The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors — Nosferatu

William J Hammon
7 min readJan 22, 2025

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One of the things I instantly appreciated about Robert Eggers’ remake of the 1922 horror classic, Nosferatu is that he really didn’t try to replicate the original. Sure, there are a couple of shots that are pure homage, like the sight of the bony, claw-like hand of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) casting an eerie shadow over the whole of the city of Wisburg. And obviously, the plot has to somewhat follow the first film with the same characters, otherwise you might as well just make an entirely new work and give it a different title.

But beyond that, Eggers goes out of his way to make this his own film, his own interpretation, of Dracula ‘s unauthorized adaptation. That goes a long way towards me respecting and even enjoying the picture, as part of the reason I hate remakes so much as a general rule is the absolute glut of them that add nothing of substance to the proceedings. Most of them are just a different coat of paint on the same flick you can watch for much cheaper in your own home rather than dragging yourself out to the cinema and forking over your hard-earned cash.

He uses multiple absorbing methods to get this new vision across. First is a shift in character focus away from Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult, giving a serviceable performance) to that of his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp). The film itself begins with a nightmarish scene in which a lonesome and forlorn Ellen pleads with the ethereal void to send a supernatural companion to ease her melancholy. This act of desperation seals the figurative and literal blood oath between Ellen and Orlok, broadening the context for Ellen’s distraught behavior later on. Thomas is of course still a major player, but this is much more Ellen’s film than his, or even Orlok’s.

That change in priority leads into the second major alteration, the subject of sexuality, particularly as it relates to women. The story takes place in the early Victorian Era, one of the more regressive periods when it comes to female agency and the discourse around romantic pleasure. Ellen is unapologetically a sexual being, one who not only enjoys herself as a matter of personal pride, but also one who depends on the stability of monogamy. When the main action of the story starts, and Thomas is sent off to Transylvania by his employer Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) to facilitate Orlok’s relocation, Ellen repeatedly begs him not to go, partly because she’s been having disturbing dreams about the vampire, but also because she feels so much more secure when in physical congress with her husband. It’s not just that she wants him to stay home, she wants him to stay in bed with her.

This creates an intriguing thematic parallel. Just as Ellen and Orlok are bonded through her youthful desire, so too are they alike in their personal instincts. Orlok feeds on blood to survive, while Ellen thrives on coitus. Essentially, they both want to subsist by draining Thomas, just through different orifices. The need to be sated, combined with the gaslighting of Ellen from the more traditional Harding family (Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Friedrich and Emma Corrin as Anna) ends up recontextualizing the plague rats that Orlok brings to Germany. Instead of feeding into the early 20th Century (and sadly very current) fear of foreigners “polluting” the homeland, this is, for all intents and purposes, a sexually-transmitted disease, and until the monstrous element is fully understood, the default solution is to take whatever measures are necessary to remove Ellen’s drive and desire.

Next are the design elements. Eggers is an expert at creating atmosphere and tension, even from threadbare resources. Just look at The Lighthouse. Here he goes for the creep factor in two major ways. The first is obviously Orlok’s design. Correctly deciding not to try to duplicate Max Schreck’s iconic look, this version of Orlok is not a pallid corpse in noble attire, but rather a gruff beast, growling every word of his deliberately slow-paced dialogue. I’m reminded of some droning heavy metal singers in his pace and timbre. As for his look, he’s closer to the Christopher Lloyd Rasputin from the animated Anastasia movie than the board-like albino elf from over a century ago. He’s dingy, hunched, covered in matted hair and clothed in matted fur, as if he’s halfway in between a man and a rodent, his full form only fully seen at the conclusion. The monster is never fully obscured, but given that the original Nosferatu was what established the pop culture lore of vampires being killed by sunlight, he is kept as much in silhouette as possible. Even in his own castle, as Thomas does his business with him (itself a great bid of moodiness, as the anodyne procedures of buying real estate are intentionally stretched out and padded to make every second feel almost excruciating for Thomas), the scenes are only lit by minimal candlelight, purposely making things difficult to see, but not in the cheesy way that many movies use to hide terrible CGI effects.

Furthering this is the overall lighting and color palette. This film isn’t shot in black-and-white, but for a good chunk of the runtime, it might as well be. There are almost no daytime shots, and only a few (the aforementioned castle hall, the Harding homestead, and anything involving fire) are lit in a way that shows off any detailed color. Apart from that, the bulk of the scenery is given a dark blue gradient filter that almost renders the visual profile as monochromatic. Basically, you have to really look to see anything other than highly-detailed darkness, which again, I think is kind of the point. We’re dealing with the occult, sexual repression, infection, mental illness, and the consumption of bodily fluids here. Does anyone really want to see that fully illuminated? Even beyond the basic defaults of gothic horror, some things just make sense to keep in the dark.

The final trick in Eggers’ bag is Willem Dafoe. Introduced about midway through the movie, Dafoe plays Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, a controversial scientist who is the only one to not just entertain but fully embrace the occult theories behind Ellen’s state of mind and Orlok’s threat. He’s very loosely based on Professor Bulwer from the first movie (who was in turn based on Abraham Van Helsing), but his role is so much larger and so much more bonkers than in the original. Deep down, we all know vampires aren’t real, and stories about them are just a bit of escapism for well-meaning thrills and chills, including Eggers. So what does he do? He casts Dafoe and lets him completely cut loose, leaning into that genre absurdity by having him act completely absurd, instantly buying all the chaotic and kooky conjecture about the Nosferatu in stark contrast to the more buttoned-down attempts to explain things rationally.

In that respect, it feels like Dafoe was the only one who understood the assignment when it came to the performances. Skarsgård certainly has his fun as Orlok, but he’s meant to be overly serious and dire to match his menacing design, and ultimately he’s closer to a MacGuffin than a fully-realized character. With Dafoe as Von Franz, you know exactly what he’s thinking at all times, what his basic motivations are, and how they relate to the big picture, and his physicality shows that he’ll do whatever it takes to get the needed outcome, heartbreaking though it may be. Everyone else, from Depp to Hoult to Ralph Ineson as Dr. Sievers, does well enough, but they’re much more utilitarian than anything else. They serve a larger artistic and thematic purpose, but they don’t leave much of an impression. Dafoe does. Even if Eggers hadn’t already used his insane talents to great effect before, there’d be a lifetime of work to prove that he was the exact ingredient needed to give things a proper shot in the arm so that the audience remains engaged in the story, rather than just the impressive visuals.

That’s what makes this version of Nosferatu the rare remake that’s fully justified and can stand on its own. We’ll always have the original, thanks to the tireless efforts of film preservationists, and you can literally watch it on YouTube for free right now if you’re in the mood for one of the truly great classic scares. Robert Eggers knew that it wouldn’t be enough to just simply make a “new” version of the story with some shinier parts. It had to be unique. It had to add something to the cultural and artistic conversation. Most of all, it had to actually be some form of, well, scary. He accomplished that here. It’s not terrifying by any means, but he finds those nuanced moments that strangely translate to the modern day and give new meaning to what we’ve seen before. That’s no small feat, even after more than 100 years.

Grade: A-

Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? Do you prefer this version or the original? What do you think went through Johnny Depp’s mind watching the ending? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!

Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on January 22, 2025.

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William J Hammon
William J Hammon

Written by William J Hammon

All content is from the blog, “I Actually Paid to See This,” available at actuallypaid.com

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