A One Mann’s Movies review of “Nosferatu” (2025).
My first 2025 released film – at least, my first actually first seen in 2025 – is Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” and what a cracking good start to the year. A real old-school gothic horror.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Nosferatu” Plot Summary:
Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) has been plagued with dark dreams since her teenage years when she innocently bound herself, sexually and fatefully, to the vampire Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Now fully grown and newly married to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), the dreams re-emerge with greater strength as Orlok manipulates Thomas to bring Ellen back into his world and physically consummate his relationship.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong horror, injury detail, violence, sex”. Note that with the violence and the dark, sexual nature of the material, this feels closer to an ’18’ than a ’15’ to me.)
Talent:
Starring: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, Willem Dafoe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Adéla Hesová, Milena Konstantinova.
Directed by: Robert Eggers.
Written by: Robert Eggers. (Inspired by the screenplay “Nosferatu (1922)” by Henrik Galeen and the novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker).
Running Time: 2h 12m.
“Nosferatu” Summary:
Positives:
- A magnificent brooding masterpiece of cinematography. Colour…. but not colour.
- Clearly a tribute to Murnau’s 1922 classic “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror”, it’s a wonderfully over-the-top gothic horror that had me both smiling and flinching from beginning to end.
- The cast are terrific with Lily-Rose Depp shining as the poor wretch Ellen and Simon McBurney deranged as Thomas’s possessed manager Knock.
- The ‘eating’ scenes are ghoulishly realised with not a neck in sight and wonderful (read: revolting) sound effects.
Negatives:
- Occasionally we stray into “Gollum” territory with Bill Skarsgård’s outrageously over-the-top accent.
- Willem Dafoe was occasionally at 11 on the camp-o-meter when I would have preferred him at a 9.
Review of “Nosferatu”:
Wow… this is something else to look at.
With a strong entry into the running for the 2026 cinematography Oscar, Jarin Blaschke – director Robert Egger’s ‘go-to’ DP – creates a stunning vision of the German/Transylvanian action. The film IS in colour, but at times you would be mistaken for thinking it isn’t. Most of the nighttime action takes place in glorious shades of bluey-grey. As with the very best cinematography, there are countless frames of this film that you would want to blow up to poster size and put on your wall to admire.
A tribute to a classic.
From the first time you see Nosferatu’s shadowy presence in Ellen’s teenage bedroom, you know you are in ‘fan-boy’ territory. Indeed, I just listened to an interview between Robert Eggers and Simon Mayo on Kermode and Mayo’s “Take” podcast. Eggers says he first saw the classic 1922 Nosferatu film, directed by F.W. Murnau and with Max Schreck in the lead role of Count Orlok, at the age of 9. It affected him deeply. So much so that he directed a stage version of the story in both an amateur and semi-professional form in his teens that set him on his career path. So you really can’t get much more fan-boy than that!
The film has a co-writing credit to Henrik Galeen, the writer of the 1922 film. This original was subject to a well known copyright spat between the film-makers and the estate of Bram Stoker. The Stoker family won: the reason for the co-story credit to Bram Stoker, even though “Dracula” per se is not mentioned. But regardless of its origins, this movie is a fine tribute. It manages to walk the thin line between Hammer House of Horror schlock and true blood-curdling horror.
Blood-curdling horror
On the horror front, Orlok’s feeding method – curiously, NOT via the jugular – is truly horrific . Hats off to the sound designers for accompanying the slurping with the most horrible sound effect imaginable! There are a few well-designed jump-scares that worked well. It doesn’t shirk away from being brutal either, given the horrific fate meted out to the two innocents played by Adéla Hesová and Milena Konstantinova.
There are moments though when the line between horror and farce was crossed for me. The unrecognisable Bill Skarsgård as Orlok has an outrageously slurred Transylvanian accent that reminded me of George Hamilton’s turn as the Count in the glorious 1979 parody “Love at First Bite”. (Scene: the blood bank. “I vish to make a vithdrawal!”). Once or twice, Skarsgård was so Gollum-like that I almost expected him to end his line with “my preccccccioouussss”.
Also, never knowlngly understated, is Willem Dafoe as the Swiss Van Helsing-like expert of the piece, Professor von Franz. Here he was playing it a bit too broad and OTT for me… even more so than his performance in “Poor Things“. I’d have preferred a slightly more toned down Dafoe.
But elsewhere the acting was terrific
The leads – Lily-Rose Depp and the ever-wonderful Nicholas Hoult – were both great. With Depp, it was sometimes difficult to know where the acting started and the special effects ended. There are scenes, for example when Ellen is having a possessed fit, where I felt SURE she must have been assisted by either VFX or some sort of mechanical contraption. But in the interview between Robert Eggers and Simon Mayo on Kermode and Mayo’s “Take”, Eggers states that Depp did all this physical work herself, with no SFX or ‘wires’ after studying hard at a dramatic form of Japanese dance. Which makes her performance all the more astounding!
Hoult is consistently great in everything he does. Here he gets the chance – yet again! – to be the (sort ot) right-hand man to the top-dog vampire. In 2023 (I musn’t call that “last year” any more!) he played the title role of “Renfield” to Nicolas Cage’s Dracula. I can only hope that there is a similar epic deleted dance scene in this film too waiting to be uncovered!
Also impressive as the possessed and mostly-mad pigeon-chewing realty manager was Simon McBurney. His deranged laugh at the beginning, generating little more than mild puzzlement from employee Thomas (Hoult), is just a foretaste for where his character is going to end up!
Summary Thoughts on “Nosferatu”
A splendidly atmospheric version of a classic horror tale that is a delight to experience. A fantastic start to my next year of cinema!
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Nosferatu”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nulvWqYUM8k.
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