Nosferatu

I initially found Nosferatu to be an acceptable, if underwhelming watch the first time I saw it. I think when you love a director's work, it's good to rewatch a film, unburdened by expectations, and see how you really feel.

I will say, I found myself liking Nosferatu a lot more the second time around. It's eerie, dreamlike nature is unsettling and really wraps you in. The larger-than-life power of the titular vampire feels like an omnipresent curse upon our characters and the town of Wisburg. Also, if you're a sucker for winter movies, this one does tickle that fancy quite well.

Speaking of which, this film, as expected, looks absolutely phenomenal from beginning to end. Not only is it wonderfully shot, but the costumes and sets just look fantastic. There are little nuances in how the characters act as well that are accurate to the time that I really appreciated as well. How, Nicholas Hault's Thomas Hutter, when confronted with his wife Ellen's (Lily Rose Depp) ravings, his immediate reaction is to ask her not to say these things again, rather than seek help. It's reflective of the repressive, image conscious times, and like many an Eggers film, reflects how deeply he cares about depicting the period accurately.

A lot of this works because of the tremendous performances by the cast, who really sell their period flair. Hoult is fantastic as usual, but naturally, it's Depp's incredibly physical and demanding performance that is the highlight. She is remarkable in this film and dispels any notion that her success comes (entirely) from her parentage. Bill Skarsgard truly melts away under unbelievable make up and costuming as Count Orlock. I found him even less recognizable here than as Pennywise. And you have heavy hitters like Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, Emma Corrin, and a surprisingly great turn from Aaron Taylor Johnson as well.

Yet, I still found Nosferatu somewhat hard to connect to. Skarsgard's incredible performance aside, I just found the talk of Orlock being this mythical, terrifying presence a bit hard to square with the somewhat goofy character he ends up being.

I'd honestly rather him have less lines and be seen less.

The final scene feels oddly anticlimactic; are we seriously going to act like "keeping Orlock awake long enough so that he forgets he will die if exposed to sunlight" isn't anything but lame? Really?

As much as I loved Depp's performance, I honestly wish we learned more about her character. The depth of her loneliness is never explained outside of one scene, and how she even managed to contact Orlock is a bit confusing as well. I felt like this relationship could've been expanded upon, which would've been legitimately interesting.

As it stands, I do have a higher opinion of Nosferatu than I initially did, but I still think it's easily Robert Egger's weakest film.

I was very excited to see this movie and finally went to see it. And it is....... Fine.

I've read other reviews saying it was beautiful and emotional but I honestly didn't feel very connected to these characters.

It also wasn't very scary. Very creepy! But not very scary.

The monster is constantly seen. He doesn't give me the creeps that the old Nosferatu still gives me appearance wise.

The actors are good but overall the majority of the film feels pointless.

The shaking of the characters particularly the lead is incredible and they do seem to show genuine dread. But again it felt like it was building and nothing happens. Also the ending is kind of just whatever. I think if the characters meant more to me by the end it would've been a good ending but also I kind of didn't care about the characters as they tell you intimate details about the characters which is why you should care but do nothing to build the characters so that you do care.

Lushly beautiful with fine period costumes, lovely cinematography, and a hard-working Lily-Rose Depp in thrall to the vampire, this adaptation of Nosferatu ultimately falls flat by too many hypnotized fits by Depp, too much exposition, and a villain that grows less interesting with every appearance until he finally appears looking like an undead Ringo Starr on a stretch-rack. Nicholas Hoult is commanding in the Jonathan Harker role and it's clever to cast Willem Dafoe in the Van Helsing role since he played Count Orlock in 1999's much better Shadow of The Vampire, but this ultimately lacks bite.

Robert Eggers made a significant impression with his 2015 directorial debut "The Witch", and has continued to impress me since. A reimagining of "Nosferatu" at his helm seemed like a dream come true, and after many years, it finally came to fruition with somewhat mixed results.

As with the original 1922 film and Werner Herzog's surreal 1979 remake, Eggers mostly honors the source material here. The original film itself was a blatant derivative of "Dracula," so anyone who knows the bones of that classic story will more or less already have the lay of the land in terms of what happens in "Nosferatu".

Firstly, the attention to detail here is impeccable; the period costumes and sets are dazzling, and the cinematography is top-notch, with repeated uses of muted grey nighttime sequences that border on black-and-white (intentional I'm sure, as an ode to the Murnau original). In the latter act, as rats and plague take over the streets, there is a palpable sense of rot that is highly effective. Given that Eggers has proven his excellence in these departments with his previous films, it is no surprise that the finer details and visuals are uniformly stunning.

As far as performances are concerned, we have a strong cast here. Lily-Rose Depp (whom I'd never seen in anything prior to this) gave a formidable performance as the haunted Ellen Hutter, who is pursued by Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard), a malevolent vampire whose connection to her is emboldened when her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is assigned to handle estate matters for the Count. Willem Dafoe is as spunky as ever here as an occult expert who attempts to help the Hutters, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin give effective performances as the Hardings, friends of the Hutters who oversee the troubled Ellen while Thomas travels to Orlok.

All of these aforementioned elements give the film a real leg up, and approximately the first half of it (largely consisting of Thomas's travels into Transylvania and first encounter with Orlok) are engrossing and beautifully contrasted with Ellen's "melancholic" (and eventually possession-like) episodes back in urban Germany. However, once the story returns its focus to the city, the film seems to stall its momentum. One of the notable differences in this reimagining is that the focus revolves more around the Ellen character (aptly named "Lucy Harker" in Herzog's version) and the Hardings, but the unfortunate thing is that it never feels like the audience gets to know them any better for it. This is especially so in the case of Ellen, whose character has a slightly different spin in Eggers's screenplay, specifically in terms of her relationship to Orlok. The result feels like something of a missed opportunity, and the proverbial stake is driven in even further when one considers the film's running time, which is considerably longer than both the 1922 and 1979 versions, and yet those films often feel more involved. There is a strange amorphousness about the 2024 version's latter half that left it feeling enervated, especially against the ominous and suspenseful first hour.

The film's conclusion will hold no surprises for those who already know the previous films, but Eggers's staging of it is nonetheless spectacular and visually effective--and this is a fact that remains true about the film as a whole. Unfortunately, it does stumble a bit in the latter half as it seems to attempt to expand the material without ever fully reaching a satisfactory fever pitch. All that being said, the film is a gothic visual marvel in its own right, upheld by stunning cinematography and uniformly solid performances. It is imperfect, but it is a showstopper in more ways than one. 7/10.

It is boring. The acting is way too much and ridiculous overacting. The crying, the terrified faces and behaviour all felt so overplayed and unnecessary. The scenes, images and costumes are very impressive but that's about it. I didn't like any of the characters, Lily Rose Depp and her husband are not my definition of beautiful or handsome. The count's "breathing" is very annoying too.

The scenes as individual images were really well-made. I like historical settings in movies but overall, the film felt pretentious and self-indulgent, trying too hard to impress without delivering real meaning or a real story.