Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is an inescapable and unrelenting nightmare. From the first frame, a gothic dream state of dread and absolute fear envelops the screen, refusing to grant a reprieve until the final credits roll. Already cementing his place in horror film history with his masterful 2015 feature length debut, The Witch, Eggers takes charge of F.W. Murnau’s vampire classic and molds it into a darkly sexual tragedy of the macabre that takes its place as one of the great horror films of the past few decades.

Since the debut of Murnau’s 1922 masterwork (an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula), there have been countless screen depictions of the famous bloodsucker. Studios from Universal to Hammer and filmmakers from Werner Herzog (remaking Murnau’s film in 1979) to Francis Ford Coppola have taken a shot at bringing Dracula to the big screen. Even Marvel comics gave the undead count his own comic book series. By now, it would seem that no new life could be given to the well-told tale, but Robert Eggers has made something truly unique. This is not a straightforward adaptation and expectations should be left at the door. Where Murnau’s film was an expressionist vision, director Eggers makes his Nosferatu more unnerving and dangerously intimate, painting this one as a chilling mood piece where the fingers of death are constantly closing their grip.

The film begins by putting the audience directly into the nightmare. Out of the darkness, the terrified and crying face of Ellen Hutter (a tremendous Lily-Rose Depp) is calling out to an angel to save her from her loneliness. It is not a “light” that will come to her, but the most vicious and menacing darkness. A devil of the undead, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) appears as a monstrous vision, seducing Ellen and forcing a pledge that will bond the two for eternity. 

Appearing in silhouette and shadowed lighting design for much of the film, Skarsgård’s performance will become horror-movie legendary, as he doesn’t seek to mimic the work of Max Shrek in the 1922 version, nor does the actor continue that style visually, as did Klaus Kinski in Herzog’s version. Eggers and his makeup team have designed their vampire as a creature who wears a fur cloak to hide his decaying flesh and one that sports a full mustache to give only the slightest trick that he may be human. The actor is completely unrecognizable, using a heavy accent and speaking in a deep, commanding, voice that echoes centuries of blood and death; working extensively with an opera teacher to train his voice to go lower. Eggers and Skarsgård have made their Count Orlok a frighteningly repulsive monster whose seduction of Ellen is through manipulation of the mind. With his animalistic groans and oppressive presence, Count Orlok is the literal shadow of the man no longer remembered. Inside and out, Bill Skarsgård’s brilliant portrayal is all his own. 

Nosferatu’s plot follows the Stoker tale fairly closely. In 1838 Germany, Ellen’s newlywed husband (and personal salvation from her dark pledge to Count Orlok), Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) is tasked by his deranged boss, Knock (Simon McBurney) to Transylvania. he is to broker a real estate deal with the mysterious count, who is coming to the German fishing town of Wisborg to spread his evil and (once he discovers the identity of Thomas’s wife) force Ellen to make good on her vow. Orlok keeps Thomas a prisoner, draining his blood and wanting to soon dispose of him.

While Ellen, Thomas, and Orlok are the trio who are forever tethered to eternities of pain, the characters who surround them are touched by the vampire’s plague of death. 

While Thomas is away, Ellen is put under the care of his friend Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife Anna (Emma Corrin). While there, Ellen becomes possessed with the evil of Count Orlok, as their psychic connection is unbreakable. Lily-Rose Depp is mesmerizing, as she uses everything in her acting powers in an explosion of pulsing sexual desire and body/facial manifestations of foreboding and melancholy and animalistic desire. Ellen’s convulsions are fueled by a fight for control of her soul and are ablaze with sexual rage. The physicality of Depp’s performance is stunning and her grasp of Ellen’s tragic emotional core is heartbreaking.

Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Eggers mainstay, Ralph Ineson) tries his best to get the bottom of what is happening to Ellen, but realizes he must relinquish his worldly medical knowledge and consult with his old teacher, Professor Albert Eberhart von Franz (an all-in Willem Dafoe), an alchemist who studies the occult. It is von Franz who knows that Nosferatu is coming for the city and only he and Ellen realize what has to be done to stop him. As it will come to pass, lust could be the savior of humanity. 

Eggers’ direction is methodical, as he does not begin with a dramatic noose that slowly tightens over the course of the film. As Nosferatu opens, the noose is as tight as it can be and never loosens. The director infuses each moment with the weight of the most crippling dread. Nearly every shot composition is filled with pure fear and horror. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke shoots in a monochromatic style that gives the illusion of Black and White, while making the bold reds of the blood more impactful. 

Craig Lathrop’s production design gives the film an artful gothic motif as Blaschke’s camera fills the frame with castles, mountain villages, and the shipping city of Wisborg; all suffering some form of decay. It seems the entire countryside has become a grave.

The film is impeccably crafted. Eggers and his team have created some of the most evocative horror imagery in some time. Their combined work puts the audience  face to face with what creeps in the shadows.

The visual nightmare is blanketed in a score as terrifying as the titular monster. Robin Corolan’s compositions are bold representations of fear, anxiety, and impending death. The eerie strings play over the horror like Orlok’s long fingers moving over his victims, while the choral outbursts build with the orchestra to spine-chilling effect. 

Eggers (who also penned the screenplay) has given Nosferatu resonance in its thematic design. For the city of Wisborg, and especially for Friedrich, Anna, and their two innocent daughters, to ignore the warnings of the coming plague will send everyone into a world of darkness. Whatever one believes, if the signs are everywhere, perhaps a suspension of disbelief could lead to a deeper understanding of the danger. As our modern world moves into the unsure new year, the ominous clouds of doom are not just on the screen.

With its supreme design, impeccable cast, and disarming intimacy to the terrors held within, horror cinema has found itself with a new modern classic.

Nosferatu is an immersive cinematic experience and a ravenous bacchanal masterpiece of absolute terror. 

Nosferatu opens Christmas Day in theaters everywhere.

Nosferatu

Written and Directed by Robert Eggers

Starring Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, Aaron-Taylor Johnson, Emma Corrin, Simon McBurney

R, 133 Minutes, Focus Features, Maiden Voyage Pictures, Studio 8