Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) continues his reign as the master of eerie period pieces with Nosferatu, a remake of the 1922 silent film of the same name, which itself was “freely” based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This version of the classic vampire story stars Bill Skarsgård (It) as the bloodsucking Count Orlok, with Lily-Rose Depp as the object of his romantic interest, and the first reviews of the movie call it another worthy adaptation. Almost every aspect of Nosferatu is being championed, from its performances to its cinematography, with some even calling it one of the best films of the year.
Here’s what critics are saying about Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu:
Is this a masterful adaptation?
Every age gets its definitive film of Stoker’s vampire legend. Eggers has given us a magnificent version for today with roots that stretch back a century.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
Eggers has crafted the most technically impressive version of this story, a movie about needing to face and know total evil in order to conquer it.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
Nosferatu stakes its claim as both a timeless and timely cinematic achievement.
— Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch
Eggers displays a mastery that may be unmatched among filmmakers of his generation… One of the best films of the year.
— Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
It’s the best horror film of the year and easily one of 2024’s best overall.
— Jeff Ewing, Collider
Eggers’s Nosferatu is one of the best horror films ever made.
— Rosa Parra, The Latino Slant
Up there with the best films of the year… This one seems to have the best chance of becoming a classic.
— Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network
(Photo by ©Focus Features)
Does it offer a fresh take on Dracula?
Beginning the film with a woman yearning in close-up, only for that need to be met with an unexpected terror, immediately establishes this version as a fresh interpretation, shifting the perspective and deepening the issues that have surfaced throughout its multiple iterations.
— Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch
The expansion of Ellen’s agency and psychology is much darker than the original… It sees Nosferatu explore issues around women’s sexual agency (and its literal demonization) in ways the original doesn’t.
— Jeff Ewing, Collider
[Eggers is] clearly mindful of telling a story told many times before, so he teases our expectations and tests our familiarity while folding in his own elaborations on the gruesome tale.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
The auteur has crafted his own modern magnum opus from vestiges of the past.
— Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction
The experience isn’t seeing how the director reinvents the wheel, but precisely how he honors this timeless myth with an exacting, full-bodied vision in all its evocative, erotic, gory gothic horror.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
The familiar story gives the audience a head start, which enables him to sucker punch them with a film that, despite the prestige period trappings, offers a bracingly modern take on vampire lore.
— Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
Nosferatu’s script lacks the hook it needs to differentiate itself from the plenty of other Nosferatu and Dracula films that came before it.
— Sean Boelman, FandomWire
(Photo by Aidan Monaghan/©Focus Features)
Will fans of Robert Eggers be pleased?
This feels like something the writer-director has been working toward since his unsettling 2016 debut feature, The Witch… [It is] a superlative match of director and material.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
Nosferatu is Eggers with no filter. It proves that he’s a good match for the material, befitting his longstanding interest in making this movie.
— Joey Magidson, Awards Radar
Eggers has finally found the perfect vehicle for his brand of historically accurate horror period pieces. His typically minute attention to period detail is on full display, as is his knack for building atmosphere.
— Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
His latest is the ideal marriage of focused, character-driven frights of his first two features and the imaginative world of his Viking epic where no detail was left unconsidered.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
It’s the culmination of everything Eggers has been working towards in his career so far — for better and for worse.
— Katie Rife, AV Club
Nosferatu is so brazenly Eggers — maybe too brazenly?
— Matt Donato, Daily Dead
Where does it rank among his films?
Nosferatu is Robert Eggers’ finest work.
— Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies
The director’s fourth feature is his most assured and accomplished.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
Nosferatu is his best work. I never thought anything would surpass his first film, The Witch, in my book, but here we are.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
For me, The Witch is still tops, with this probably next in line.
— Joey Magidson, Awards Radar
(Photo by Aidan Monaghan/©Focus Features)
Is it scary?
It’s one of the scariest horror films of all time.
— Rosa Parra, The Latino Slant
It goes harder than any other horror film this year… If you’re not afraid of rats before seeing this movie, you will be now.
— Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction
There are a lot of scenes that will have viewers hiding behind their hands and watching through their fingers. Inherently scary, there is a lot about the concept of a human-obsessed vampire that is enough to terrify just about anyone.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
The director makes even that overused modern horror trope, the jump scare, truly shocking, not just something to be instantly laughed off. It’s thrilling to experience a movie so assured in the way it builds and sustains fear, so hypnotically scary as it grabs you by the throat and never lets go.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
It puts terror back into vampire lore… Though the film will not make you jump out of your seat, its intentional framing and design lead us to a naturally unnerving state.
— Brittany Patrice Witherspoon, Screen Rant
How does it look?
Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is so pristine in its vision of total darkness (and what lurks in the shadows) that the film should be prohibited from ever being streamed, where shoddy bitrates can never truly do justice to the nocturnal palette.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
The visual intoxication of Nosferatu cannot be overstated. Blaschke’s camerawork is spellbinding… Linda Muir’s costumes are superb.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
Blaschke’s use of moonlight and candlelight is unparalleled, giving the picture a bruising, throwback look.
— Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction
Aesthetically, this is the most impeccable mounting of a vampire film since Coppola did Bram Stoker’s Dracula thirty years ago. Using a 1:66:1 aspect ratio, Nosferatu will likely be a visual feast for those lucky enough to see it on an IMAX screen.
— Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network
The very last shot has remained ingrained in my psyche, and I think about it every single day.
— Rosa Parra, The Latino Slant
(Photo by Aidan Monaghan/©Focus Features)
Is there enough substance to go with the style?
You can’t deny how aesthetically and atmospherically impressive the director’s work here is — but it leaves something to be desired narratively.
— Sean Boelman, FandomWire
Eggers’s script isn’t always giving you quite as much to ponder as his direction, but there’s never a moment where you don’t think you’re in the hands of a storyteller executing his vision.
— Joey Magidson, Awards Radar
The screenplay is littered with dialogue that recontextualizes the story completely, making it feel fresh. The contemporary relevance of the plague that Orlok brings to Wisburg is unmistakable, a stroke of genius only outdone by his focus on the 19th-century female experience.
— Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
By the fourth or fifth scene of a character intoning while backlit in front of a roaring orange fire, Nosferatu starts to suffocate under all this ambiance.
— Katie Rife, AV Club
How is Skarsgård’s version of the Count?
As the terrifying titular figure, it’s Skarsgård who provides the pure, sinister nightmare fuel in this transformative role… It’s a sight to behold.
— Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction
Skarsgård, with his deep, dark Transylvanian accent and imposing build, makes for a terrifying Orlok.
— Chris Bumbray, JoBlo’s Movie Network
The rumbling aggression of his voice perfectly plays against the precise physicality of the performance – every movement has been minutely calibrated right down to his fingers – in an outward manifestation of Orlok’s past patience and increasing hunger.
— Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
A hauntingly terrifying performance… He is so commanding during his first appearance that his presence lingers throughout the movie, even when he is not physically present.
— Rosa Parra, The Latino Slant
It’s an incredible transformation, cementing the fact that Skarsgård should be recognized as one of our most versatile actors.
— Jeff Ewing, Collider
He’s a festering vampiric villain worth awards season consideration.
— Matt Donato, Daily Dead
If Skarsgård’s version has any equal, it’s Gary Oldman’s Vlad the Impaler in Coppola’s film, but before his transformation into a Kabuki-themed vampire.
— Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies
The less revealed about Skarsgård’s performance the better, but his heavy-breathing take on the lucifugous legend is so imposing and unrecognizable that I’d watch an entire documentary about how it came into being.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
(Photo by Aidan Monaghan/©Focus Features)
What about Lily-Rose Depp?
A transfixing performance… The movie belongs to Depp, whose performance is a revelation.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
Depp brilliantly illustrates Ellen’s inner turmoil.
— Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch
The beating, bruised heart of Nosferatu… In a film meant to exude a cold, chilling effect, Depp brings the most entrancing sensations of doom across the impressive ensemble.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
Depp gives a knockout performance… Horror usually gets shunned at the Oscars, but Depp is the latest in a string of horror leads that deserves the recognition, and very well could get it.
— Dan Bayer, Next Best Picture
She steals the film with her astounding physical performance… It’s a tall ask of an actor to keep an audience on side when they are constantly begging to be believed and battling unnatural behaviors, but Depp demonstrates impressive shades within her performance.
— Tori Brazier, Metro.co.uk
One of the year’s best performances.
— Jeff Ewing, Collider
Are there any other notable performances?
Hoult is nothing short of exceptional, delivering a razor sharp performance, balancing on the edge of sanity, love and peril.
— Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction
Willem Dafoe as Albin Eberhart von Franz appears to be having the time of his life in Nosferatu. Whenever he’s onscreen, he steals the show.
— Brittany Patrice Witherspoon, Screen Rant
It takes a while for Willem DaFoe’s Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz to show up, but once he does, there is no surprise that he steals part of the show as well.
— Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
As occult expert Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz, Dafoe brings a jolt of winking humor just when the film needs some brevity.
— Jordan Raup, The Film Stage
Alongside Dafoe, the standout of the supporting cast is Corrin… [who] breathes wrenching anguish into Anna’s unraveling.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
(Photo by Aidan Monaghan/©Focus Features)
Will this movie appeal to everyone?
Anyone who gets bored with this one either is unfamiliar with [Eggers’s] previous outings, has no patience for a story breathing, or just doesn’t get what he’s putting down. Being on the Eggers wavelength is key here.
— Joey Magidson, Awards Radar
Be warned that if you’re squeamish about rats, the plague-infested third act will have you covering your eyes.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
Does it make for great holiday viewing?
I can’t wrap my head around the idea that this movie has a Christmas release date, aside from the award consideration.
— Rosa Parra, The Latino Slant
It’s the sort of feel-bad holiday offering that cinephiles should go nuts over.
— Joey Magidson, Awards Radar
Steeped in dense atmosphere and macabre poetry, Christmas counterprogramming doesn’t get much darker than this exquisitely crafted fever dream.
— David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
93%
Nosferatu
(2024)
opens in theaters on December 25, 2024.
Thumbnail image by ©Focus Features
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