i wanted to do something differently and write a movie review. ive had two letterboxd accounts over the years and would occasionally write up a short paragraph or two, but its something i havent done in forever. and i was also signed out of my accounts, so i need to make a new one and have been putting it off.

this is a better format to review movies, because letterboxd reviews are geared towards slop. nothing of substance gets promoted and people are programmed to write a short quip or funny statement about a movie instead of actually reviewing it.

anyways, its late and i just got home from seeing nosferatu. it was great.

id been a fan of robert eggers for a while now, and had been anxiously waiting for this movie since hed been teasing it over recent years. it blew me away and was just as good as the witch, if not better. i was completely wrapped up and obsessed with it for the entire runtime and didnt look away once.

usually in online movie reviews people stick to the same script, where they go on and on about the performances, the set design, cinematography, and all of the aspects of a good movie. but thats boring!

i think its counterintuitive to read a movie review that only tells you things. movies show you a story and do the telling visually, so most movie reviews are kind of pointless.

instead, i wanted to write about how the movie made me feel, why it worked, and why this was probably my favorite of 2024.

eggers' movies are great because of his insane attention to detail, not limited to any particular aspect of the movie, but the entire product. the witch, the lighthouse, and the northman were all excellent period pieces, and there really isn't a common thread between his movies - he's probably the best genre filmmaker alive. but why are his movies so good? what is it that makes these feel so different from almost anything else?

eggers is able to fully transport an audience into the era or subject matter on screen, a statement that can be said about any good director, but one thats especially relevant to eggers' work in particular. this is because he writes and directs movies that are extremely indicative of a very specific point in time.

with the witch, we were transported to the 1630s in new england, when hysteria over witches was very prevalent. in the lighthouse we're given a glimpse into what it would have been like for two lighthouse keepers in the nineteenth century. the northman took us to the time of vikings and took heavily from norse mythology.

all of these are very unorthodox stories. most moviegoers are probably familiar with the period piece. pride & prejudice, barry lyndon, 1917, little women, marie antoinette - there are many.

what makes eggers' movies different comes from the way he takes a very small aspect of society from these periods - lighthouse keepers, family life in the midst of witch hysteria, day-to-day of being a viking - and amplifies it to create an engaging story. nosferatu is no different, and it's most similar to the witch in how it treats its depiction of the supernatural.

the family in the witch is fully convinced that witches are real, and without giving away any spoilers (i hate that word), the things they experience are almost direct manifestations of their fear. we are never given any hope or false sense of security that witches arent real - they are just a fact of life in the same way you might tend to farm animals or work in the fields all day.

the performances in all of his movies rely heavily on historical accuracies, specifically in how dialogue is delivered. its like you are actually watching a slice of time thats been recovered through magic and put onto the screen for you to enjoy. everything from the sets to the costumes feel entirely 1:1 with how reality must have been, and nosferatu is probably his best work yet if this is your thing.

every character feels real, the interactions between characters are entirely alien from what weve come to expect in the 21st century, or really any other movie. its often difficult to make out exactly what is being said, because the dialect then was so different from how it is now, but it doesnt matter because the story is shown to you visually and every performance is 10/10.

the fear of nosferatu's coming builds and builds the entire two hours, and it never runs through your mind that this is all just a folktale. to the very realistic characters, this is just their reality, and we're trapped in it with them.

its a very, very good horror movie because it doesnt have to rely on any shock value to make you afraid. the characters are battling against an evil they cant even comprehend or begin to describe, and anyone that does attempt is seen as a freak or cast away from their peers, like dafoe's character.

lily rose-depp is excellent and plays ellen in a way that really throws you into the fear of the movie. from the beginning her night terrors are pushed aside by everyone in her life, reminiscent of a time when the medical community was extremely misinformed but also quite dismissive of women. no one could believe that she was haunted by something, or possessed of some evil, instead telling her she had a "melancholy" and a wild mind.

the evil of nosferatu or count orlok is really different from what you would expect in most horror movies. theres a scene early on where thomas is greeted by a village of gypsies, who quickly turn against him when they realize his plans of traveling and meeting with the evil count orlok. everyone acts very cold towards him, and an older woman becomes genuinely frightened by his presence.

this kind of silent terror persists throughout the movie, but this scene in particular does a great job of showing that these fears at the time were very real, and people may not have ever seen nosferatu, but his presence was enough to strike fear in everyone.

towards the end of the movie everyone realizes nosferatu is real, and he is indeed coming, and the build-up is really great. i think this is a movie ill try and watch again, because its just that good. i highly recommend it and give nosferatu a rating of five bags of popcorn and two extra large sodas.