Nosferatu Parent Guide

The charming medieval town of Wisborg in Germany has changed little from its founding ‘til the present year of 1838. Large stone churches and leaning wooden buildings dominate its crooked, rainy streets. Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), is an aspiring estate agent, and his employer has offered him a tempting opportunity to sell one of those old stone ruins to a foreign Count, a sale which would secure Thomas’s future with the company. Having recently married and needing to provide for his wife, Ellen (Lily Rose-Depp), Thomas takes the chance despite the necessity of undertaking a six-week trip across the Carpathian mountains to deliver the documents to the Count. Ellen objects to the lengthy absence, but Thomas assures her that he’s trying to establish a future for them both.

At first, things go poorly for Ellen. Despite the care of good friends, Ellen’s health deteriorates. Old medical issues recur and she starts suffering from melancholy, seizures, and terrible nightmares that see her sleep-walking, frightening her hosts with tales of imminent death and spectral monsters.

Meanwhile, Thomas’s meeting with Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) is both disheartening and terrifying. His employer described the Count as an eccentric; he would have better described him as a madman. Thomas finds him severe, intimidating, and incredibly odd. He sleeps, after all, in a coffin full of grave dirt and rats in the basement of his castle! And worse, Thomas has just sold him a home in the town to which he ardently hopes to return.

If you had not already guessed, Nosferatu is an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. When German filmmaker F.W. Murnau set out to create 1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, he changed the names of the characters moved the tale to Germany to avoid copyright issues with the then-25-year-old novel. This film is no different, maintaining Murnau’s new names and locales, and preserving in every other sense the details of Stoker’s enduring story. The major difference comes with the ending, which has reinterpreted some of the ideas in the original – not necessarily for the better

I’ve really enjoyed Robert Eggers’ other films, and had high hopes for this, which is always a dangerous thing to have. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. I don’t want to get lost in the digressive weeds on the differences between terror and horror in Gothic storytelling, but the film gives plenty of both. The camera lingers exactly where you don’t want it to, moving too quickly when you’re desperate for it to slow down, and crawling when you can feel something looming in the endless shadows just out of frame. It’s a masterclass in creating unease and dread.

It is also, obviously, an adult film – much like the original, many of the story’s themes have to do with the space between lust and bloodshed, that creepy crawlspace between seduction and disgust. Accordingly, the film features repeated scenes of sex and nudity as well as frequent bloody violence. In keeping with the conventions of the time, however, the characters rarely swear, and there is only brief social drinking and smoking. I appreciate that historicity – Stoker’s novel has endured so long for a reason. It has content issues enough without adding any, and the fear comes more from the approaching something; the fear on the wind. The film has followed that lead, and for the same reasons, will likely find a suitably bloodthirsty audience. Myself included.