It has been a little over six months since I saw and reviewed Robert Egger’s gothic remake, Nosferatu. I was devastatingly disappointed that the movie was ruined by main character Ellen, and I wrote an absolutely ruthless review. Now that I have had time to cool down — and the rest of the world has had time to not only watch it, but have the initial release hype finally die down — I am looking at it with fresh eyes to see if I feel any different about it.
And for the most part, I feel more or less the same. That said, I do want to expand on a few points, the first being our thoughts on period pieces. People view period pieces looking at the film from the present time (in this case, 2024). Today, there is extremely little support for teen marriages and overall toxic relationships (rightfully so). The early 1800s were different in that women were property and often were married young. Grooming and sexual assault were more common and/or more accepted for these reasons, unlike today. While Nosferatu hinted at these themes throughout the movie, I had the sense that the audience was very unapproving. Let me be absolutely clear that I am also unapproving of grooming, assault, and the like. There can be a problem though when people can’t stay in the 1800s period mindset; like me, people can harp on one specific thing that may or may not actually be relevant to the story as a whole. In this case, it was Ellen’s supposed naïveté.
Which brings me to another point that can actually be attributed to a lot of different movies. Count Orlok is himself a supernatural creature, but Ellen and most of the other characters are not — they are human. Humans are faulty and can certainly have negative features like anger, jealousy, and narcissism. Not everything needs to be attributed to evil, and here, Count Orlok’s power over the Wisborg community. Case in point: Ellen is in one scene belittling her husband, the audience saying it is solely because she is cursed and/or possessed. In my mind, she is just being a bitch. Did we forget that Ellen likely has true power over Orlok, being able to rouse him from the darkness, reaching out spiritually with her mind. Like I said in the first review, she’s just mad she started a problem she can’t (or doesn’t actually want to) fix.
And we don’t know why this is. Is it truly her youngness and not having to deal with hardship such as this? Is she simply a narcissist and expects things to be done for her, using her frail femininity as a crutch to gain sympathy? Does she feel guilt for dreaming of her encounters with Orlok, silently wishing for it all to come true? Who knows, but with a movie as detail-oriented as this, I think is doesn’t give enough credit to the filmmakers saying “it’s just because she’s cursed.” There are layers to every story.
Now that that’s out of the way, I can speak on more positive things. Since Nosferatu is originally an unlicensed film about Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, I appreciated Eggers keeping some aspects of local folklore and the original Nosferatu and Dracula films in this iteration. For example, the Romani people based at the bottom of the mountain Count Orlok lives on were done in spectacular fashion. Everything from their clothing to their dances, chants, music — just everything — was done with brilliant beauty and mysticism. Even Hutter’s meeting at the crossroads was a scene I distinctly remember.
The same can be said for the overall ambience, costuming, setting, etc. As I’m writing this, it’s about 90 degrees outside. Just thinking of the crisp winter hellscape that is Nosferatu is enough to cool me down and think of putting on a sweater. There is some slight discourse of the costuming being a little too clean, but otherwise it was a gorgeous recreation of 1800s fashion. I am happy to say Nosferatu was a sensory experience that I did enjoy.
But alas, I am still mad at the movie. Something so beautiful, so engaging, so revolutionary does have some issues that perhaps could be tweaked. But don’t let that stop you from watching, if you haven’t already. Horror movies should make you feel, whether that’s a positive feeling or a negative one. I still adore the concept of Nosferatu and the work that went into it; I just have a bone to pick with it.
