Robet Eggers, director of The Witch and The Lighthouse, at last brings his long-gestating dream project to cinemas, aiming to scare the living bejeezus out of most people, and make goths horny.
How to watch Nosferatu in New Zealand
Nosferatu creeps into New Zealand cinemas like a plague-ridden rat on January 1. 2025.
Nosferatu (2024)
What is Nosferatu about?
A remake of a remake of a rip-off of Dracula (it’s true—look it up) Nosferatu files the serial numbers off Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel and relocates it to 1830s Germany. Young, repressed newlywed Ellen Hutter finds herself in the crosshairs of creepy, mouldering bloodsucker Count Orlok, much to the consternation of her straitlaced real estate agent husband Thomas (guess Orlok isn’t the only bloodsucking parasite in this one, eh?). Eggers, as is his wont, ups the psychosexual trappings and gloomy gothic atmosphere to delirious heights here. You might (and should) know the broad strokes of the story, but we’re here for the execution.
The cast of Nosferatu
Quite the cast here, with Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok; Nicholas Hoult, who recently played Renfield, you may recall, as Thomas Hutter; Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter; Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Friedrich Harding, Thomas’s best friend; Emma Corrin as Anna Harding: Friedrich’s wife; Willem Dafoe having an absolute ball as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, a scientis and mystic, and obviously our Van Helsing stand-in; Ralph Ineson as Dr. Wilhelm Sievers; Simon McBurney as Herr Knock, our knock-off Renfield.
Nosferatu trailer
Why we’re excited about Nosferatu
F.W. Murnau’s original 1922 film is ground zero for horror as a cinematic genre, everything since following in its footsteps. And given that Nosferatu has already been remade more than once, the most notable being by Werner Herzog in 1979, you could be forgiven for thinking this grave had been dug up enough already. But Eggers is a superb visual stylist who clearly loves the material, so we’re in!
