Spoiler-free review:
Rating out of 10: 9 and 1/2
Likes: the costumes, sets, soundtrack, the use of symbolism and the way this film not only understands its precursors and previous adaptations but is in conversation with them. But, likewise understands the genre it is in and its target audience (the vampire analyzers like myself). It is also thoroughly researched and gives every character adjacency within the story even though the narrative dooms several. It manages to respect the fictionalized historical time the characters are set in and also be critical and loving of its precursors while interrogating them. We need more adaptations by people who adore what they are adapting.
Critiques: I would’ve liked to see more of Thomas Hutter and Count Orlok’s relationship and also just see even more of Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), but I am a Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (Phantom of the Opera), Jonathan Harker (Dracula 1897) and an Albert de Morcef (The Count of Monte Cristo) person myself. So that is just my personal criticism – based on preferences. I have not seen a horror movie this strong in quite some time.
Spoiler review:
Nosferatu (1922) is a silent German Expressionist film and the first Dracula (1897 by Bram Stoker) film that we know of. Ironically, the 1922 film was almost lost to history when Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence Balcombe Stoker sued for copyright and had almost everysingle copy destroyed. Piracy saved this movie for time and it had a lasting impact on the artsy film director, Robert Eggers (The Witch, Northman, and Nosferatu 2024) who featured in an adaptation of the F. W Murnau film in college, later adapting it into a vampire horror and gothic romance about plague, religon, depression, fear of desire and/or sexuality, willful ignorance, male violence and cyles of abuse that enable harm to greater society (like censorship or Nazism, or having a known rapist as president of the United States).
Whilst I would not call Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) my vampire boyfriend, as I am Lestat de Lioncourt groupie myself, he does make the Count and vampires in general grotesque, whilst also being compelling and holding ones attention like a rope. The entire cast (Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe) do an brillant job in their parts and are exceedingly well cast. In addition the cinematography is like a Mary Shelley or German Romantic (1790s to early 1850s) painting. In conclusion, Nosferatu (2024) has a self awareness few forms of media have and is brillant film both as an adaption of Dracula (1897 novel), Nosferatu (1922) and of our society in the here and now.
“It was our wedding, yet not in chapel walls. The scent of the lilacs was strong in the rain… and when I reached the altar, you weren’t there… Standing before me, all in black… was… Death. But I was so happy, so very happy. We exchanged vows, we embraced, and when we turned round, everyone was dead. Father… and… everyone. The stench of their bodies was horrible… it overwhelmed the lilacs… and… But I had never been so happy as that moment… as I held hands with Death.” – Ellen Hutter, Nosferatu (2024)
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