'Nosferatu' (2024) Movie Review

There’s a great deal to admire in the latest rendition of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 horror classic (and unofficial Dracula adaptation) Nosferatu, the long-simmering passion project from Robert Eggers. It’s exquisitely mounted down to the most granular detail, features several fantastic, committed performances, and is stunning to look at. But for all there is to appreciate, it fails to move the needle or elicit much of any reaction beyond a shrug.

 

I should be primed or this; I am the target audience. Murnau’s film is one of my all-time favorites (I have a big-ass tattoo of star Max Schreck on my leg), I adore Werner Herzog’s 1979 reworking, and I’m a fan of the director’s entire body of work (The Witch, The Northman, The Lighthouse). But I’ve watched it twice now and it does absolutely nothing for me, and I don’t entirely understand why.

 

[Related Reading: 'The Witch' Movie Review]

All the pieces are in place. The aesthetic of 1800s Germany is spot on. Eggers is such a meticulous, detail-oriented filmmaker, the costumes and sets are fastidious in their construction. The shadowy sepia-toned picture creates an unusual, out-of-time sensation—it feels like a black and white movie without actually being in black and white—and to paraphrase the friend who watched it with me, every frame is staged like a damn painting. It’s truly a beautiful film. 

 

Nicholas Hoult is great as the kind, earnest hero, Thomas Hutter, driven to the brink of madness and destruction by his encounter with the mysterious Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgard). Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen, Thomas’ melancholic new bride, is the real standout of this cast. She goes all-in portraying the effect of her lingering psychic connection with the Count. This iteration thankfully gives her more agency and self-determination than previous incarnations. Aaron Taylor-Johnson has fun playing Thomas’ stuffy, skeptical BFF and benefactor, though he’s still a charisma void. Skarsgard’s Orlock is admittedly a bit silly and overwrought, with a thick, hissing grumble of a voice and a substantial handlebar mustache that, while accurate to Bram Stoker’s novel, makes him look like a meth-dealing biker. But Willem Dafoe’s Professor Von Franz steals the show as a cooky old weirdo occultist, and Dafoe devours every line with glee. The final shot is something to behold for sure. 

 

[Related Reading: 'The Northman' Movie Review]

You look at Nosferatu and it should work, it should be spooky and atmospheric and tense, it should give you chills, it should make your skin crawl. Instead, it commits perhaps the greatest sin a highly referential movie like this can commit, it makes you wish you were watching another movie. Herzog’s version in this instance, from which Eggers cribs mercilessly. (Or even Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Dracula.) Outside of being gorgeous to gawk at, it doesn’t bring anything new or particularly interesting to the table from a narrative or thematic perspective.

 

I appear to be on a bit of an island with this one, critically, but it left me nothing but cold and mildly disinterested. You should, of course, watch and judge for yourself, and I hope you love it, but I simply never found Nosferatu 2024 to have much of a pulse.