Nosferatu

Robert Eggers understands time and place like few other filmmakers. His stories feel lived-in. Like we're seeing something from a far-off time instead of a fabrication by talented artists. In prior films, Eggers has conjured images of New England lighthouses and settlers to Vikings across the Baltic, yet his latest, Nosferatu, might be his greatest accomplishment to date. It is such a staggering work of folk horror that it singlehandedly redefines expectations of vampire cinema for future generations.

Horror is essentially a voice for The Other – those marginalized from mainstream society. We identify with the downtrodden, the weird, and the maladjusted. Here, our guide is Ellen Hutter (Lily-Roseof Depp), who makes a desperate wish as a child in the hopes of compassion and understanding. The monkey paw twitches and a demon answers her call, opening a telepathic connection between her and Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård). Years later, her love for Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) severs the bond, leaving Orlock to find another way to feast on his prey.

If you've seen Bram Stocker's Dracula or any version of the classic story, you'll know the basic beats of Nosferatu. In theory, this is a remake of Henrik Galeen's groundbreaking silent film from the 1920s, yet Eggers builds on the foundation with such grace and conviction it feels like its own thing. Like great folk stories, the tale grows in the telling. It feels like a campfire story told in mid-winter, full of dread and enough snippets of truth to make the fantastic feel real.

In a standout sequence, Thomas arrives in a small Roma village and stumbles into their inn looking for shelter. Outside, we hear the howling wind. Inside, the cramped, smoky space almost spills into the cinema. We can smell and feel this place as Thomas pleads for a bed. It's the kind of visual storytelling that feels rare today. We can tell from a single shot how many stories have been told by this fire. How myths grow into fact, and how the fear of dark forces makes the occupants huddle closer with each passing year.

Once Eggers brings the pandemonium to the city, Nosferatu amps up the terror and macabre to near-unbearable levels. We rarely see Orlock, yet his presence permeates every frame. Like the plague, he's a force you can't escape, no matter what you do. Nosferatu bathes in hopelessness instead of gore, and the result is all the more terrifying. Even when Willem Dafoe's wonderfully demented Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz turns up, he provides no comfort in certainty. Everything is guesswork when it comes to demons. Hope is the raft amidst stormy seas, and it's leaking like a sieve.

At the heart of it all is Ellen, played superbly by the luminous Lily-Rose Depp. Nosferatu is, in essence, a tragedy of an unheard and misunderstood woman with great strength facing her abuser. Only here that abuser is a thousand-year-old vampire. With great empathy, Eggers frames Ellen's plight as a parable of the pains women faced in those times – and continue still – which gives Nosferatu a hauntingly timeless quality.

But above all, Nosferatu is terrifying. It is one of the scariest films in a year packed with masterful horror. Eggers is one of our great modern folklorists. He continues to delight and horrify with each new film. Nosferatu is his finest work to date, at least until his next one.