Our take
Nosferatu is impressive on all counts. On the acting front, you have Skarsgård performing a career-best—he’s been many monsters, but nothing as chilling and transformative as Robert Egger’s vampire. Hoult reliably delivers as a lovelorn broker thrown into the depths of darkness and torment, and then there’s Depp, the clear standout as she writhes, contorts, moans, and cries all in pleasure and pain. The sets are immersive (picturesque old Europe blanketed in Orlok’s creepy shadow) and the editing deceptively simple. You might be tempted to psychoanalyze What It All Means, but I suggest you just let the movie flow through through you like thick, dark blood. Submit to the darkness, like the film’s poster suggests, for a truly chilling watch.
Streaming arrival
What it won
Berlin
1 nom
The story
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
Elsewhere
"Its entwined torrents of pain and pleasure chart the boundaries of sensation in a buttoned-up age, and allow us back in the present to be scandalized by its raw, visceral (in the definitional, from-the-guts sense) hungers as if for the very first time."
— Charles Bramesco
"Robert Eggers brings fresh eyes and potent dread to Murnau’s silent vampire classic, but this Count Orlok can’t match the menace of the original."
— Kim Newman
Europe, 1830s. When Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) travels from Germany to Transylvania to close a real-estate deal with the feared Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), he discovers a demonic connection between his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and the nobleman.
Reportedly, Depp didn’t use CGI for the otherworldly contortions her body underwent, and Hoult had to brave through actual wolves. Perhaps a big reason their fear is convincing (Depp’s possession is particularly haunting, up there with The Exorcist) is because these actors were terrified themselves.
Don’t overthink it—it’s a truly terrifying film that’s both hard to look at and away from.
Who picked it
Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.
