas helped somewhat relieve that pain. Eggers makes a really dark allegory for trying to escape from the trauma and pain of an abuser, especially when the abuse happened to someone in their youth. The historical element also adds to this because in 1830s Germany, it was generally taboo for women to have any form of sexuality. Therefore, Ellen feels immense shame and guilt for her urges drawing Orlok to her town and causing a plague. Not only that, but the doctors are less than helpful — telling her not to talk about her dreams or desires. In one scene, she yells at Thomas that she is “unclean” and that he should not touch her. Thomas responds by embracing her, insisting that he loves her and will do whatever he can to kill Orlok (that exchange is based on an exchange between Jonathan and Mina in “Dracula”). Eggers does a great job subverting the idea that sexual women are “unclean” by having white lilac represent Ellen. Despite her sexuality, she is still innocent. Ellen’s arc in this film is extremely uncomfortable and heartbreaking to watch, which makes the allegory of escaping the shadow of an abuser work so well.
One element of Eggers’ “Nosferatu” I was not the biggest fan of was how, for lack of a better term, horny this film was. Not only that, but how the horny is woven into the film’s horror. Eggers ties the modern idea of sexy vampires into the historic image of vampires as the living dead. Orlok is portrayed as a wheezing, decaying corpse while his vampiric actions are still played off as sexual, which was honestly gross. I know that was Eggers’ intent to make this extremely uncomfortable, especially with his interactions with Ellen. It is still rough to watch this gross old corpse act in a sexual manner towards a young innocent woman. There was another scene where Ellen and Thomas have sex in order to stick it to Orlok. While I appreciate this scene on paper — Ellen trying to take back control of her sexuality and Thomas gaining some power over the creature who abused him as well — the execution was still disturbing to me. Don’t get me wrong, Eggers weaves the horny and the horror extremely well. But personally, the discomfort outweighed my appreciation for what Eggers was trying to do.
Overall, I think that “Nosferatu” (2024) is a fantastic film. The acting is on point, the atmosphere is perfectly creepy and the historical accuracy is astounding. I think that this is an amazing adaptation of Murnau’s original film and is definitely worth the watch. Eggers does an amazing job playing homage to Murnau while also making the film his own.