Guess who’s Drac? Drac again?
It’s no small thing to resurrect a cinematic legend, but Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu manages to make the undead feel newly terrifying while paying overt tribute to its ancestors. For a film so steeped in the shadows of its own legacy, it remarkably finds moments to stand apart—though not without becoming trapped, on occasion, in the cobwebbed corners of reverence in its brooding tale of creeping horror, forbidden desire, and irresistible tragedy.
In 1838, young newlywed estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) is sent to a distant Carpathian castle to finalise a real estate deal for the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), his devoted but troubled wife, stays behind with friends. Unbeknownst to all but Orlok’s acolyte Mr Knok (Simon McBurney), Ellen and Thomas are the subject of a sinister conspiracy to bring Orlok’s dominion to the sleepy hamlet of Wisborg.
Count Orlok’s baleful visage remains a study in pure dread, a malignancy so intense it feels primordial. Bill Skarsgård, taking on the monstrous mantle, is mesmerising—his Orlok moves with an eldritch grace, his gaunt features betraying the hunger and hollow torment beneath the surface. Skarsgård’s portrayal treads the line between creature and tragic revenant, conjuring an eerie menace while retaining a subtle echo of the aching sorrow of the doomed, all enhanced by Eggers’ shrewd decision to keep him mostly cloaked in shadows and darkness until the very end.
Lily-Rose Depp fully commits to a captivating performance as Ellen Hutter, her character’s descent into gothic despair infused with subtlety and pathos. Her portrayal feels timeless, as though she belongs to the shadows of another era yet remains fresh in her vulnerability. Opposite her, Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter with a compelling mixture of naivety, horror, and reluctant resolve. His portrayal brings depth and dimension to a role that could have felt frustratingly hapless in less skilled hands.
Rounding out the ensemble, Ralph Ineson’s initially sceptical doctor undergoes a chilling arc of discovery, fuelled by Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz offers a restrained but magnetic intensity as the learned yet haunted proto-paranormalist while Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin deliver performances embodying the stiff-upper-lipped, mannered sense of appropriateness of the era that fractures then crumbles under the horrific onslaught of events, their initial reticent pearl-clutching eventually collapsing into a corrosively melancholic denial as they struggle to rationalise the unfolding horror.
The cinematography luxuriates in chiaroscuro compositions and painterly tableaus, evoking the silent film era without sinking into gimmickry. The production design seems steeped in mildew and myth, with Orlok’s castle a veritable museum of memento mori. Every creaking floorboard and candle flicker feels alive, a character unto itself. It’s an environment where dread seeps into the stones and shadows stretch far longer than they should, and even colour fears to tread too deeply.
Yet, even as it leans into vintage terror, there’s a restraint that keeps the film grounded—almost too grounded, at times. It’s here that Nosferatu wrestles with its dual identity: a candle-lit tribute to its predecessors and an attempt at rekindling a nightmare all its own. The film walks so closely in the footsteps of Murnau and Herzog that, at times, it risks becoming a ghost of a ghost—haunted not by spirits, but by its need to honour its lineage.
Nevertheless, Eggers’ Nosferatu achieves something rare: a horror film that thrives on both visual poetry and visceral unease. Its loyalty to the past is undeniable—and occasionally a limitation—but when it reaches beyond the legacy, it touches the sublime. A film that perhaps fears the audacity of complete reinvention, yet offers a sumptuous and sinister requiem for a story that refuses to stay buried.
