Directed by Robert Eggers

The cinematic landscape is ever shifting, with new movies available every day fighting for the attention of audiences everywhere. Most movies become lost in this swirling torrent of content and are forgotten by popular culture, but a select few become pillars of the art form, one of those being Nosferatu (1922) aka Nosferatu: Symphony of Horror. Despite attempts to censor, silence, and destroy the film, it persisted, and remains to be relevant and often referenced by everything, even cartoons! Remaking this movie is always a tricky proposition, and even though there have been several of these remakes, horror aficionados tend to get…prickly about unnecessary remakes. Does this new version earn its spot amongst the already crowded list of quality Nosferatu remakes? Let’s get into it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nosferatu (2024) has a similar storyline to Nosferatu (1922). After being told of a real estate dealing that must be completed in person, Thomas Hutter travels to an old eerie castle deep within the Carpathian mountains. Upon meeting the gruesome Count Orlok, Thomas is concerned but eager to finish the deal and return home so that he may reunite with his new bride and begin the next stage of their life together. Count Orlok has other plans though, as he has some sort of mystical connection with Thomas’ wife Ellen, and sets in motion his plans to interrupt their happy marriage.

Usually I devote quite a bit of time to talking about the story, is it good/bad/ugly? Here, that doesn’t really matter as much because of course it’s a good story, it’s the story of Nosferatu (1922) and also basically the story of Dracula, but that’s a whole different legal matter. The story is good, but most people are somewhat familiar with it so I won’t dwell on it. What I will dwell on is the exceptional quality of the updating of the story and its pacing for modern audiences. Greater access to technology, effects, sets, and all that have allowed the transition of an 82 minute horror film into a 132 minute atmospheric slow burn horror film, the kind that’s more in keeping with what modern horror audiences would be looking for. It’s a great sign for a remake to note what the original did well and what the original did that could be improved on, and that alone makes this remake worth its remaking.

Speaking of its atmosphere, this is where Nosferatu really shines. Hanging over everything is this delicious ominous atmosphere that fills the screen with a foreboding presence that lurks just offscreen, in the physical form of Count Orlok. Count Orlok is frightening, naturally, with a grisly visage and grotesque mannerisms, but its not a grotesquerie of simply monsterhood, its something much closer to an uncanny valley effect. Orlok feels wrong in a way that’s both difficult to capture in film and also difficult to explain, and this wrongness is exacerbated by the frightening world that exists whenever Orlok is present. A harbinger of doom, death, plague, and anguish follow in Orlok’s wake, giving a cinematic weight to every scene he’s in, as well as every scene he’s absent. This is also just as much due to the excellent lighting and cinematography as it is to do with the performance.

None of that would have been possible  without an exceptional performance from Bill Skarsgard, who completely redeemed himself after his disastrous appearance in The Crow. Skarsgard channels an evil so pure that he disappears into the role  and becomes inhuman, and I would never have known it was him had I not seen his name in the credits. You can’t credit Skarsgard alone though, because Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult both delivered deep performances that cemented the emotional core of the narrative, Depp especially. I’d also be remiss to leave out Willem Dafoe, who can do absolutely no wrong and whose inclusion beefed up an already strong cast. Ah what the hell, everyone did a great job, I can’t think of a single performance, including the child actors, whose inclusion didn’t help propel the film to greatness in one way or another.

Nosferatu is the latest in a long line of excellent atmospheric vampire horror films. Yes, the original is still a masterwork of foundational horror. Yes, the modern remake is standing on the shoulders of giants. Erase all of that and this is still an exceptional movie that you don’t need to be a fan of the original to understand or enjoy, and that is a great thing in the bloated IP-driven landscape that modern movies exist in. If any of this sounds interesting, check it out, I don’t think you’ll regret it.