Nosferatu Called "One of the Year's Finest Films" in First Reviews

16 hours ago

Newsweek

The first reviews are in for Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, and the critics have heaped praise upon this haunting reimagining of a classic tale, scoring it at 93% from 57 reviews on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.

Led by Lily-Rose Depp, Nosferatu twists Bram Stoker's Dracula story just as F. W. Murnau's original Nosferatu did in 1922, with Bill Skarsgård taking on the role of Count Orlok, a vampire whose infatuation with Ellen Hutter (Depp) causes untold horror.

Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Focus Feature

The film is set to hit theaters on Christmas Day, and the critics are saying it's worth the trip, calling it "a beautiful gothic nightmare" (Rosa Parra, The Latino Slant) and "one of the year's finest films" (Jeff Ewing, Collider).

"It's thrilling to experience a movie so assured in the way it builds and sustains fear," says David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter, "so hypnotically scary as it grabs you by the throat and never lets go."

Eggers is known for his twisted tales, dazzling audiences in 2015 with The Witch and hypnotizing them again in 2019 with the Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson-led The Lighthouse.

Ian Sandwell at Digital Spy says, "Nosferatu ends up being an excellent blend of the folk horror of The Witch and the grander scale of The Northman. In finally realising his passion project, Robert Eggers has treated us all to the best horror movie of the year."

Nosferatu is a multiple decades-long dream for Eggers, who has been trying to get his reimagining to the big screen for the length of his career.

"As his own master of the horror genre who set out to achieve a decade-plus passion project," says Don Shanahan at Every Movie Has a Lesson, "Eggers unleashed his vision in an unshackled and uninhibited way only he could accomplish."

Only four negative reviews pepper the Rotten Tomatoes page right now, with Peter Debruge at Variety saying, "Nosferatu builds to a tragic finale, but is weighed down by pretentious dialogue, somnolent pacing and weak performances, especially that of Lily-Rose Depp as the doomed damsel."

"It's ultimately a tonal problem," says Kevin Maher at Times (UK), "The film is so self-serious that it keeps stumbling into camp. It wants to be Murnau's original but Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein is in the way."

However, the overarching narrative of the first reactions seems to be that Eggers has hit the mark with his passion project, and we should all be excited to uncover its secrets come December 25.