Rating: 9/10
The vampire you kept hearing about in your film classes is back on the big screen, but now he’s horny?
You read that right.
A remake of the 1922 film, “Nosferatu“ is brought back to life thanks to visionary horror filmmaker Robert Eggers. Eggers has made some 21st-century horror classics like The VVitch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, but this film goes bigger than those with a budget of $50 million.
Sticking very closely to the plot of the original film, Ellen — Lily-Rose Depp — is called by Count Orlok — Bill Skarsgard — at a young age to be committed to him, which she accepts.
Fast forward a couple of years and Ellen is married to Thomas — Nicholas Hoult — as they try to upstart their life. Thomas is sent on a trip to Transylvania to complete the purchase of a home for a wealthy guest, which turns out to be Orlok. The film gradually paces itself like a magnet, two forces pulling Orlok to Ellen so they can be together, even if it means Orlok possesses her. This leads to Orlok terrorizing their town and Ellen being dealt a difficult decision on what she must do to save herself, Thomas and everything she wants to keep.
The biggest thing this movie has to offer is its star acting talent.
Lily Rose-Depp has been on a thin wire recently. After her work in the abysmal HBO series “The Idol“ and her work in the unwatchable film “Wolf,” she needed a performance that would keep her out of acting jail. Not even being a nepo-baby could’ve saved her from what was bound to happen.
She acts like her life is on the line in this film, which it might well be. Committing to an act as singular as this is a heavy task, but she does it with flair.
Holt and Skarsgard are also excellent in this film. Skrasgrad was unrecognizable as Orlok, his costuming and prosthetic work completely transforming him into this petrifying and physical vampire, which he embodies greatly. Holt’s performance is devastating as he’s trying to prevent something he can’t do by himself, and you feel his desolation through the screen.
Sadly, these performances will be grouped with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s performances in “The Substance” for “Performances Snubbed for an Oscar Because It Was in a Horror Movie” — again, Academy, please prove me wrong.
Eggers’s ability to completely immerse you in his world should be commended more. In contrast with how Christopher Nolan makes films by taking an expansive idea and narrowing it down to a simple story, Eggers takes a simple story and expands it through world-building. From his shot composition to the mise-en-scene, you’re being transported to their world.
His use of horror is so interestingly placed. Rather than multiple jump scares throughout the film, it’s used to build up scenes as it reaches its conclusion. Once the train arrives at its end, the lack of horror alters the audience’s expectations and gives way to ending the film in a less horrific way and more like an epic. It’s a spectacle.
But honestly, why is this movie so horny?
As someone who likes seeing sexual motifs displayed in movies, I feel that this is unnecessarily done here. In the 1922 version of this film, Orlok is a skinny, almost twig-like creature. His motivations for doing what he does are for survival, not just pleasure.
But in this remake, Orlok is pursuing Ellen akin to how girls want a nerdy boy to yearn after them, and we aren’t really sure why. His muscular body towers over Ellen in scenes like the film is insinuating that she wants to be dominated by him, which feels out of place with the film’s other themes.
Am I watching a Wattpad story? Am I reading smut?
I feel so boomer-ish expressing my dislike for sexuality in film, but nothing other than the “Twilight“ movies should be sexualizing vampires — especially a horror movie about a vampire terrorizing everyone.
This film also feels very long. It’s paced in a way that it wants to lead to its conclusion, but halfway through you feel stuck and want the film to hurry up to get to where it needs to go. But when it gets to the ending, it’s glorious.
I am not for remakes. I wish there were fewer and more original stories. However, this is the outlier. Taking a well-established director with a distinctive style and giving him a classic film to adapt is a recipe for success. Eggers is proving to be one of the best directors alive, and this film shows his mastery as one of 2024’s best horror films.
Just cut back on the horniness.
Joshua Abraham is a kinesiology junior and opinion writer for The Battalion.