NOSFERATU
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“Nosferatu” Review Round-Up: Robbert Eggers Masterful Horror Sinks Its Teeth Into You

December 3, 2024
By The Credits

The reviews for writer/director Robert Eggers’ Nosefratu have arrived, and the auteur behind The Northman (2022), The Lighthouse (2019), and The Witch (2015) has delivered a masterful gothic horror. Robert Eggers delivers a “full-blown Gothic melodrama,” Empire Magazine writes. “A moody, stunning visual masterpiece, it’s the best horror film of the year and easily one of 2024’s best overall,” writes Collider‘s Jeff Ewing.

Eggers is a notoriously meticulous filmmaker—The Northman, The Lighthouse, and The Witch proved that—and critics say he’s brought that level of obsessive attention to detail to this tale of gothic obsession between the Transylvanian Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), the troubled young wife of husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), the man contracted by the secretive Transylvanian Count to find him a new home. “Eggers has unleashed a mutated strain of this terror in his Nosferatu remake,” The Wrap‘s William Bibbiani writes. “This Count Orlock is a gruesome monstrosity, gnawed on and gnarled, as repulsive as movie monsters get.”

A carriage approaches Orlok’s castle in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Count Orlok has plans that go beyond house hunting—his pull over the anxious, nightmare-racked Ellen begins to get Thomas’s attention as the depth of Orlok’s evil begins to surface. The Hutters then rely on help from Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson) and Professor Albin Eberhard Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) to fight Orlok before he becomes too powerful to match.

Eggers is perfectly suited to a deep gothic adaptation of the deathless story first created by Bram Stoker in “Dracula” than Eggers. Eggers is already a master of atmosphere, placing most of his adaptation in a hellish urban cityscape that practically hisses with the league. And with his stellar cast, critics say Eggers delivered a commanding, skin-crawling masterpiece. The lead actors are all coming in for plaudits, with Lily-Rose Depp wowing critics with a turn that “easily slides between innocent, erotic, and terrifying in one of the year’s best performance,” Collider‘s Ewing writes. 

Eggers works again with some of his favorite go-to collaborators, including cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, editor Louise Ford, and production designer Craig Lathrop.

Nosferatu is set to rise on December 25. Let’s take a peek at what the critics are saying below:

Featured image: Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

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The Credits

The Credits is an online magazine that tells the story behind the story to celebrate our large and diverse creative community. Focusing on profiles of below-the-line filmmakers, The Credits celebrates the often uncelebrated individuals who are indispensable to the films and TV shows we love.