Nosferatu ★★★½

ROBERT Eggers continues to be one of the most interesting film directors working today.

Despite having just three features to his name since 2015, the quality, originality and audacity of The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman mean his latest has been keenly anticipated since 2022.

And now, on the first day of 2025, Eggers’ remake of the classic 1922 German silent film Nosferatu arrives.

This is another tour-de-force of film making with the American’s obsessive attention to detail and command of light and shade on display in every frame.

Apparently, FW Murnau’s original film was an inspiration for the young Eggers who made his own backyard video version.

For his grown-up, cinematic version, Eggers has retained a reverence for the both the tone and appearance of the original film and its source material, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.

Because Murnau’s film had to tell its story purely visually, Eggers is able to expand the story and give the characters more depth and emotion.

But it’s still primarily the stark and rich look of the film and its threatening and oppressive tone that give make it compelling on screen.

Bill Skarsgård is unrecognisable as the menacing Count Orlok, stalking the rooms of his Transylvanian castle, tormented by the supernatural connection he has with young English woman Ellen Hutter.

Orlok’s obsession leads him to entice Hutter’s lover Thomas to the castle, ostensibly to complete a business transaction but in reality part of a plot to enable Orlok’s safe passage to London where he will wreak havoc thanks to a group of devoted followers, including a scene=stealing, rat-munching turn from Simon McBurney.

Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe, who has now appeared in all of Eggers’ films, complete the exceptional casting.

If you appreciate horror in all its forms and/or extraordinary film making, make sure your New Year resolutions include watching Nosferatu at a cinema.

Watched at the cinema.