Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu is a visually stunning homage to the vampire films that defined the genre, most notably F.W. Murnau’s silent-era classic the same name and Werner Herzog’s brooding Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). With his passion for visual intricacy, Eggers reimagines this tale of terror with all the gloomy grandeur of old horror cinema while remaining true to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the source that inspired it all.

Set in the German town of Wisborg in 1838, the story unfolds like a nightmare painted in shades of grey. Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), haunted by visions of a demonic figure since childhood, finds her darkest fears come true when her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) sets off to finalise a real estate deal with the enigmatic Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). What begins as an ambitious business trip descends into gothic horror as Orlok — an immortal, ratlike creature — unleashes a plague of death and madness upon Thomas, Ellen, and their doomed town.

Known for his detailing in The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, Eggers brings his trademark precision to this period drama of dread and despair. Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography creates a play of shadow and light through cobblestone streets, candlelit rooms and windswept landscapes.

While Nosferatu succeeds in the atmospherics, it falters in emotional depth. Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen, though appropriately fragile in appearance, lacks the power of a gothic heroine. Her performance doesn’t quite plumb the depths of her psychological turmoil to make her experience come across as harrowing. Bill Skarsgård’s Orlok, though grotesque in his physicality, struggles to terrify, his exaggerated breathing and guttural growls veering into parody.

Nicholas Hoult stands out in the cast as Thomas, whose wide-eyed desperation and mounting horror lend the film its most human moments. The supporting cast leaves little impression. Willem Dafoe, typically magnetic, is underused as a rogue scientist, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin as Thomas’s friends are pushed to the periphery.

Nosferatu is at its best when it leans into the macabre. The film’s opening sequence, in which Ellen encounters Orlok as Nosferatu, sets a chilling tone, even if it prematurely reveals the monster’s face. Later scenes, drenched in gore and madness, showcase Eggers’s talent for creating a sense of creeping unease. But his screenplay is a straightforward adaptation of the classic story. Where Coppola’s Dracula (1992) embraced the sensual and romantic characteristics of the vampire mythos, Eggers’s Nosferatu goes with the fatalistic elements, making the grimness feel monotonous after a point.