Benny Boo

2025-01-26 16:21:15

Nosferatu (2024) - A Rare Remake I Really Enjoyed

I have a pretty rabid dislike of remakes, reboots, and "legacy sequels" and anybody who starts learning about my taste in film quickly picks this up about me. However, I've never been done wrong by a Robert Eggers film yet, so when my best friends suggested we rent the recent Nosferatu for movie night on Friday I was definitely on board even as a big fan of the silent original who knew it'd be hard to live up to.

The film doesn't quite reach the heights of the original nor some of my favorite Dracula/Nosferatu films, however it quite succeeds in most categories as a really, really good film. The direction and cinematography was stark and incredibly spooky and atmospheric, the set design and in particular sound design is pitch perfect, most of the performances other than Lily Rose Depp who is a tad wooden are really great, Dafoe in particular is fantastic every second he's on screen. The film suffers a tad for lack of on screen action for much of its runtime, but it looks so nice and builds such a pleasantly suffocating experience that I rarely ever found myself bored even when they are just debating the veracity of The Occult. They probably could have made Orlock himself look more monstrous than he does, if anybody can find him remotely sexy (I've seen people who are into it) you are making a Dracula movie and not a Nosferatu, but the character design grew on me especially as they mostly keep him in shadow and indistinct.

Once again Eggers does not do me wrong and I will definitely end up rewatching this movie sometime in the future, happy to experience it with friends rather than by myself.