Nosferatu 4K 2024 Extended Cut Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Würzburg, 1838. Despite the misgivings of his wife Ellen, who has been haunted by visions since childhood, Thomas travels to eastern Bohemia to close a real estate deal with the eccentric old Prince Orlok for the sake of promotion. The man becomes the prisoner of the treacherous prince, who turns out to be a blood-sucking undead, and meanwhile Ellen's affliction becomes more and more like an obsession.

Review 4K Movie

This year has been quite a 'crop' of Nosferatu movies. Before I could get away from David Lee Fisher's version, Robert Eggers' version had already come out. There is a colossal difference between the two - primarily in the budgets and scope of the production.

Robert Eggers is known primarily for creating an oppressively dark atmosphere and the aesthetics of the frame. He is first and foremost a good visualizer. And in his version of 'Nosferatu' he hasn't changed himself.

The only problem is that there is too much darkness in the frame - especially in the first half of the movie. The movie even begins with darkness, with Ellen (aka Mina in 'Dracula') appearing in the background. It is clear that it affects the oppressive atmosphere, but on the other hand - it lacks some emotional intensity. It's just one continuous darkness. And the oppressive atmosphere often replaces Eggers' plot dynamics (my personal opinion).

It's worth mentioning that the advertising campaign for the movie kept the appearance of Nosferatu himself a secret. In the movie he is not shown at first - only a silhouette. Then he is shown several times in darkness, and only in one scene he can be seen in full - in a very symbolic scene. And in this version Count Orlok also wears a mustache - because of what more corresponds to the image of Vlad Tepes (before that only Christopher Lee depicted Dracula with a mustache - in the 1970 film adaptation). And he looks like a real decomposed corpse - which, of course, is much more consistent with the image of a vampire than the 'glamorous' vampires in many modern movies.

Bill Skarsgard played the title role perfectly (by the way, as soon as I first saw him in 'It', I thought he would be perfect for the role of Nosferatu). He repeatedly speaks Romanian for the whole movie - that only Gary Oldman did before him (even Skarsgard's voice and accent are somewhat similar). The only thing is that when Hutter (aka Jonathan Harker) comes to Orlok's castle, he doesn't even try to make him feel comfortable at first, pretending to be a human being. Right away he begins to command them, and Hutter, of course, can not resist him, but still voluntarily gives him the documents to buy the house.

And in general the screen time to the events in the castle and on the ship is given very little. Apparently, the director was more important to the theme of Ellen's obsession with Orlok. Therefore, the scenes in the castle and on the ship lost the necessary atmosphere. But the main thing is that, like Friedrich Murnau's original, this version was filmed on location, making it much more picturesque than Fischer's 'sijayna' version.

Johnny Depp's daughter Lily Rose Depp as Ellen is very powerful - especially from a physical point of view - throughout the movie she often wriggles and rolls her eyes ominously, playing possession. I would even say that she outshined the rest of the cast with her performance. Her scenes with her also have something of 'The Exorcist of the Devil' about them. So Eggers showed the theme of vampirism as a theme of obsession and mental illness in the first place.

And, like Francis Ford Coppola's screen adaptation (and this was also the case in several other previous screen adaptations), there is a kind of love affair between Orlok and Ellen. Only - more unhealthy, if I may say so in this case.

And, of course, it is worth highlighting Willem Defoe as the prototype Van Helsing. His performance reminded something of Anthony Hopkins in a similar role in Coppola - somewhat eccentric, himself on his own mind, completely obsessed with his mission. And, of course, it is ironic that Defoe himself previously played Nosferatu - in the movie 'Shadow of the Vampire', and now he was on the other side of the barricades. And as a result, he played both roles brilliantly.

As a result, the movie evoked mixed emotions. Visually, everything is very aesthetically pleasing, as always with Eggers, but it lacked some emotional content (the same feelings were evoked by Werner Herzog's 1979 version). In any case, the 1922 version remains my most favorite.