David Farnor | On 15, Feb 2025

Director: Robert Eggers
Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson
Certificate: 15

There are people who make films and there are people who dunk you in them, letting you soak up every drop like a Hobnob in a vat of tea. Robert Eggers is one of the best dunkers around, plunging you into his bewitching brews until your crumbs are well and truly saturated.

The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman were all wonderfully hot concoctions steeped in permeating atmosphere. Now, Eggers’ knack for conjuring up a timeless period world is put to perfect, perhaps inevitable, use for this gorgeous retelling of Nosferatu. FW Murnau’s iconic unofficial reworking of Dracula still casts a long silhouette today – Eggers doesn’t so much step out of it confidently as embrace it with a darkly obsessive affection.

The story follows the familiar beats of Murnau’s original, perched somewhere between terrifying tragedy and yearning romance. Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas, a young, enterprising man in 1830s Germany, who is promised a promotion and a bonus if he takes on an opportunity: visiting the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) in – whisper it – Transylvania, to finalise the purchase of a crumbling manor in Thomas’ home town. The only problem? That means leaving his new wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), who’s been having strange nightmares of late. Oh, and his boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), is a crazed occultist already in thrall to the sinister Count.

There’s something almost funny about just how unavoidable the looming disaster is, as the odds are insurmountably stacked against Thomas – and Nicholas Hoult is a remarkable straight man amid a carnival of grotesquerie, finding endless ways to turn his face into a mask of shock and horror. The more Simon McBurney has fun dialling up the depravity, the more Hoult’s earnest fear grounds the escalating dread, so by the time Willem Dafoe turns up as the Van Helsing-esque Albin Eberhart von Franz – clearly enjoying wielding the biggest pipe known to humankind – things are just the right balance of camp, theatrical, heartfelt and chilling.

The ensemble cast bring concern and conviction, from Emma Corrin as Ellen’s unprepared best friend, Anna, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as her bewildered husband, Friedrich, to the always-fantastic Ralph Ineson as the brooding Dr Wilhelm. They all sink their teeth into the lyrical language of Eggers’ flowery script, but it’s Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgård who emerge as the story’s beating heart. “You are my affliction,” groans Skarsgård, with a booming, gravelly voice that sounds like he’s sucking on 5 pebbles at once. He’s almost resentful of his infatuation with Ellen, whose psychic call draws him to her with all the power of fate. Lily-Rose Depp, meanwhile, is hauntingly vulnerable and empowered as someone who is both caught up in the dark attraction of Orlok and mortally afeared of what their bond means. “Does darkness come from within or from beyond?” she muses, refusing to surrender without some kind of agency.

Accompanied by Robin Carolan’s tortured, portentous score, Eggers and DoP Jarin Blaschke weave a spell that’s altogether captivating. The flashes of grim horror are disturbingly gruesome, at odds with the handsome composition elsewhere. Achingly elegant cross-fades leave your mind wondering what it’s seeing, while the camera drifts through scenes without letting any human stay the central focus for long – it feels like the frame is always been summoned away by some unseen, beckoning voice. It’s a technique that immersed us in the world of The Northman and here brings a seductive quality to the absorbing melodrama. As the pictures lurch from fiery and saturated to drained of colour and life, we find ourselves suspended in a limbo of shadows that’s altogether intoxicating.

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