Nosferatu (2024): Atmosphere is everything

If movies were measured in terms of atmosphere, this one would receive the "Mariana Trench" rating.

Nosferatu
Written and directed by Robert Eggers
2024

Some movies live and die by the atmosphere they create, and if they do a good enough job, they can keep viewers hooked, getting them to live in a fascinating world and making them feel completely enraptured by the feelings evoked by what they’re seeing onscreen. And few genres require a memorable atmosphere like gothic horror. The original Nosferatu from 1922, which was directed by F.W. Murnau, set the standard for how that sort of story could be told visually, providing a gloriously dark, oppressive style and using his star, Max Schreck, perfectly to create a memorably horrific villain. If you’re going to remake that story, you had better be sure to get a director who is up to the challenge.

Fortunately, of the filmmakers who have come to the fore in the 21st century, Robert Eggers may be the absolute best at crafting atmospheres that are perfectly suited to the stories he tells. Whether he’s creating a dark, almost primordial forest for his colonialist characters to feel completely enveloped by in The Witch, a hauntingly isolated and desolate island where a couple guys can go crazy in The Lighthouse, or a cold-yet-volcanic Scandinavian environment that’s perfect for naked battles to the death in The Northman, he builds worlds that viewers can get lost in, even if doing so is an especially frightening idea.

In Nosferatu, Eggers does just that, establishing a gloomy version of 19th-century Germany that’s civilized enough to seem modern but not too distant from the medieval past. When Nicholas Hoult’s character Thomas is sent to close a real estate deal in Transylvania with the mysterious Count Orlock, it doesn’t seem like he has to travel too far to end up in a completely different era. But even so, it’s clear that he’s completely out of place among the townspeople who warn him about the dangers he’s going to face. When he does get to Orlock’s castle, he’s nearly quivering with fear as he enters its stone walls and endures the forceful commands of a lord who seems to have a supernatural control over his very soul. It’s a situation that’s so terrifying that it’s nearly unendurable.

But as compelling as Thomas’s journey is, we know that he’s really just a minor player in the story, just like Jonathan Harker in Dracula, the original vampire story that served as the inspiration for Nosferatu. Our real main character is Thomas’s wife Ellen, played by Lily-Rose Depp, who starts the movie worried that she may have inadvertently given her soul to the devil and spends the rest of it descending farther and farther along that path. She’s one of those gothic heroines who are drawn to darkness but afraid of what they’ll find, and while it takes a while before she comes into actual contact with Nosferatu, she still makes her plight compelling. Rather than doing a lot of swooning and fainting, she seems to respond with a barely-repressed sexual desire, and the seizure-like fits she sometimes devolves into are disturbingly orgasmic.

In a different movie, what Depp is asked to do here would be comical, a cringe-worthy example of over-the-top acting. But Eggers expertly builds his world here, filling rooms with gloomy shadows and bleaching all the color out of scenes until they are basically black and white, all while blasting ominously baroque orchestral music that sets the mood for melodrama. The feeling that Ellen gets as she hears Nosferatu’s voice is completely understandable, and her throes of agony and ecstasy almost seem like the sane response to a world that is steadily becoming more and more insane around her.

By the time Nosferatu has brought a plague of rats to Germany with him and set up shop in a suitably decrepit ruin, it only makes sense to bring on board another bizarre figure to combat him. Willem Dafoe appears well into the story as Professor Van Franz, a man who has been disgraced in the scientific world due to his research of alchemy and the supernatural. Dafoe is perfect for this role, giving it his all as he makes pronouncements about the unspeakable methods that must be used to fight an evil that can barely be comprehended.

And of course, there’s Nosferatu himself. He’s played by Bill Skarsgård, the current go-to guy for creepy, barely-human monster types, but while dressing him up as Max Schreck’s version of the character might make sense, Eggers doesn’t even attempt to recreate that look. Instead, he comes up with something completely new, making him look like the undead figure he is, with rotting flesh and a scowling, thick-moustached visage that is only barely glimpsed among the shadows where he primarily exists. As scary as he looks, his most memorable feature is his voice, a deep, thickly-accented tone that seems like commands being issued from the depths of hell. There’s some great audio work being done here, with his every word seeming to echo and resonate in the ears and minds of the characters, and, by extension, the audience.

If you’re willing to get on board with what Eggers is doing here, the movie is nearly impossible to resist. From the beginning, he builds a world that draws the viewer in, making us feel the attraction to evil and depravity that Ellen is experiencing, the terror and desperation that is plaguing Thomas as he just tries to do his job, and the fear, frustration, and lack of control that Ellen’s friends have as they try to figure out what is wrong with her. When the movie shows us Nosferatu’s evil influence through the shadowy silhouette of his claw-like fingers grasping above the roofs of the city, you can’t help but grin at the perfect simplicity of the visual. And when everything comes down to the final, horrific climax, you’re pulled right in, vicariously experiencing the mixture of terror, desire, and ecstasy that is evident on the characters’ faces. It’s gloriously beautiful and terrible in equal measures, and it’s a true example of a master at work. This is an amazing movie, and I absolutely loved it.