The New Movie of the Week: Nosferatu

In the early 1830s, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) calls out for a supernatural being to arrive and cure her loneliness, what answers her plea is a mysterious creature that makes her pledge her life to him for eternity.  Years later, Ellen marries Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) and lives in the small German town of Wisburg.  To gain the wealth he needs to properly raise a family and take care of his wife, Thomas accepts a commission from his employer, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) which requires him to travel to the Carpathian Mountains and meet with the eccentric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) who is purchasing a house in Wisburg.  Ellen, who suffers from some melancholia is left in the care of Thomas’ friend Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his pregnant wife Anna (Emma Corrin). After several days traveling and a strange night in the neighboring village to Orlok’s Castle,

Thomas begins making the trek to the castle on foot, but after dark, a driverless carriage arrives and takes Thomas the rest of the way where he meets the ageing and sick Count Orlok. Even though it is after midnight, they begin the signing of the papers to take over ownership of the Wisburg property.  Thomas, feeling uneasy in Orlok’s presence, passes out after cutting his finger slicing bread and awakes the next morning with bite marks on his chest.  His uneasiness continues and he eventually comes to understand that he is trapped in the castle with something more than human, he eventually does escape.

Meanwhile, Ellen has become unwell with vivid dreams of death. Harding has called Doctor Sievers (Ralph Ineson) who attempts to treat her with no success, so he brings in his old mentor, Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Defoe), who has been exiled from his university for his studies in the occult and alchemy.  Von Franz almost instantly realizes that what is happening to Ellen and that she is somehow connected to a  Vampyr a.k.a. Nosferatu.  A sickly Thomas returns on horseback and Count Orlok arrives in Wisburg on a ship carrying the plague.  Orlok needs Ellen as she is the one that awakened him years earlier, but she must agree to be with him of her own free will.  As more people within the town die, Ellen realizes that she is the only one that can stop Orlok.  While Sievers, Thomas and Von Franz are out of the house attempting to kill Orlok, Ellen invites him into her bedroom for one last encounter to end it all.

Nosferatu is a 2024 gothic horror film which is a remake of the 1922 movie of the same name, which is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The film was written and directed by Robert Eggers. The film was released in theaters on December 25, 2024, and received generally positive reviews from critics.  It grossed $158.1 million worldwide on a $50 million budget making it Eggers’ most lucrative film to date.  The movie was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 97^th Academy Awards which will air on March 2, 2025.

The original Nosferatu film was made by F.W. Murnau who wanted to make a Dracula film, but didn’t want to pay the royalties to the Stoker estate.  So, they changed some of the names and the location, but pretty much kept the story the same. After the film was released, they were sued with the lawsuit resulting in an order to destroy all copies of the film, but luckily a few copies survived, and were restored after the copyright on the book had expired.

The cinematography in this film is stunning and the overall atmosphere is appropriately creepy.  The movie was shot on 35mm film and used special filters to achieve the desaturated look. The costumes are both gorgeous and kept within the tone and time-period the film takes place in. Adding to the atmosphere is the score composed by Robin Carolan who shied away from typical horror music and focused on the sad and tragic elements of the film. The story is interesting, and the production has a good tempo and rhythm.  The script is well written with dialogue feeling true to the era it takes place in.  The actors, for the most part, are all very good.  I didn’t really like Skarsgård’s vocal cadence in the delivery of his lines.  The abnormal pauses hindered the overall flow of the film, in my opinion.  The storyline is purely a rip-off of Dracula which I have already mentioned, and it was kind of fun seeing what they kept and what they changed for each character introduced.  I know to a certain extent, there is a sexual aspect to a vampire sucking blood, but there are a couple sexualized scenes in this film including the climactic ending (no pun intended…well maybe a bit intended), cheapened the overall film, at least too me.  In conclusion, this is a visually stunning and sounding movie with some great performances.  Overall, it is a very well done and entertaining, with just a couple minor negative points.