If you know anything about the 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu, it’s probably the iconic image of actor Max Schreck. In his role as the vampire Count Orlok, Schreck didn’t play a suave nobleman decked out in evening wear. He plays a monster, a near-feral creature with a ratlike visage. Nosferatu features one of the earliest and most indelible performances in the history of horror.* It was also a ripoff.

You see, Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” was quite a sensation upon its publication in 1897. So much so that, after the birth of the film industry, the novel was considered to be an excellent candidate for adaptation. While it was famously adapted in 1931 and made a star out of Bela Lugosi, the short-lived studio Prana Films jumped the gun nine years earlier. During the production of Nosferatu, the filmmakers didn’t worry about minor details such as securing the adaptation rights. They just altered character names, changed the main location from London to Germany, spent every Deutschmark of their low budget, and prayed for success.

On the one hand, Nosferatu became iconic. It put director F.W. Murnau on the map, made money, and cemented vampire lore for generations. On the other hand, Bram Stoker’s estate sued the living hell out of Prana Films. The estate won, and a judge ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. As so often happens with vampires, some prints survived the judicial staking and entered cinematic undeath.

I saw a copy of one of those prints during an entertaining evening when my father profanely struggled to thread a movie camera. Director Robert Eggers also saw the film as a child. It made quite an impression on him. In fact, it ignited a love of film, and Eggers dreamed of a chance to not only make his own films but to remake a classic with his own stamp. Eggers got that chance. His Nosferatu honors the 1922 original, and is arguably a better film, to boot.

Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) are young newlyweds. In their 19th-century German town of Wisborg, the two lovebirds anticipate a long life of happiness. Ellen, for one, deserves it. She’s spent years dealing with mental health issues, the kind of thing a male doctor would characterize as “melancholy.” It all began with a childhood encounter, or a dream, involving some kind of ancient evil. Now, those struggles seem to be finally lifting from her, until they come slamming back down. 

Thomas is an estate agent at his law firm, and he’s angling to climb the ladder in order to give his beloved the life she deserves. His boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), tasks him with an errand. Thomas is tasked to travel to the mysterious land of Transylvania, and meet with the shadowy Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard), an especially lucrative client for the firm. Does it mean anything when Herr Knock behaves strangely toward Thomas? Nah, it’s probably fine!

Thomas tells Ellen his voyage will take at least six weeks. While he assures her it’s the smart move for their future, she sees nothing but ill portents. There’s something familiar she senses, something awful. It all becomes debilitating, and when Thomas departs, Ellen stays at the home of her beloved friend Anna (Emma Corrin). Emma’s husband Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) somewhat resents the presence of this somewhat unstable guest, but as he adores his wife and their twin daughters, he relents.

Things don’t go much better for Thomas. He arrives in Transylvania and is immediately mocked by the Romani locals for being an ignorant rube. Grudgingly, the locals put him up for the night. The next morning, he awakens to discover he’s alone in the village, and he’s missing his horse. So he trudges through the bleak wilderness to the imposing Castle Orlok. The master of the house receives him, and Orlok is eager to sign legal documents transferring ownership of a crumbling mansion in Wisborg to him. Is it the beginning of a nightmare of plague, horror, and murder descending across the land? Nah, it’s probably fine!

So…look. I’ve been doing the film critic thing long enough to be comfortable with not just a take, but a Take.** To my mind, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is the rare example where a remake surpasses the original. Part of it is the almost pathological obsession with detail, from costumes to sets to props, where it often feels like film equipment was transported back in time to 1836. Part of it is the vivid cinematography by Jarin Blaschke. Inky black shadows contrast with flickering candlelight. A shadowy hand glides across a cityscape. The imagery on display is absolutely gorgeous. And part of it is the carefully calibrated pacing. It sprints when necessary, and lingers when needed. That’s because Eggers understands that, at its core, gothic horror is just horror and horniness squashed together. 

As the screenwriter, Eggers honors the original while pushing the story in more interesting directions. If you’ve seen the OG Nosferatu, Dracula or Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a number of the story beats will feel familiar. In those instances, the Count becomes obsessed/infatuated with his solicitor’s bride through sheer coincidence. That makes the character of Ellen/Mina little more than a passive bystander. Eggers tweaks that, and in an opening sequence, shows that Ellen has been on Orlok’s mind since her childhood. Throughout nearly all of her life, she’s grappled with Orlok’s elemental influence, and that change in the script’s perspective makes Ellen more active and interesting as a character. That commitment toward smart characterization applies to all the major roles, and it fleshes them out effectively.

Speaking of the major roles, holy smokes are there some top-tier performances here! With this, Juror #2, and the upcoming The Order, Nicholas Hoult is having a great year. As Thomas, he begins as the traditional stiff upper lip Englishman and ends as someone so profoundly damaged, he can barely keep it together. Lily-Rose Depp absolutely goes for broke as the object of Orlok’s inhuman affections. Ellen grapples with repulsion and repression, someone fighting against a force using her sexuality against her. Willem Dafoe, as per usual, nearly steals the show as Professor Albin Everhart von Franz, the Van Helsing-esque mentor of Ellen’s doctor, Siever (Ralph Ineson). Dafoe is wildly entertaining, and he plays von Franz as a man who’s dealt with so many strange things for so long that he nearly doesn’t have time for everyone else’s disbelief.

And then there’s Bill Skarsgard as Orlok. Many actors playing a role like this will reflexively riff on performances that came before, particularly the most iconic. Skarsgard’s Orlok is wholly new, and something that never feels like an imitation of Schreck, Lugosi, Oldman, or Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire. Here, Orlok is literally undead, a creature barely holding onto the tattered remains of what he once was. Skarsgard contrasts Orlok’s vampiric nature with his Transylvanian nobility, but it’s a nobility that feels closer to a war chief than an elegant dinner party guest. His performance is a series of smart and bold choices, and they add up to something indelible.

Most of the time, a ripoff is forgotten. Audiences see through its cheap cynicism, and treat it with the same amount of seriousness as a Big Mac. Sometimes, though, a ripoff can lead the way to something improbably special. That’s what happened with Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, and his adaptation*** must be considered to be in the top tier of vampire movies and one of the best films of the year.

*For an entertaining take on the making of Nosferatu, check out the very good Shadow of the Vampire. The premise is that, for the sake of realism, Max Schreck was a real vampire hired to play a movie vampire. 

**Years ago, I gave a good review of Joss Whedon’s Justice League. I’m no stranger to occasionally questionable takes. And, yes, I feel differently about Justice League.

***My wife and I pondered, is this only an adaptation of the 1922 film or is it also ripping off Stoker’s estate like the original? Turns out that since the original Nosferatu is in the public domain, it is now royalty-free.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.