Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) is a dripping-with-atmosphere love letter to silent-era chills that doesn’t quite find the jugular every time it lunges, but, hey, three stars means I’d still invite it across the cinematic threshold (after hiding the family pets and dusting off my garlic). Let’s sink our teeth in.
Eggers first announced his “Merchant Ivory meets Hammer” fever-dream remake back in 2015—then promptly shelved it like a cursed tome after realizing remaking Nosferatu as your sophomore film is the directorial equivalent of challenging Usain Bolt to a footrace after finishing Couch-to-5 K. Fate, financing, and a little pandemic detour later, the project rose from its coffin in 2023, still clutching its 35 mm fetish and a $50 million wallet.
The director’s obsession started in high-school theater, where he staged a teenage Nosferatu that probably traumatized an entire PTA. Years of research followed: mountains of folklore, Dacian linguistics, Ötzi-the-iceman body horror, basically a PhD in “Undead Eastern-European Studies.” The upshot? A script hell-bent on returning vampires to their folkloric, chest-slurping roots (cue the sound of a thousand fan-fiction writers fainting).
To hit that early-19th-century sweet spot, Eggers raided barracks-level archives for Transylvanian military fashion, embraced potato-flake snowfall, and shot through custom desaturation filters that make most night scenes look like cyanotype postcards from a fever dream. It’s pretentious, sure, but it’s also gorgeous, like a cursed lithograph that hisses when you stare too long.
Bill Skarsgård traded Pennywise clown shoes for 7-foot Nosferatu stilettos, lost enough weight to make a stylus look chunky, and gargled Mongolian throat-singing exercises until his voice registered on seismographs. Lily-Rose Depp, fresh from feral screen tests that allegedly made Eggers cry (either from joy or fear of OSHA violations), anchors the drama with butoh-inspired convulsions and a cat named Greta, because sure, why not?
Nicholas Hoult does his best “dewy-eyed realtor who shouldn’t have opened that ominous carriage door” impression, while Willem Dafoe goes meta as Von Franz, the world’s most sarcastic occult professor, basically, if Van Helsing moonlighted as your snarky dissertation advisor. Meanwhile, 5,000 trained rats, Hollywood’s smelliest supporting cast, work overtime to upstage everyone.
Plot-wise, Eggers largely honors the 1922 beats, creepy inn, plague ship, sacrificial heroine—but injects fresh dread through body-horror close-ups and a psychic love-hate link that makes Orlok feel like the worst Tinder match in history. The chest-bite motif, borrowed from pre-cinematic lore, is unsettlingly effective; you’ll check your sternum next time you wake up groggy.
Critics went full Renfield for the aesthetics, 84 % on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t nothing, but some bailed at the two-hour “slow-burn with candlelit vowels” pacing. Audience CinemaScore landed at a respectable B-, which in horror-land translates to “I was grossed out and confused, thanks.”
Box-office math? $181 million worldwide on a $50 million budget, making this Eggers’ personal Dracula’s hoard and Focus Features’ third-biggest payday ever. Yet Oscar night reminded us the Academy treats horror the way Orlok treats sunbeams: four craft nods, zero wins. Still, the film’s lavish production design and Everything-Is-Practical ethos already influence TikTok cinephiles and goth Pinterest boards alike.
Whether it dethrones Herzog’s 1979 riff will fuel late-night dorm debates for decades, but one thing is certain: Eggers proved you can remake a sacred silent classic without defanging it—or drowning it in lazy CGI. He also proved that frozen potato flakes are forever.
Nosferatu (2024) isn’t flawless—scene transitions occasionally creak louder than Orlok’s coffin lid—but its commitment to folkloric authenticity, lush photography, and Skarsgård’s near-subliminal growl earn it a solid three stars. Like a well-aged Eastern-European cordial, it’s potent, odd, and best sipped under candlelight—though maybe keep a stake handy, just in case.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5
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