Nosferatu-Gothic Revival or The Best Comedy of 2024?

By: Livi Greco'25

Photo courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes

After a century, the Dracula-based, romantic horror has hit the big screen once again. Directed by Robert Eggers, Nosferatu was a box office sucess, bringing in just shy of $176 million. While the film itself was gorgeous with perfectly artful shots, and superb acting - something felt off. A general consensus in the younger demographic was that Nosferatu is funny. 

The film opens with a bang, with Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) encountering the titular character for the first time. Since she was a child, Ellen has been haunted by a vampire-baron-elite-Eastern European creature. Eventually her encounters stop as she gets more involved with her husband, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult). This is not where the comedy begins. Up until the point where the audience meets Nosferatu, the film goes as planned. A dark, gothic, horror of a love story. But as soon as Count Orlok/Nosferatu (Bill Skarsgaard) appears on the screen, the air he brings to the film is reminiscent of a local haunted house. The production team swore that Nosferatu's appearance was historically accurate to his class and era, but to a modern audience, the bald comb over, thick mustache, fur coat, and leather boots looked more like a 70s adult star than a creature to fear. To make matters even funnier, his accent was so overexaggerated and drawn out, presumably to accentuate the age and decay of Nosferatu, that he ended up sounding akin to Adam Sandler's performance in the Hotel Transylvania series. Some audiences may have been able to look these elements over, and the film continues on. While Thomas stays at Orlock’s estate, he has various encounters with Count Orlok-including, but not limited to; having multiple sexual dreams involving the Count, seeing the Count completely nude, and acting out a submissive role in the Count's feeding time. With the fame of this pair of actors involved in these scenes, it creates a perfectly grotesque opportunity for hilarity. 

Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor Johnson) portrays the frustrated patriarch of the house Ellen stays in while Thomas has his galavant with the vampire. His character is pushed to the brink of insanity. Unfortunately, this insanity was often perceived as sass. Harding’s various stomps, sighs, and mini temper tantrums (all entirely justified, given the really rough time has was having) were set against dead serious portrayals of doctors fighting a city-wide plague, giving the impression that Harding was more of a large toddler than a successful merchant. His final scene was heartbreaking, but lacked the emotional connection needed to make the viewers feel for him, as for the past 90 minutes, he was huffing and puffing, trying to blow the Hutters out of his house. 

Willem Dafoe. 

Need I say more? With his career-long success, Dafoe seems to slip more into portraying himself on the big screen than any new characters. Or, perhaps, he keeps getting cast as the kooky professor type, leading to viewers associating him with that personality. I am intentionally not mentioning his character's name in this film, as he just seemed so Dafoe that a separate name was truly not necessary. His cat-laden apartment, makeshift exorcism, and sudden character shift to being a virtuous saviour to the world were all shocking and kept the audience guessing. His character did not seem completely thought through, and was there for some lighthearted relief, as well as to be the catalyst for Ellen's final decision. 

The final scene was beautifully shot, written, and orchestrated. Despite everything said previously, I was tearing up at Ellen's final choice. This was all ruined by the final frame of the movie. Why did Count Orlok have such severe chicken legs? Because of the leathery, rotten nature of his skin, and the odd lack of muscle in his lower extremities, Orlok looked like a vampire on top, a chicken wing on the bottom. This was the final laugh in this film.

While I do think this film was gorgeous, I think it would've greatly benefitted from having some unknown actors in there. Because of the associations audiences have with certain actors, it is sometimes hard to take them seriously. This film can be interpreted many different ways. It was cinematically beautiful. It also had multiple shots of various men's bare rear ends. Despite everything I just said, I loved it. I want more of this gothic style in film. I want more of these morally conflicting, twisted tales in the mainstream. Maybe Nosferatu had to be a little funny to allow more films like this to be made.