2025 is here, but 2024’s award season still rolls on! And now is when movies really hit their straps – most of the best movies of the year come out in Australia in January. I’ve seen teasers for Nosferatu, that warn “something is coming”, but they never reveal the monster, which is very adept marketing 👍 From The Witch, to The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers has established himself as a director not to be missed. Even The Northman, where we last met, and where I found that story to be a lot of the same-same to what I’ve seen previously, was still assembled at a high quality, and I shouldn’t let my personal knowledge overshadow that fact. Oh, and now we venture towards a creature that lurks in those shadows… Funny little segway from me there, he-he 😋
In 1830s Germany, Ellen Hutter’s newlywed husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is called upon by his real estate firm to secure a deal with an elusive Lord, residing at a secluded hilltop mansion in the foreign lands of Transylvania. This is the setup anyway, for what we will soon realise is that Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) is the one and only Nosferatu, described by some as an unholy demon, who’s wicked ways are seldom recognised in this current society. Nosferatu shares a secret connection with Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), and she warns of an impending danger, as Nosferatu will bring death and decay, in Eggers’ new gruesome dark fairytale.
Well, I think I mentioned this before, in my Renfield review, how I’m not familiar with the history of vampire lore and movies. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Lost Boys, and so on, are all movies that have escaped my current registry, as when I grew up, all I had was a side-eye on those sexy shimmering vampires of the Twilight series, and those heart-throb TV shows, The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Although, I know the original Nosferatu is the grand-daddio of the sub-genre, with that haunting black-and-white image of that figure in a doorway, fixed as a permanent symbol for filmic horror. I only write this because it’s important to say that my opinion on this movie’s story, comparably, can’t be as strong as others out there, while I did recognise familiar entrenched elements throughout, partly due to this being a popular story permeating surrounding media, even including The Simpsons 🙌 Does Van Helsing appear in the original Dracula or Nosferatu? Does the ghoul travel by crate across oceans in those source material too, or is that a nod to ‘Salem’s Lot, among other vampire-adjacent inclusions used to create this one cohesive world? These are the questions I’ve had to ask myself, and if this movie is an accumulation of all things vampire, then I think it’s done it with the right finesse, referencing these things and making it appear seamless. I also never realised how vampirism could be parceled up so neatly alongside the notion of demon possession, but it makes sense, and is super effective. We have Ellen convulsing and spouting sinister words like something famously depicted in The Exorcist. Even a few scenes with the two doctors, Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) and Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson), scrambling around for answers, reminded me of the investigation conducted by worried men in The Omen, where the entrance of a similarly demonic entity makes for a race against time, and the threat of the day.
In creating a tone, I personally found the result of Nosferatu to be quite bleak, possibly through a personal realisation that there might be an entire section of inquisitive storytelling that I’ve been ignoring, concerning Nosferatu’s defeat, and the love triangle established by this movie. Because we see Ellen as the magnetic connector, between a worldly and tyrannical bad boy in Orlok, and the naïve do-gooder like Thomas, brought about by a woman’s duality – a rawest sexual instinct on one side, and a desire for refined social commune on the other. And it’s up to the girl who flits between them, to defeat one in lieu of the other. Since Ellen must save the day, the movie makes the choice to be about girl’s absorption of danger, more than boy standing up to defeat evil with a simple brave stake to the heart, and at a guttural level it brought about in me a recognisable sense of helplessness. This story really isn’t uncommon – Dracula and his bride, beauty and the beast, Bella and Edward, and I suppose even remnants of Joker and Harley Quinn, all follow an attraction to the wild in the hopes that one can tame them. But Nosferatu makes the dynamic seem archaic, like an inescapable groove rich in history – a tale as old as time. I so easily recognise myself with the character of Thomas, the do-gooder oblivious to the deep rivets upholding the whirl, while, as I’ve gotten older, I do realised how all three archetypes in this love equations have their flaws to overcome. And we endeavour to understand more through art and cinema such as this.
Nicolas Hoult is fantastic. This is probably the best movie role I’ve ever seen him undertake as an adult, and I’ve been a fan of the guy since Skins. Now, I may not have seen every movie role he’s had since hitting Hollywood, but I challenge thee to find a better one – the upcoming Lex Luthor, perhaps? 🤔 I love how Thomas is shown to be weak of character, through continually being late, and with a meager understanding of duty, even foregoing his wife’s true desires, despite strongly held and noble intentions. Bill Skarsgård as Nosferatu is unrecognisable, and while watching the movie, I couldn’t care less who was inhabiting the character because Nosferatu is so striking, that the less known gives power to the figure on his own – if it weren’t for these reviews and the ease of Wikipedia, I may not have even investigated 😅 The supporting roles taken by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin could make for generic forgettable characters if in a worse movie, or filled by lower performers, but these two really add great depth to this movie, and show how Eggers has the ability to make every element work. And I’ll say it again; just how lucky is Willem Dafoe in this current landscape? In just the last few years alone he’s played so many varying characters just through getting on board with the likes of Eggers, Lanthimos, and more. He has truly become Hollywood’s most sought after and accountable actor, and he seems a guy who has a lot of fun. Lily Rose Depp also has a few moments to really shine, but I just wish I knew more of her work for comparison.
I recently come to the realisation that I can quibble over story a lot in these reviews, and am able to, because we mostly expect movies to be of a high technical quality these days without issue. It takes a special production to note it’s particular beauty, and it probably happens six times a year where I’ll make a point to mention it; but rarely are modern movies ugly (spare for brutal CGI). This time last year, I was visually dazzled at Poor Things, for a design and execution so striking, and Nosferatu is absolutely eloquent in the same vein. The scene alone where Thomas first happens upon the horse and cart to take him up the terribly darkened driveway leading towards Count Orlok’s castle, is so black and cold, picturesque as if drawn in charcoal. I have a feeling that that visual will stick with me for some time now, throughout the year. I don’t suppose most of the visual imagery in this movie is done by computers these days, but the movie is still so brilliantly designed, and conceptualized, in both its gothic horror elements, among haunted city shots and beach views. It’s a beautiful movie 💖 If I were to find a negative, it would be that some of the scenes aren’t as significant as the majority of the rest, but that’s such a finicky criticism to make when there is an extensive story to relay, and not everything can be a symphony, swinging for the fences. I believe this is Eggers’ best film – it’s a full-bellied narrative compared to that of his earlier work, and comes together completely in both story and theme. I may feel like a novice to the work at play, but take the benefit of the doubt where I’ve been harsher before, while Nosferatu gives me further pause to think about. A few more jump scares than I usually like, but at least the audience is on their toes, expecting suspense from the very beginning, and we are never far away from another intense Nosferatu close-up coming in our face. Perfect marks ahead! 2025 has commenced with a surge.
5.0
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