Nosferatu, 2024.
Written and Directed by Robert Eggers.
Starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, Simon McBurney, and Ralph Ineson.
SYNOPSIS:
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
While much more accessible to the mainstream given its status as a remake, writer/director Robert Eggers retains his visionary voice with Nosferatu, a take on Count Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgård, unrecognizable under frightening prosthetics, and not in a hyperbolic sense, but more in the realm that even knowing this information, people will struggle to believe it’s him) and his journey to a fictional town in Germany, with intentions of seducing the married Ellen Hutter (an astonishing, showstopping Lily-Rose Depp, delivering one of the most intensely physical turns in recent memory) while bringing a rat plague.
Expanding erotically-charged undertones of desire in vampiric lore (such as Francis Ford Coppola’s nutty take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Robert Eggers isn’t so much playing up that side but dripping this take in sexual tension. Sharing an unholy telepathic connection with Count Orlok (vampire Nosferatu, hiding away in the Carpathian Alps, preparing to make a move) born from repression and dark desires, Ellen is regularly possessed by the demon, which includes violent writhing even when forced into corsets and strapped into bed.
As the possession over her is occasionally released, Ellen expresses her loyalty and love to her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), a real estate agent who has returned, albeit scarred for life upon being suckered into making an arduous adventure to Orlok’s Castle, to sign over paperwork to move into a home next door. Nevertheless, there is a moment where Ellen’s fear transitions into the possession, which is briefly relinquished, seeing her immediately show submission to her husband, then grabbing him to engage in intercourse as a means to prove to this demon that they are in love irrefutably.
Simultaneously, the possessed hold (and presumably some of her non-brainwashed mind) has her convinced Nosferatu could fuck her better than her husband ever could. Describing the scene could never do it justice, though: Lily-Rose Depp is in complete command over every drastic shift while conveying everything from lust to love to desperation. It’s also a sequence so hypnotically hot it’s enough to overpower the relentlessly chilly and cold atmosphere suffocated in dread.
Working alongside cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, Robert Eggers has outdone himself, this time with a film that isn’t solely stunningly composed but also makes exquisite use of shadows (either traveling or materializing across phases or objects barely enough to be noticeable but also terrifying) candlelit lighting, slickly drains colors from frames until resembling something akin to a black-and-white storybook, and somehow makes aggressive jump scares unsettling.
That last one shouldn’t work, considering jump scares are the bane of modern horror, but Robert Eggers knows how to weave them into his unforgiving, pulse-pounding tone. It comes across as less out of place and more as an extension of the horror permeating around every corner and during nearly every second. In a movie going big in every department, from production design to costumes to performances to disgusting brutality, the occasional well-timed jump scare doesn’t come across as tacky, but another relentlessly exhilarating aspect.
This is confidently a genre picture through and through that doesn’t feel the need to play itself as silly, dated, or subversive. It’s weighty (although not eye-rollingly so) and trusts that the performers will sell every beat through sheer will and conviction. Maybe under the direction of another filmmaker or in the shoes of someone not named Lily-Rose Depp, the possession parts would feel like another comical attempt at an overplayed dynamic. Here, it is disturbing, which only intensifies once she starts sharing the screen with the repulsive but astonishingly crafted practical makeup effects for Nosferatu.
Even Willem Dafoe, showing up as Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, the excitable occult expert, brings a sense of frightened doom once he understands what he, Thomas, and the others are up against. The town, including Ellen’s friend’s husband (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), doesn’t buy into the evil she speaks of communicating with or her uncontrollable convulsions; these people disregard whatever women say and are more concerned with shaming them, but arguably their greater flaw is that they don’t understand that evil exists, must be understood, and faced head-on. As such, they also think Professor Albin is a quack. More to the point, it’s dabbling in themes that are still relevant today.
Unsurprisingly, Thomas is the first one to come around to his wife’s words (after mostly dismissing it as melancholy throughout her life), which allows a passion within Nicholas Hoult to emerge and take hold as the film races towards its thrilling climax. That finale is as sexually charged as everything that comes before, amplified by unforgettable imagery; the type of final shot seared into the mind that most filmmakers will never achieve dreaming up, let alone capture it for the world to see. Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgård match Robert Eggers’ nightmarish, erotic, and physically demanding wavelength, elevating this artistically mesmerizing version of Nosferatu into a masterful symphony of horror. Succumb to cinematic greatness.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com