Last Updated on December 3, 2024 by Stephinie Heitman
After making his three-feature debut with The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman, Robert Eggers has quickly become cinema’s horror master, therefore it is only natural that his latest film interprets in a way the progenitor of all horrors, and movies.
Nosferatu, which will be released on December 25, is a … Gothic horror movie based on the novel of Bram Stoker: Dracula. It’s a grandiose paean to both the divine and the vulgar, swaggering through the shadow of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent Expressionist proto-symphony and Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake, scoop-pumping the monsters mythical like only he can.
Characterizing his material as a struggle between virtue and profanity, embarrassment and pride, and affection and lecherousness, the auteur’s film is a tribute to wickedness and the evil it fosters and a model of expressive dread that without any question affirms itself among the finest within the pantheon of the genre.
What is Nosferatu All About:
In the pitch-black night, Ellen’s (Lily-Rose Depp) sobs climax with a whispered cry into the abyss: “Come to me.” That plea is answered by an ancient voice and followed by a hallucinatory reverie of shadows, tears, and a wicked union that’s consummated in a garden and sealed with a vow (“I swear”) and small, plaintive moans of ecstasy.
Many years later in 1838, in Germany, a recently betrothed Ellen is waiting for her fiancé Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) who is late for an appointment at the estate agency where he has landed a new job. He always arrives late to work but his boss Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) welcomes him and assigns him his first task. To complete the sale of an old local mansion, Thomas must travel to a remote region in the Carpathian Mountains to visit a client, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), who has “one foot in the grave” and demands an appointment with an agent “in the flesh.” In need of money and thus incapable of declining, Thomas accepts this “great adventure.”
Before he departs, Ellen relates to him another of her many long-lived nightmares due to her “melancholy,” and when it is time for Thomas to go, he leaves young Ellen in the care of his ship-building friend Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife, also Ellen’s best friend, the pregnant Anna (Emma Corrin), who, strikingly, has two young daughters and a third pregnancy on the way.
Approaching the place where he expected to be met, Thomas comes across a village of thin peasants and gypsies who ridicule him for his lack of local understanding and for uttering Orlok’s name. On a solitary road lit by the moon, he’s approached by a horse-drawn carriage that spirits him to Orlok’s castle, where he gets his first look at the wealthy patron: A tall man with a shiny bald head, a wide handlebar mustache, and pale wrinkled skin, who soaks in vast amounts of Ewok fur, gasps for air in loud gulps, and enunciates his words with deep, guttural Rs that speak of Eastern Europe.
While Thomas has several abundant opportunities to see this menacing figure, Nosferatu carefully saves it from the viewer’s sight, positioning it in blurry areas, or fog. Eggers builds anticipation and dread for the fiend’s appearance and uses an astonishing variety of techniques to make the reader feel disoriented and dreamlike.
Through the use of the lens and his viewfinder, the director weaves and intertwines the characters and moves effortlessly through different locations and from scene to scene with side-to-side movements that seem to defy gravity, time, space, and all other known natural laws. Collaborating with cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and editor Louise Ford, Eggers melds the real and the unreal until the gossamer-thin boundary separating the two vanishes altogether.
Employing a washed-out feel and frequently/scarily bordering on the grayscale, Nosferatu adheres to the plot of the source material, with Thomas succumbing to Orlok’s trick and, subsequently, fleeing to be with his beloved Ellen, now deadly pale and disease-ridden.
He is perplexed by her mania, and so are his friends Friedrich, Anna, and the summoned Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson), who tries to cure her through a combination of ether and bed immobilization. When all those solutions turn out to be ineffective, he seeks the help of his former teacher, Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) who has been suspended for his interest in the occult. It is Von Franz who concludes that Ellen is possessed by a demon that is indistinguishable from Death itself, and such assessment is proven true when Orlok reaches German soil and causes the devastation of rats and delights his loyal goon Herr Knock whose lust is not only to serve his master diligently but also to kill anything from birds as shown by Ozzy Osbourne.
It becomes apparent that Nosferatu is shrouded in a haze and enveloped in smoke originating from the burning candles that remain the only source of warmth mitigating the pervasive cold. However, there is no touch of affection in this plunge into passion and plague, let alone the ray of sanity to accompanies passion.
These shades of obsession and hysteria – ranging from Dafoe’s fervent preacher of the otherworldly to Depp’s victim facing an inevitable invasion and plagued throughout the movie by seizures are reminiscent of the spasms of Isabelle Adjani (the star of Herzog’s version of Nosferatu) in Possession. Depp’s performance is a thing of gloriously unhinged beauty. Yet what truly enlivens it is the actress’ evocation of Ellen’s inner struggle between that which is craved by her heart and her loins—a battle that casts Orlok as not just a ravenous diabolical fiend but a manifestation of her profound loneliness and attendant (carnal) yearning.
Although his face is covered with makeup, which underlines Orlok’s pathological nature, Skarsgård brings out the Count’s primal evil and human passion; Hoult is an unconvincing but charming nerd as Thomas, while Dafoe turns the proceedings into a frenzy with his deep voice and mad stare. Moving into the erotic, Nosferatu feels possessed by a fervently perverse spirit, while clinging to the love between Thomas and Ellen as the light in the storm. From a series of striking images of Orlok’s shadow slithering on curtains and walls towards the targets, the thin-fingered hand turning the doorknobs and covering the faces, to the final two scenes of worship and destruction, the movie offers a plethora of striking images which fuel its overarching themes of sexual pathology.
Returning to Eggers, whose control of the word, phrase, line, and page converts Nosferatu into a grotesque vision of desire as a gift and curse that kills as well as saves. For the director, this formally ornate fairy tale is another wicked and eccentric masterpiece. For the audiences, it is food for the horror fans to enjoy or even swallow whole.
Nosferatu 2024 Parents Guide & Age Rating
Nosferatu is rated R by the Motion Picture Rating (MPA) for bloody violent content, graphic nudity and some sexual content.
Violence and Gore: Count Orlok attacks his victims with scenes of neck biting, blood spraying, and visible wounds. Multiple depictions of plague devastation, including corpses riddled with sores and swarmed by rats. Scenes of characters being overwhelmed by hordes of rats, visually suggest disease and death.
A few violent confrontations where characters are attacked, including one involving Herr Knock, where he kills a bird in a grotesque manner. A suspenseful sequence showing a shadowy figure stalking its prey, culminating in a tense, sudden attack.
Disturbing Imagery: The gothic, washed-out cinematography and dreamlike sequences enhance the horror, with unsettling imagery like Orlok’s distorted shadow slithering on walls and his long, claw-like fingers reaching for victims.
Body Horror: Ellen experiences seizures and spasms reminiscent of possession, which might be frightening for some viewers. These scenes are filmed in a raw and intense way.
Sexual Content and Nudity:
Graphic Nudity: Includes explicit scenes of nudity, both male and female, as part of the film’s gothic and erotic undertones.
A hallucinatory scene features Ellen in a suggestive and intimate moment in a garden, culminating in symbolic imagery of union and desire.
Depictions of Orlok’s seduction are portrayed in a disturbing yet sensual manner, blending horror with lustful undertones.
Language: Moderate use of strong language, including expletives. Dialogue sometimes contains archaic terms and a gothic tone that may be challenging for younger viewers.
Substance Use: The film portrays the use of ether as a treatment for Ellen’s condition. Scenes show its application in a medical context but with a dark, eerie undertone.
Overall Rating: Rated R for bloody violent content, graphic nudity, and some sexual content. Suitable for mature audiences only, with caution advised for viewers under 17.
