Nosferatu (2024)
Directed by Robert Eggers
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
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6 films that influenced Nosferatu
What critics say influenced Nosferatu
Depp, on the other hand, as a woman possessed of an ancient evil, attempts to channel Isabelle Adjani in Possession on multiple occasions, but she just doesn’t have the chops to make her emotional disintegration anything less than hysterical and a big miss for me.
The latest in recent run of young actresses in horror films to channel Isabelle Adjani in Possession (although, ironically, not Adjani's performance in Herzog's Nosferatu), Depp gives an intensely committed, largely physical performance that requires her to contort her body like a gymnast, tear at her clothing, roll her eyes into the back of her head, speak in foreign tongues, and spend long stretches of the film in the throes of being violated by an unseen force.
Depp throws herself into the role, often literally, bringing an alarming physicality that invokes Isabelle Adjani's terrifying performance in Andrzej Żuławski's "Possession," a manic psychosexual film that seems to have greatly influenced what Eggers is going for here.
But not Adjani as Ellen/Mina, but rather the French star's iconic turn in Zulawski's Possession (1981).
It was only a matter of time before Eggers sunk his teeth into Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He approaches the vampire legend through the inky shadows of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent masterwork, which he acknowledges as a formative influence, with maybe a sideways nod here and there to the 1979 Werner Herzog remake and even to Francis Ford Coppola’s baroque 1992 retelling. Eggers’ Nosferatu, however, is its own mesmeric creation, a superlative match of director and material.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula remains one of the most adapted novels of all time, originating with director F.W. Murnau’s unauthorized adaptation and lauded horror classic Nosferatu. Nosferatu, for all the creative departures it took in an effort to mask its retelling of Dracula, inspired a slew of adaptations and spiritual successors of its own.
Nosferatu is Germany's unauthorized version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the finest example of eluding copyright if there ever was one.
The subtitle of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent feature Nosferatu—an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula that became a touchstone for both cinema scholars and fright-movie buffs—was true to its grandly German Expressionist vision: “A Symphony of Horror.”
As the title states, Nosferatu is a remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent German Expressionist classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror - which was based on Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" (and also inspired Werner Herzog’s 1979 version).
Despite that, I find Frankenstein a more rewarding experience than last year’s Nosferatu…
The entire trio are also making a comeback with impressive directors leading the charge, with Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman) giving Nosferatu a new spin, Leigh Whannell moving from The Invisible Man to Wolf Man and Guillermo del Toro behind the latest iteration of Mary Shelley's masterpiece (to the surprise of no one who has seen the Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Nightmare Alley and The Shape of Water helmer's past movies).
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In 2019’s The Lighthouse, he recovered and re-envisioned the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe by marooning two nineteenth-century lighthouse keepers in the same space as a tentacled Lovecraftian monster to better orchestrate a fever dream about fragile masculinity and the menace of isolation.
Eggers, who helmed "The Witch," "The Lighthouse," and "The Northman," is a filmmaker seemingly obsessed with the past. All of his films, including "Nosferatu," are firmly rooted in bygone eras, and the director has a knack for creating a sense of authenticity.
It is, you might say, the film he was born to (re)make, for the talon-prints of Murnau’s spectral frightshow are evident on Eggers’ first three period films, The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman.
Willem Dafoe, who has become an Eggers regular since their wild stream of consciousness film “The Lighthouse,” would seem perfect casting for Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz, an occult expert who is a new variation on the character of vampire hunter Van Helsing.
Since then, Eggers has gone on to direct both The Lighthouse and The Northman, two more historical tales that impressed audiences.
As he has displayed across his previous features – 2015’s The VVitch, 2019’s The Lighthouse and 2022’s The Northman – the technical finesse Eggers injects into his tellings prove meticulous in their brilliance, and Nosferatu is no exception.
Leigh Whannell moving from The Invisible Man to Wolf Man and Guillermo del Toro behind the latest iteration of Mary Shelley's masterpiece (to the surprise of no one who has seen the Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Nightmare Alley and The Shape of Water helmer's past movies).