Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu has to be one of the least likely “Christmas movies” ever. Released on December 25, it’s even set in the holiday season, but you may agree that this stunning remake of F.W. Murnau’s silent horror classic is more suited to the bleakness of January.
Since the movie’s release, online discourse has come thick and fast, with some viewers shocked to learn that Nosferatu is a “rip-off of Dracula.” Indeed, Murnau’s 1922 version was an unauthorized adaptation of the 1897 novel, and Bram Stoker’s widow took legal action that nearly led to the destruction of all prints of the foundational expressionist film. Today, the various versions of Nosferatu stand as evidence that no story is too familiar when you tell it in a bold, new style.
The deal
In 1838 Germany, real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) is eager to get a promotion so he can provide for his wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp). Little does he know that his ethereal new bride forged an otherworldly bond in her youth with a creature of darkness.
Thomas’ employer, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), sends him on a lengthy errand to Transylvania to finalize the sale of an estate in their city to the reclusive Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). When Thomas arrives, the villagers warn him frantically away from the Count’s castle, but being a go-getter with no access to Google Translate, he persists.
Meanwhile, back at home, Herr Knock is arrested for disturbing behavior, and Ellen begins having seizures that even her staid 19th-century doctor (Ralph Ineson) finds hard to dismiss as hysteria. He calls on the help of an old friend, Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe), a controversial Swiss scholar who believes in the spirit world.
But Orlok is a go-getter, too, and his plans to relocate to Ellen’s seemingly safe home city are already in motion.
Will you like it?
Eggers has been obsessed with the original Nosferatu since his teens, he told IndieWire in 2016, and even directed a high school play based on Murnau’s film. In that interview, soon after the success of his first feature, The Witch, Eggers said it felt “ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting” for him to take on the classic so early in his career. But eight years later (after The Lighthouse and The Northman), the filmmaker’s love for the original and for the Victorian vampire mythos shines through in every carefully wrought frame.
These days, when gothic has become “goth” and its insignia can be purchased at any Hot Topic, it’s easy to forget that the genre was born from late-18th-century sexual and political repression and their discontents. Eggers hasn’t forgotten. His depiction of early industrial Germany is dark, smoky and claustrophobia-inducing, as ominous in its own way as the dreamlike landscape of Orlok’s ruined castle. His screenplay is pungent with phrasing suggestive of a period novel: Knock calls Ellen a “nonpareil of beauty,” while von Franz tries to convince his skeptical friends that “We have been blinded by the gaseous light of science.”
This Nosferatu is revisionist in the degree of agency it gives Ellen, essentially making her a tragic protagonist. In this vampire and possession story in one, the wilting “victim” must save herself — and everyone else — after the men fail to accomplish much with their vaunted strength and rationality. Only the eccentric professor (a juicy performance from Dafoe) recognizes her powers, though he opines that they place her in the “lower animal orders.” The movie is full of scenes of gender and domestic ideals unraveling, with the fate of the family that hosts Ellen arousing particular pathos.
At the same time, however, Nosferatu defies modern expectations by taking us back to the days when bloodsuckers were hideous ghouls. Not only is Skarsgård’s Orlok not sparkly, but he’s the most physically and morally disgusting rendition of the monster yet. He lacks even old world manners, bullying and pulling rank on poor Thomas before proceeding to snack on his blood.
The movie doesn’t romanticize dark appetites, living corpses or aristocratic entitlement. Yet Ellen’s attraction to Orlok is undeniable. With her light-devouring eyes and perma-scowl, Depp makes us believe in the anarchic shadow self within. What modern viewers find most upsetting in this Nosferatu, I think, is the suggestion that natural and even innocent desires — Ellen initially summons Orlok as a hormonally charged adolescent — can lead down terrifying paths. The story hinges on a sex-and-death pairing that we may not be prepared to sit with these days, even though it’s familiar from fairy tales.
From its desaturated dreamscapes to its deft use of shadows (paying homage to the original) to its lush evocations of 19th-century prosperity, Eggers’ Nosferatu is a fully realized world that lures us inside. Horror fans may be split over whether the movie is too languid to terrify. But for those who fall under its spell, the dread is lasting.
If you like this, try…
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922; Crackle, Philo, PLEX, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Sling TV, Tubi, rentable): Various cuts of Murnau’s original are easy to find, but beware of colorization. Kino Lorber has a rentable restored version.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979; Crackle, Peacock, Philo, PLEX, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Sling TV, Tubi, rentable): Klaus Kinski plays a politer and even rather wistful count in Werner Herzog’s take on the story.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000; rentable): Dafoe goes way back with Murnau’s Nosferatu. In this fantastical drama about the film’s making, he plays star Max Schreck — who has a dark secret.
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2025.
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