Rating: ***
Review Date: 11/1/25
Director: Robert Eggers
Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård,
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Willem Dafoe
A young woman named Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) unwittingly awakens the evil spirit of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and now he haunts her nightmares. Orlok arranges for Ellen's husband, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), to visit his castle in the Carpathian Mountains to finalize a real estate deal, which is simply a ruse to get him out of the way. Orlok then travels back to Germany and unleashes a plague while he seeks out Ellen to possess her in the flesh. Meanwhile, Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson) and Prof. Franz (Willem Dafoe) are struggling to understand the nature of the plague, as well as the possibility of supernatural elements being involved.
The original "Nosferatu" (1922) was a loose and unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," with the names and setting changed, and the resolution completely rewritten. It's interesting that Robert Eggers chose to remake that version instead of the more familiar Dracula story, and as a result, I was constantly confused by the characters' names. It's a great-looking period piece with solid performances by the entire cast, but none of the characters are particularly interesting and nothing stands out as extraordinary - except for maybe a brief glimpse of Orlok's undead penis. While the film is rich in gothic ambience and moodiness, it doesn't go out of its way to be scary or overly gory, and prefers to revel in Egger's stylistic fever dream weirdness. The only real complaint I have about the film is its length. The pacing is so languid that after the first hour I was shocked and dismayed that it wasn't even half over yet. While most people say that it's a film about obsession and romance, I would take it a step further and say that it's about all of the horrible things a creepy old rich guy would do to rape a young woman. That said, your mileage may vary.