First Impressions: Nosferatu (2024)

What to say about Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu? I have seen both positive and negative commentary before attending a viewing but I have to say I was spellbound by what I deem to be a magnificent film (from a director who has now made four magnificent films in my opinion). This was despite the worry that my expectations were so high that they might have spoiled the film in and of themselves. I also want to really explore the film in-depth and so I intend to avoid too many spoilers in this and, once the extended Blu-Ray is released, look to do a case study review of the film at that time.

In the meantime, the film is sumptuous, Eggers using a muted colour palette to great effect, which he has used before. The performances are all fantastic. Bill Skarsgård (Hemlock Grove) is totally subsumed within the makeup, accent and performance as Orlok. Lily-Rose Depp is brilliant as Ellen, with a performance that frequently brought Isabelle Adjani to mind. Nicholas Hoult’s  (Renfield) Hutter goes through Hell, quite literally, and it is etched on his performance. Indeed there wasn’t a poor performance.

One thing I disliked about some of the modern reinterpretations of Nosferatu have centred on the changes to Hutter - Fisher made him a money obsessed, womanising rake and the Re-Animated version also made money a strong primary driver. In this money does play an important part of his motivation but money is not Hutter’s driver, love is. If he wants money it is so he can provide Ellen with the things she deserves (he specifically mentions a house befitting her), I do recognise that lifting them out of debt is also part of the driver, but the love aspect reaches back to the original Hutter in a way the two examples I have given did not. I'll also mention von Franz (Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire & Daybreakers), who replaces the paracelsian Bulwer of the original (who in turn replaces Van Helsing). Bulwer, as a character, is criticised as ineffectual (especially given Van Helsing's role in the Stoker novel), this iteration walks a line between the two and Dafoe, as always, nails it.

On to the changes to Orlok – and of course, a spoiler alert but not too big a one, I hope – the Orlok design from Murnau is utterly replaced. This is a dead, Romanian nobleman, a literal restless corpse, and Skarsgård oozes menace. Comment has been made (ad nauseum) about the moustache and so this being part of the design shouldn’t be a spoiler now. I have seen complaints – just so we are clear a moustache is original novel accurate. I have seen people suggesting it is a Vlad Ţepeş reference, in my opinion, not so. All depictions of the voivod that I have seen have a straight moustache, this is a drooped moustache, it almost brought the Cossacks to mind. If anything, to me it looked more like Karloff as Gorka in Black Sabbath (not that I am suggesting this was deliberate).

There are, however, very deliberate wider genre nods through the running time. The contact between Ellen and Orlok at the start of the film, and before her relationship with Hutter, which comes in a psychic and perhaps dream contact, is reminiscent (I hope deliberately so) of Carmilla. There is a (cleverly placed) vampire hunt with horse and naked youth that is both a folkloric moment and I would suggest nods to the 1979 Dracula, which also used the technique. It is clear that Eggers steeped himself in many aspects of both Dracula and the wider vampire megatext before creating something that feels uniquely Eggers.

That the film seems to draw enthusiastic praise or ire is probably a mark of the piece. I understand that some have not reacted with the enthusiasm I have. But to me, this is one of the best vampire movies made. It is a film that I intend to watch again in the theatre. I will review, as said at the head of this impression, from the home media.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Kurt Walsh and the Scream and Shake Bar in Blackpool who put on an immersive viewing at Backlot Cinema hosted by horror drag artist Cadaverous Black.

The imdb page is here.