Nosferatu Reawakened: Robert Eggers’ Gothic Dream Made Flesh
By Kiara Sangronis
There is something almost unspeakably seductive about Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu—a film that feels less like a remake and more like a centuries-old relic, still pulsing, still breathing. It is a fever dream that seeps into the cracks of your bones. Every frame is meticulously crafted, every detail sharpened to the point of obsession. The film doesn’t just tell a story; it casts a spell, one that lingers long after you’ve left the theater, like the scent of something rotten blooming beneath your seat.
Eggers’ vision of Nosferatu is an authentic and raw portrayal of the vampire mythos, one that mixes a fairytale with a horrific nightmare. His passion for this story dates back to his teenage years, when he performed in Dracula in a high school production that changed his life. It was then that he realized Nosferatu needed to be remade, and the idea lingered in his mind for over a decade. Though the film was originally set to be made ten years ago, this extended period allowed Eggers to refine every detail. Despite the heavy weight of expectations from fans of the original Nosferatu, or even Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker's Dracula, he has found a way to honor its legacy while making something entirely his own.
What makes Nosferatu so mesmerizing is how it distills said horror and romance into the same poisoned chalice. Eggers understands the aching allure of monstrosity, the way fear and desire entwine until they’re indistinguishable. The entire town seems to exist in a state of decay, their muted beiges and sickly pallor blending into walls that appear to be melting under the weight of time itself. And then there’s Ellen, played by Lily-Rose Depp, swathed in deep, defiant blues, an ember burning in the fog. She stands out not just in color, but in presence, like a woman already half-haunted, already chosen by something beyond the veil.
Eggers also has a way of making the past feel both immediate and utterly alien, and Nosferatu is no exception. This is a film that succeeds in its historical authenticity, in the grotesque elegance of flickering candlelight and the slow, deliberate unraveling of sanity. The horror here isn’t cheap or easy; it festers, seeps in, drips down the walls. It’s in the way Bill Skarsgard’s Orlok moves which is jerky and inhumane, a thing that doesn’t quite belong in this world but forces itself into it anyway. And yet, there’s something almost pitiful about him. He isn’t a Dracula of sweeping capes and tempting whispers—he’s a plague in the shape of a man.
One of the biggest challenges Eggers and his design team faced was making vampire stories terrifying again. In an era where vampires have been defanged by pop culture and reduced to emo romantics and glittering idols, the only way forward was to look back. Eggers dove into centuries-old vampire folklore, drawing from diary entries and recorded "sightings" by people who truly believed in these creatures. This historical approach grounded Nosferatu in an eerie authenticity, making Orlok feel less like a movie monster and more like a specter that had stepped out of ancient nightmares. To manifest this horror, Eggers and his team designed Orlok to embody decay itself—a maggot-ridden corpse forced into unlife. Skarsgard’s Orlok is hunched and grotesque, his fingers extending into unnatural claws. His costume, inspired by traditional Hungarian noblemen, while mixing the distinctive Transylvanian mustache—a crucial detail, as Eggers claimed that "you cannot find a Transylvanian nobleman without that mustache." These choices give Orlok an unsettling realism that sets him apart from vampires of modern cinema.
Eggers' commitment to detail extended to Skarsgard’s performance itself. To help him find Orlok’s voice and movements, Eggers created digital paintings of the character, using them as reference points for Skarsgard’s transformation. This visual guidance led him to an opera coach, helping him craft a voice that is chilling—a sound that feels as ancient as the legend itself.
The visual language Nosferatu brings forward is a haunted painting come to life. The interplay of light and shadow isn’t just atmospheric; it’s storytelling in itself. The contrast between Orlok’s corpse-like visage and Ellen’s radiant fragility is more than just aesthetic, it’s the push and pull of their fate. Then there’s Nicholas Hoult’s, Thomas Hutter, Ellen’s husband, who is a man tragically unaware of the world his wife inhabits. Eggers makes it clear that Nosferatu is Ellen’s story from the very beginning, a tragic love triangle between a woman, a monster, and a husband who cannot comprehend the depth of her torment. Through this, Eggers describes it as a tragic love story, a film that forces audiences to unlearn everything they think they know about vampires. In a world where vampire culture has been commercialized and romanticized beyond recognition—such as Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Edward Cullen, who later worked with Eggers on The Lighthouse—Eggers returned to the roots of the myth. His primary inspiration for the film, surprisingly, came from the comedic spoof Dracula: Dead and Loving It, a film that satirized the very tropes he deconstructs in Nosferatu. And yet, through all of its historical accuracy and gothic horror, this Nosferatu remains deeply personal, an unshakable dream Eggers has carried since his youth.
And so, Nosferatu lingers. It seeps into the folds of your mind, whispering to you in the dead of night. It is a film of sickness and beauty, of love and rot. Eggers has crafted something timeless yet otherworldly, a film that feels less like it was made and more like it has always existed, waiting, watching, biding its time. And now, like Orlok himself, it has finally arrived.
