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Review

NOSFERATU. Blood and Fear [REVIEW]

Nosferatu proves that in the 21st century, Robert Eggers is a formidable force in contemporary horror and historical costume cinema.

Tomasz Raczkowski

26 January 2025

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“‘He is coming,’” say the characters of Robert Eggers’ latest film with ominous intonation, referring to the approaching vampire. The same phrase echoed among horror fans in 2023 when the first promotional images for the remake of a classic horror tale were released to the media. This was to be the dream project of the director of The Witch: A New England Folktale, a film he had announced as his second project as early as 2015. Ultimately, production was postponed, and Eggers solidified his reputation with The Lighthouse and The Northman, transforming from a sensational debutant into an auteur surrounded by an aura of mastery. A decade later, and over a century after the release of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, Eggers’ new version of the film finally arrived at the turn of 2024 and 2025.

Like all variations of Dracula and Nosferatu, the 2024 version begins in the enlightened, 19th-century Western Europe, where the good-natured Thomas Hutter (played by Nicholas Hoult, who previously portrayed Renfield in Chris McKay’s film) sets off on a business trip to the remote and sinister land of Transylvania. The ambitious real estate agent leaves behind his young wife Ellen in Wisborg. Ellen, who had previously suffered from melancholy and bouts of sleepwalking, begins to experience a resurgence of these conditions just before her husband’s departure. Ignoring Ellen’s foreboding warning, Thomas embarks on his journey, leaving his wife in the care of their friends, Friedrich Harding and his wife Anna. In the Carpathian wilderness, Hutter encounters the menacing Count Orlok, who desires not only a property in Germany but also the troubled Ellen, whose seizures and visions intrigue him. Thus begins a dark dance with death, a familiar tale to all fans of horror, yet one that retains its sinister allure.

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From the outset, Robert Eggers has made it clear that he holds the 1922 original in high esteem, viewing his project not as a blasphemous revision but as a modern homage to the groundbreaking work of German Expressionism. In his Nosferatu, Eggers faithfully recreates the story crafted by Murnau and Henrik Galeen, retaining the characteristic changes made to the literary Dracula, such as shifting the setting from England to the German town of Wisborg and altering character names to circumvent Bram Stoker’s copyright. However, Eggers also reintegrates elements from Dracula that Murnau and Galeen had omitted, weaving together threads from the literary original and its cinematic adaptations (with nods to Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula). This results in a rich reinterpretation of the classic horror tale, where Eggers balances the universal appeal of its themes with his own creative inclinations.

Eggers’ interpretation does not revolutionize the classic text, but it introduces several intriguing adjustments that contribute to the originality of his vision, which—like Herzog‘s faithful yet inventive Nosferatu—avoids the trap of mechanical reproduction. Eggers’ Nosferatu returns to the roots of horror, complementing the Gothic aesthetic with a more primal sense of fear and unease. As in his previous films, such as The Lighthouse, Eggers delves into the visceral core of legends, uncovering an organic terror stripped of cultural embellishments. His Nosferatu is therefore brutal, grimy, and sticky with the blood spilled by Orlok, while also more openly exploring the carnal and erotic underpinnings of Stoker’s vampire tale.

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The relationship between Ellen and Orlok is no longer a straightforward obsession of a bloodthirsty monster craving vitality. In Eggers’ Nosferatu, the attraction between them is mutual, and the vampire becomes an ancient demon summoned from the shadows of oblivion by an ill-advised probing into the dark corners of human nature. Ellen, transformed in this interpretation, becomes the true protagonist of Nosferatu, relegating Thomas to the sidelines as a figure of naïve faith in human conventions against primordial darkness. Moreover, Ellen Hutter, portrayed masterfully by Lily-Rose Depp, gains mystical, messianic undertones. Eggers perceives in Nosferatu the potential for a blasphemous mystery and pursues this idea, crafting a film steeped in occult symbolism, where Orlok and Ellen emerge as parallel figures in a chthonic ritual, with Professor von Franz, played by Willem Dafoe, serving as its priest. This dark interplay of eroticism and death echoes the feminist dynamics of The Witch, drawing from the same reservoir of subconscious fears of nature’s lurking dangers that fuel the horror imagination. Eggers also acknowledges Werner Herzog’s existential reinterpretation of Nosferatu, which portrayed the vampire as a force of desperate, destructive loneliness. While Eggers’ film downplays the socio-political themes present in earlier German versions, it emphasizes the enduring power of the demonic legend, adapting it for modern audiences and proving its timeless potential.

A defining feature of this version is Eggers’ entirely original redesign of Count Orlok. Known for his meticulous attention to historical detail, Eggers rejects the familiar image of a pale, desiccated aristocrat with oversized ears and fangs. Instead, he portrays the count as a 16th-century Wallachian or Transylvanian noble turned vampire. Bill Skarsgård, under layers of prosthetics, embodies Orlok with a thick mustache, a shaved head with a pronounced crest, and a sharp, prominent nose. His body resembles a slowly decaying corpse more than a mummy, aligning with Eastern European depictions of revenants and vampires. Furthermore, Eggers’ Orlok speaks in a reconstructed Dacian dialect and communicates with other characters in heavily accented English, slowly articulating his words. The result is a character that, despite being endlessly depicted and even parodied, re-emerges in Nosferatu as genuinely grotesque and terrifying.

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Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror by F.W. Murnau set the standard for horror aesthetics and poetics for decades of cinematic development. Eggers pays homage to this legacy by constructing his Nosferatu as a tour de force of horror. The film delivers meticulously built tension, ominous shadow play, precisely crafted jump scares, and spectacular possession sequences (Eggers also draws inspiration from Andrzej Żuławski). Orlok himself appears on screen for only a few moments, but the impact is immense. The work of cinematographer Jarin Blaschke is phenomenal, as always, and Eggers extracts pitch-perfect performances from his cast. Beyond the standout roles of Lily-Rose Depp, Skarsgård, and the ever-brilliant Willem Dafoe, the supporting cast, including Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Friedrich Harding), Emma Corrin (Anna Harding), Simon McBurney (Herr Knock), and Ralph Ineson (Dr. Sievers), also excels. Combined with Robin Carolan’s evocative score and the captivating arrangement of individual scenes, the result is a film that is utterly mesmerizing.

Eggers’ Nosferatu proves that in the 21st century, Robert Eggers is a formidable force in contemporary horror and historical costume cinema. By his fourth film, Eggers has established a consistent style, skillfully navigating specific thematic realms and delivering nearly flawless execution. He has not faltered in his confrontation with the classic, finding his own approach to it and restoring it to the screen in all its glory. His Nosferatu is not a hollow period piece but a complex horror spectacle, drawing from the essence of terror while avoiding banality. Eggers’ Nosferatu can stand confidently alongside Murnau’s original and Herzog’s version—a high bar that the modern filmmaker has successfully surpassed.

Tomasz Raczkowski

Tomasz Raczkowski

Anthropologist, critic, enthusiast of social cinema, British humor and horror films.

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