Nosferatu (2024)

Both F.W. Murnau and Werner Herzog’s stabs at Nosferatu — itself an unauthorized take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula — are stone-cold masterpieces that loom large in the history of gothic horror cinema. Following in their footsteps seems like a fool’s errand, which raises the question, why even bother in the first place? It’s only when you take into consideration Eggers’ calling cards and core obsessions that the original impulse starts to make more sense.

After all, who better than the mastermind behind modern gothic masterpieces like “The Witch”, and “The Lighthouse” — who by the way first watched Murnau’s film on VHS at the ripe age of 9 and mounted a stage version of the story as a teen — to resurrect the subgenre’s ur-text? Eggers’ tale of repressed sexuality, superstition, mass hysteria and puritanical norms doesn’t quite reinvent the wheel but freely updates the centuries-old source material to make it feel fresh again with inspired aesthetic choices, stellar performances, and breathtaking sequences with a weighty sense of dread that keeps you on the edge of your seat (particularly real estate agent Thomas Hutter’s first arrival to Count Orlok’s castle).

At its best, 2024’s “Nosferatu” reminds you why vampire stories remain a fertile ground for grade-A scares for well over a century’s worth of cinema history. Even the parts that don’t work (does this really need to be 135-minutes long?) are easily brushed off when you get to hear Willem Dafoe chew up lines like “”I have seen things in this world that would have made Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb!”