Nosferatu (2024)

It was safe to say that Nosferatu would be a lot of things, the dark prince of film Robert Eggers has consistently built his reputation with one critical darling after the other. Films that burn slow on the wick and lap at you with its flame, thrillers that draw from the horror of the past but push with the intensity and lavishness of the modern filmmaking lens. Of course Nosferatu would be an eye-boggling take on the classic vampire fable with a dynamic cast of character actors, of course Eggers would not shy from feelings of viscera and disgust. And with this film it seems Eggers has finally done away with the damages of studio meddling that supposedly marred 2022's The Northman, the tight budgets of The Witch and The Lighthouse, fully able to revel in the indulgences of complete creative freedom.

But with that predictable gussy-up comes the dark plunge I and each character in Eggers's films must face, the horror of our reality; Nosferatu left me...disappointed. The terror set in after about the umpteenth bombast of flashing horror imagery and familiar string spazz dislodged the film's tone (as well as my eardrums). Nosferatu is simply too much. It doesn't share the strengths of the more focused, character driven thrillers I had enjoyed from Eggers and doesn't organically unravel the slow descent into madness it promises. There's no normalcy to corrupt, our characters start out infected and afraid, the cinematography rarely takes pause to hang on a moment and build dread. Always desperately searching for the next clever frame, the next bit of visual candy to sweeten the viewer's favor. And because of the frankly irritating frequency of jumpscares and loud cues, I was never really afraid of the titular demon or the scourge of destruction that followed him; instead I was always overly conscious of the editing and the sound design, always anxious that it was out to kick me again.

Eggers also seems to have traded a strong lead to anchor to, a trait present in his past three works, for an ensemble cast whose writing is stretched thin. I had constantly been asking myself who I was supposed to be invested in. The opening and finale suggested it to be Lily-Rose Depp's character; her performance certainly magnetizing, delivering hands down the scariest scene with some truly demented contortions. However her whole character seems to revolve around men who wrestle screen time away from her, even in her dying moments. What's truly irritating is Eggers's script tries to make her suffering at the hands of these men her defining trait, she's a woman whose emotions are constantly discarded. Yet he does so by...having other men explain that to us? Rather than naturally show us how the dynamics of her relationship with her husband evolves as the shadow of Nosferatu taints her dreams once again, there's a lot of monologuing that could have easily been traded for more scenes dedicated to those natural interactions. Unlike the focus Robert Pattinson, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Alexander Skarsgard get in their respective films, Lily-Rose Depp feels undermined even by Eggers himself.

It's only fair to point out that despite its similarities Nosferatu is going for a different tone from what Eggers has done in the past. It's more theatrical, more embellished and somehow has a grander scope than the Norse epic he had previously crafted. But for me it simply did not fit the film. I felt that the life of the characters had been sucked out and to get the blood pumping Eggers was more interested in building individual setpieces and moments. Sacrificing tone and pacing for a jam-packed joyride of indulgent tropes. Being entertaining is certainly appreciable, but when I look back on his works I don't just remember the imagery. I remember that feeling of being haunted, of being tangled in its characters' plights. Every film up to Nosferatu had been an exercise in doing the best with limitations, maybe the thing that will help Eggers stay buried in my mind is getting in that coffin once again.