DO NOT end 2024 without watching this movie
- Camila Domingues
- Dec 30, 2024
- 5 min read
I remember seeing the first teaser for the remake of 1922’s German silent movie Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, and my knee-jerk reaction was to roll my eyes. Is Hollywood running out of steam? There has been such in influx of remakes and reboots and reimagining and adaptations - it really does seem like the well is running dry, doesn’t it?
Well, I learned to not roll my eyes at remakes until I actually watch them.
For those blissfully unaware, Nosferatu is a 102-year-old German silent movie that should have ceased to exist decades upon decades ago. The original film was an unauthorized, unlicensed, and unofficial retelling of Bram Stoker’s famous book, Dracula. After heirs of Stoker’s legacy sought to have Nosferatu completely erased from history, a few copies of it survived and circulated the globe, forever changing gothic horror as we know it (and giving us an officially unofficial fandom).
Robert Eggers takes the already beautifully tragic tale of the innocent young woman who becomes the center of an ancient, evil entity’s obsession as he unleashes death and sickness and darkness over her land as he follows here there and does what every reboot aims to do but only about 9% of them nail: Eggers’ adaptation and rewriting of Nosferatu is the purest and most beautiful of love letters to its original gothic work.
Shot by shot, Nosferatu shows how to perfect an already wonderful piece of work. The framing, the color palette, the slow and dreadful camera movements purposely done to mess with our anxiety as the suspense grows, the focus on the actors and their faces, the few yet VERY effective jumpscares that sure, scared, but were gentle in doing so. It’s weird to explain, just let me get it out of my system. All in all, I was extremely impressed with how key elements that made the original 1922 movie such a massive influence in horror today were not just present but perfected.
The attention to details in this movie is unbeatable. The attention placed on completely avoiding Count Orlok’s face in the beginning stages of the movie when poor Thomas Hutter (perfectly brought to life by Nicholas Hoult) is sent to his lair to finalize Orlok’s move to a massive and abandoned piece of real estate in London is impeccably delicious. Everything is done to increase the tension. Who is this Count Orlok? Why does he sound like he could benefit from wearing Darth Vader’s mask? Why are his hands so old and… otherworldly? Why is he so insistent in Thomas staying? The music also swells and dies off at the perfect moments, with the camera angles focusing and relying on the actors’ faces and expressions, the shadows that overtake them rather than to show you what’s really horrifying them.
Speaking of shadows - the utterly iconic moment where Count Orlok finally enters Ellen Hutter’s room, with his extended hand casting a shadow over his entire way up to her, had me squirming in my seat out of excitement (and muttering about how this is so iconic to my poor fiancée next to me) just because of how well that scene was done, how perfectly the shadow of his hand guided us to the climax of the movie. And what a climax it was.
But a movie is only as good as its acting, and Nosferatu had the perfect cast.
Lily-Rose Depp amazed me. She has made a new fan out of me, and I am very impressed with her acting range. The convulsions and twisting, the insanely creepy faces, the dead eyes, the pain, the suffering, the melancholy - I felt it all through her. I will take the giant L and admit I had no clue Johnny Depp had a daughter and I had no clue his daughter was also an actress. She clearly displays her talent here, and we see that even with Depp being her father, her skills are her own and she deserves insane praise for her performance.
Bill Skarsgård is not of this realm. He is irrecognizable in this role but not because of lack of talent - the man embodies the horror and dread Orlok is meant to make the audience feel. His strong accent, his overpowering voice, his EYES, his HANDS. The man is everything in the movie. Sure, he’s making more of a name for himself and appearing in more and more movies, but you do not see Bill here. Here, in Nosferatu, you witness Count Orlok in the (very decaying) flesh. The movie toyed with our emotions for a while as it avoided showing us Orlok, but once we did see him in his glory, he was visually disturbing - and not just because of the giant Nosferatu dong we see in one scene. Because we do see a Nosferatu penis.
Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were more than eye-candy in this delectable gothic banquet. They served top-notch acting, especially on Hoult’s part. The man went from “hey, that’s the guy who plays Beast in X-Men!” to “oh wow, this is some intense gothic acting that I did NOT expect this man to display do perfectly” in three scenes. Corrin and Taylor-Johnson are beautiful together and I adored their characters and their arcs. Sure, disturbing necrophilia ending aside, it was done is such a beautiful and sorrowful way that it’s forgivable.
Willem DaFoe does what he does best - fuels the fire to the madness of the story, helps develop the story in a fun and slightly comedic way, as comedic as a tragedy can get. Loved him in this role, as well as the incredible Ralph Ineson and his soothingly deep voice. Man, I wish he’d read me a bedtime story. Or a page of the books I’ve been reading as of late (ahem, dark fantasy smut aka ACOTAR)… Hmmmmm……..
One thing audiences will notice from the get-go is the sheer amount of nudity and sexual content in this movie.
Those were very much not in the 1922 original (obviously, as it would have been quite the shock back then), and their addition in this remake makes the tale even more beautiful, honestly. And this is coming from someone who hates gratuitous sex scenes or nudity, having those in movie and shows just for the shock value or just to include nudity. This was not the case with Eggers’ Nosferatu. In this instance, the nudity and sexuality are part of what makes this gothic horror so entrancing. The nudity and mature content in this movie are indeed pure art. The shots and lighting for such scenes, the camera cuts, the shadows cast on body parts - it all adds to the symphony of what makes this film an instant masterpiece and classic.
Official Pixigonal Rating: 10/10
My personal feelings on the movie aside - Nosferatu is truly a wonderful piece of art. It has everything - a deeply rooted and solid plot, drama, emotional moments, scares, scenes that will probably disturb you later, beautiful cinematography, perfect acting, suspense.
Do yourself a favor and do not let 2024 end without you watching this in theaters. I’m seeing it again as soon as the chance presents itself.
Very well written and put into words!