Classic remake sinks deep into your psyche

Like a cadaverous aristocrat rising from his casket at dusk, Nosferatu has returned to stalk our cinematic consciousness, this time through the lens of Robert Eggers' fastidiously crafted homage. One might say it's less a remake than an exhumation, performed with all the reverent care of a Victorian undertaker.

The film's visual language speaks in tongues of shadow and light, each frame composed with the obsessive detail of a Victorian lepidopterist arranging his moth collection. Under cinematographer Jarin Blaschke's masterful eye, hundreds of real candles illuminate the scenes, their flames dancing like restless spirits against stone walls. Eggers has created a world where darkness isn't merely the absence of light but a palpable presence that seems to breathe and pulse with malevolent intent, achieved through precise exposure control – underexposing and overexposing by turns.

The sepia and tinted photography serve the material like a perfectly paired wine at a funeral feast, with lights and shadows flickering across the screen in ways evocative of ominous events to come. Though one suspects this might have been less an artistic choice and more because colour would have revealed just how many times they had to dust the sets, the decision aligns perfectly with Eggers' vision of reviving the "historical horror" genre. This distinctive visual stamp pulls viewers into the night with an almost hypnotic force, creating a sepulchral atmosphere that feels both authentically period and unnervingly immediate. Some of the scenes are breathtaking, as if the viewer has stumbled upon a Vermeer painting come to life, the arrangement of objects and people ticking every classical rule of the perfect visual arrangement.

Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok lurks in the shadows like a moustachioed consumptive, less the ratlike creature of Murnau's original and more a decomposing dandy with boundary issues. His performance strikes a delicate balance between the grotesque and the magnetic, as if a Victorian gentleman had been preserved in formaldehyde and reanimated by a particularly ambitious taxidermist. The makeup and prosthetics transform him into something both ancient and oddly contemporary, like finding your great-great-grandfather's daguerreotype on Instagram.

Nicholas Hoult, our hapless estate agent Thomas, brings a compelling vulnerability to his role, like a public school boy who's suddenly discovered his gap year placement involves rather more blood-letting than expected. His descent into madness is handled with the precise care of someone trying to walk down a spiral staircase while balancing a full teacup – occasionally wobbly but never quite spilling over into melodrama.

Lily-Rose Depp's Ellen floats through the proceedings with an ethereal presence that occasionally threatens to evaporate entirely. Her somnambulistic episodes suggest less supernatural possession and more the effects of an extremely restrictive corset. Her performance exists in that peculiar twilight zone between mesmerising and soporific, much like attending a séance after taking a tranquiliser.

While Depp attempts to capture the haunted young woman in 19th-century Germany, she lacks the compelling vulnerability that made Winona Ryder's performance in Bram Stoker's Dracula so memorable. Where Ryder brought a sensual innocence to her role that perfectly complemented Gary Oldman's lustrous, seductive vampire, Depp's interpretation feels more like a pale imitation. The irony isn't lost that Depp essentially plays the same role as Ryder did, yet where Ryder's performance helped elevate Coppola's film to Gothic greatness, Depp's portrayal remains frustratingly insubstantial, like trying to embrace a ghost.

Willem Dafoe's Professor Von Franz proves most problematic, like finding a whoopee cushion at a funeral. His performance careens through the film with a discordant hamminess, wielding his comically elongated pipe as if auditioning for a gothic production of Mary Poppins. The camp factor is cranked up to eleven, making one wonder if he mistook this Victorian horror for a pantomime.

This is particularly disappointing given Dafoe's esteemed career and his previous foray into Nosferatu lore, having masterfully portrayed Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire. As the occult expert and vampire-hunter Professor Von Franz, Dafoe seems to have been given free rein to ham it up as the heterodox outsider and freethinker. While he's apparently the only one allowed to have any fun in the film, his eccentric portrayal undermines the film's carefully crafted atmosphere of dread. It's a far cry from his nuanced work in The Lighthouse (also with Eggers) or his acclaimed performances in films like The Florida Project and At Eternity's Gate. Where those roles showcased his ability to find humanity in extremity, he seems content to merely torch the Victorian scenery with glee.

The film's pacing is as languorous as a well-fed vampire's digestion. At over two hours, it occasionally feels like we're experiencing the passage of time in real Victorian terms. Some scenes are stretched so thin you could read a newspaper through them, though admittedly, this does create an atmosphere of creeping dread – or possibly just creeping impatience. The dialogue occasionally creaks like an ancient coffin hinge, and the serious moments might elicit inappropriate laughter, but there's an undeniable power in its commitment to atmosphere over cheap thrills.

The set design is deserving of an Oscar. Each location feels like a daguerreotype come to life, or perhaps more accurately, come to undeath. Eggers' painstaking attention to detail, which has become his directorial hallmark, is on full display throughout. The count's castle looms like an architectural nightmare as if Antoni Gaudí had been commissioned to design a mausoleum while suffering a bout of depression.

The streets of Wisborg are rendered with such attention to period detail that you can practically smell the horse manure and coal smoke. The film is a visual feast, the historical accuracy extending to every corner of the frame. From the cobblestones to the window dressings, Eggers has created an immersive 1838 German setting that feels authentic down to the last brick.

Linda Muir's costume design adds additional haunting realism to the production and Eggers' notorious commitment to historical accuracy is evident in every stitch and button. This meticulous attention to period detail creates a time capsule that transforms the horror genre into something approaching a historical documentary – if historical documentaries featured the undead.

The score, a sombre exercise in musical restraint and release, weaves through the film like a gothic lullaby played on instruments fashioned from human bone. It knows precisely when to swell into overwhelming crescendos and when to retreat into unsettling silence, like a chamber orchestra conducted by Nosferatu himself.

Eggers has achieved something remarkable here: a film that feels both reverently traditional and disturbingly modern. It's as if he's taken Murnau's original masterpiece and filtered it through a contemporary sensibility without losing its essential otherworldliness. The result is a cinematic experience that lingers in the mind like a half-remembered nightmare or finding yourself still awake at 4am after binge-watching Victorian ghost stories.

This contemporary Nosferatu is a testament to the enduring power of gothic horror to unsettle and enthral. It has some flaws, including an irritating miscasting in Dafoe's ham-and-cheese performance, but it manages to sink its teeth deep into the viewer's psyche. It's a reminder that some stories, like certain aristocrats, never truly die; they merely wait in their crypts for the right moment to rise again.

For those willing to surrender to its peculiar rhythms and excessive runtime, this new Nosferatu offers a banquet of gothic delights. Perhaps bring a pocket watch to keep track of time – preferably silver, just in case.