A remake of a retelling of a literary classic might not appeal to everyone. To some, it may seem like it was made by a money-hungry director looking to cash in without needing to put much effort into making a film. Despite this, a closer look into Robert Eggers’s retelling of Nosferatu reveals the exact opposite.
Eggers has made this film into a passion project, one that emerged over a 10-year-long period. Eggers, who has nabbed four Oscar nominations for Nosferatu, has said that he has been intrigued by the story of Nosferatu since he was a child. He fondly remembers watching the original 1922 movie, directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck, on a VHS tape. Even as a child, he recognized that it was not the peak of movie techniques and cinematography. However, it made for a memorable viewing experience that lingered within his mind. His childhood fixation fueled a desire to replicate the original movie’s unique storytelling and intriguing characters that existed in the world of Nosferatu.
The script for the movie was originally written by Eggers in 2015, with Anya Taylor-Joy and Harry Styles set to portray protagonists Ellen and Thomas Hunter. While Taylor-Joy fit the Victorian-era look, she dropped the project due to scheduling conflicts. Harry Styles (thankfully) followed suit. In 2022, it was announced that Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult would take over the lead roles.
Long before they set foot on set, Eggers knew what, or rather whose, story he wanted to tell. In the previous adaptations of Nosferatu, the story had been centered around Thomas. Eggers wanted to shift focus onto Ellen and tell her story. In this version, Ellen is a haunted woman who has been under the control of Count Orlok/Nosferatu (Bill Skarsgård) for years; she eventually defeats her demons once and for all.
By making this one slight change, Eggers already began to dramatically change Nosferatu from the multitude of previous incarnations. In horror, especially vampire films, women are often used as sexual scapegoats and aren’t given the chance to be properly fleshed out as characters. So, for Eggers, re-creating a movie that was made just two years after women gained the right to vote in the U.S., to change the perspective from husband to wife, and not make that character’s entire personality about being a wife, represents a stark difference.
The film begins with a shot of Ellen years before the main story happens, praying; a voice starts talking to her in an old, ancient language. It is quickly obvious that this is Count Orlok and the shot ends with Ellen on the ground outside, convulsing rapidly. In the present day, she is an intensely anxious woman, despite later admitting that since she met Thomas, her visions of Orlok had subsided in years since.
Thomas, for his part, makes a desperate move to impress his new boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney, in a role that displays his incredible range). He leaves Germany and heads to Transylvania, where he is supposed to finalize a real estate deal for the old, soon-to-be retired Count Orlok’s home. However, everything is not what it seems, which Thomas soon realizes before he even steps foot onto Orlok’s property.
Ellen, meanwhile, is placed into the care of friends, Anna and Frederich Harding (Emma Corrin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Like Ellen, these two characters become more complex than they were in previous movie incarnations, having the chance to shine through the screen—Anna as a good friend to Ellen, and Frederich as a skeptic to Ellen’s words. While there, Ellen starts having nightmares, much to Frederich’s detriment. Soon, Professor Albi Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), who went from doctor to dark arts expert, enters to help.
Artistically, the movie is striking. Nosferatu levels up from the backing music in its source material. Purposefully melancholic and disorienting, the sound design and soundtrack work in harmony to force viewers to feel as if they are being hunted by a notorious vampire.
Damian Volpe, the movie’s supervising sound editor and sound designer, aimed to cut through the rich score with silence, echoing the gothic hush of the original silent film. In one pivotal scene between Ellen and Orlok, which would be a spoiler with excess description, many visual elements are crammed into the 35mm shot. Though there is an abundance of visual stimuli, the distinct sound of fabric shuffling snaps the focus of the audience onto the sly movements of a certain undead icon.
Volpe uses the sound of breathing as a plot device and it is genius. The jagged breath sounds of Count Orlok are deeply unsettling and a little gross. But that’s the point. That’s what he is. The chiffony breathing of Ellen while she accepts the Orlok’s comfort is one of the first pieces of human sound in the movie. As the film furthers, Orlok gains more control over her subconscious and the effect her presence has on other characters. In one scene where Ellen and Thomas are sleeping, she rests her head and hand on his chest. His breath catches and he lay gasping for air until he shoves his wife off their bed. Feeling helpless in comforting her husband, a quick shot of Count Orlock snarling lets the audience know who’s really in charge.
The composer for Nosferatu, Robin Carolan, had previously worked with Eggers on his 2022 epic The Northman. Ever-faithful to his nostalgia, Eggers restricted Carolan to just the use of an orchestra to create the score. The soundtrack is exceedingly eerie. It is chock-full of horror-film music keys; minor keys, abrupt dynamic contrast (“Come to Me” has jumpscared Elena every time she’s listened to it), and loads of dissonance are essential to the genre and to Nosferatu. At several points, the audience experiences what Eggers describes as “absolute atonal hell.”
Eggers’s influence on Carolan’s composition can be seen in the pieces that remove themselves from the creepy themes. “Daybreak,” the eight-minute track from the end of the film, is gorgeous yet tragic. It takes themes from both Orlok and Ellen’s musical themes and adds big motifs, almost resembling music heard at a wedding. Though church bells ring in the background, the tragedy of the relationship manifests itself in the melody. The meshing of the pair’s musical themes brings home the idea that Ellen has been consumed by Orlok and that he now has complete control of her.
Though the film was shot in the Czech Republic, mainly on soundstages, a dark and distinctly Germanic environment is created to house the two main characters. The introduction of Transvlyania as a place of primality and confusion creates an eerie feeling that an evil is lurking within the pair. The Oscar-nominated cinematography is absolutely top-tier, with shots outside of Orlock’s castle making everything about him feel larger than life.
But the movie isn’t just pretty to look at. It’s invigorating to look back and observe every choice cinematographer Jarin Blashcke, who has worked with Eggers four times, made during the course of filming. When it’s time to film outside shots, the movie feels expansive but also isolating. The gothic town Ellen and Thomas live in feels creepy, even when the movie hasn’t progressed long enough to give you the reason to feel that way. With snow lying on the street, rats crawling throughout the town, and despair in the air, Blaschke is that good at making viewers not just enjoy the movie, but feel like they are living it.
Another thing important to highlight is the love that is shared between Ellen and Thomas. A lot of horror movies, especially those set in times where women were seen as baby-makers and nothing more, will have the male love interest be misogynistic, abusive, or just plain unlikable. However, with Ellen and Thomas, their love is special. Ellen stopped having her visions of Orlok when she met Thomas, and Thomas only left Ellen to go to Orlok’s castle because he would get a promotion that would help improve their lives. Even though at first he does not believe Ellen a great deal about her past experiences with Orlok, once he himself experiences the vampire’s wrath, he quickly realizes his wife was a victim to a monster for years. As a result, he tries to rush home to her.
Meanwhile, without Thomas with her, Ellen’s mental state deteriorates. When Ellen encounters Orlok for the first time in years, he attempts to use Thomas against her, telling Ellen that if she does not give into her dark desires, he will kill Thomas. Their love helps showcase that there is one thing stronger than the darkness Orlok cloaks over their Germanic town: the lightness found in the love they have for each other. Ellen and Thomas spend the runtime of Nosferatu fighting demons, but also fighting for their relationship and the happiness that comes with said relationship.
In an age where many parts of Hollywood feel lazy, Robert Eggers and the actors at the frontlines of this movie remind us that there are still people with a true passion for filmmaking. Robert Eggers didn’t make this movie because he wanted a fat paycheck. He made it because, inside of that award-winning director, there is still that young boy. That young boy fondly remembers watching the original movie on a faulty VHS tape, dreaming to one day write a new adaptation. One where a woman isn’t subject to misogynistic horror tropes, but instead, portrayed as someone who has lived through trauma and how she conquers that same trauma, no matter the consequence.
