Robert Eggers Thread - Based period film director obsessed with historical accuracy - 'The Witch', 'The Lighthouse', 'The Northman', and 'Nosferatu' (2024 remake)

[Sinner's Sandwich]

It made 50 million globally but apparently the budget was 50 million so... It most likely bombed or underperformed.

No it didn't! It made 135 million globally so far and is the highest grossing Eggers movie.

My review: 9/10 It's an amazing movie. Skarsgård created such a haunting voice for Orlok. Great actors, great costumes, great camera work, great music. And I love the ending. It's disgusting but also bittersweet.

 

[BrunoMattei]

No it didn't! It made 135 million globally so far and is the highest grossing Eggers movie.

At the time of reporting it did...

Jeeze.

 

[MTN Dew Rat]

It's a pipe dream but I kind of want to see a Robert Eggers adaptation of Berserk.

Dude, Northman made ME want to make a live-action Berk!

 

[cactus]

Orloks prosthetics suck, he looks like a zombie vampire, not a vampire. His skin is rotting, his backbone is jutting out, flesh is weak. I know hes a corpse but again, it breaks immersion.

That's the point, Eggers based Orlok's look on actual vampire lore: a rotting corpse that has long nails and blood coming out of it's orifices.

 

[N1993R K1LL4H]

That's the point, Eggers based Orlok's look on actual vampire lore: a rotting corpse that has long nails and blood coming out of it's orifices.

There are different versions of the Vampire depending on the culture you explore, even in europe depending on the subregions. Its the same with things like the Zombie which has its origins in Haitian voodoo and describes a person whose brain is dead but looks functionally healthy, hypnotically controlled by somebody. Romero was the one who made it into a living corpse. Vampires are traditionally based off the Vampire bat native to Eurasia. Some regions describe them as cursed humans who drink blood and eat flesh of healthier humans to keep themselves young and healthy (this goes back to the jewish blood libel myth), other regions describe them as wretched undead who cannot withstand the sun and subsist in the dark living off flesh, many such iterations. A lot of vampire tropes are a combination of all such iterations so you cant exactly say Eggers is sticking to the source material when in the modern canon of vampirism, the Dracula canon, hes supposed to be similar to Dorian Gray instead of Gollum. It may be accurate to one specific iteration of vampirism but it doesnt necessarily work here imo, especially given the film is about rape and seduction, not animalistic consumption.

Edit: In fact now that I think about it, Vampires are to women what Sirens are to men, theyre meant to be beautiful and seductive but ultimately predatory. If youre making a movie which involves seduction on some level, it only logically makes sense to make the characters attractive. Orlok in the original film was not attractive but he at least looked like a human being and in that movie he hypnotizes miss hutter instead of some prophecy shit.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

If you've seen the original, it's very very unsubtle especially given the context of the holocaust. See it in the way you would a propaganda film and orloks facial prosthetics look like this.

It's not impossible but I think it's a stretch, it's not like general racism didn't exist between other ethnicities in Europe or that the idea of a corpse like ghoul is uniquely related to the wondering Jew. Even timeline wise it's way too early at the end of WW1 to be the full on antisemetic landscape of pre WW2 Germany. Even backstory wise it doesn't relate to Jews.

Edit: In fact now that I think about it, Vampires are to women what Sirens are to men, theyre meant to be beautiful and seductive but ultimately predatory. If youre making a movie which involves seduction on some level, it only logically makes sense to make the characters attractive. Orlok in the original film was not attractive but he at least looked like a human being and in that movie he hypnotizes miss hutter instead of some prophecy shit.

I'm pretty sure the goal in the new film was make the new Orlock basically a massive gigachad with how massive and powerful he is. I don't know how much women would be attracted to fucking a corpse, but let's say it's not like there are shortage of strange things women will fuck.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

In fact now that I think about it, Vampires are to women what Sirens are to men, theyre meant to be beautiful and seductive but ultimately predatory.

No, they aren't. Also it's a fucking horror movie ffs. Make vampires monsters again! The movie would be awful if Orlok was just another old and boring handsome vampire trope.

Orlok in the original film was not attractive but he at least looked like a human being

What?? He looks like a monster.



Also Orlok acts more human than in the original movie especially at the end when he

Spoiler: Spoiler

decides to look at the sun instead of running away and then holding onto Ellen and letting her touch him as he was dying.

 

[cactus]

There are different versions of the Vampire depending on the culture you explore, even in europe depending on the subregions. Its the same with things like the Zombie which has its origins in Haitian voodoo and describes a person whose brain is dead but looks functionally healthy, hypnotically controlled by somebody. Romero was the one who made it into a living corpse. Vampires are traditionally based off the Vampire bat native to Eurasia. Some regions describe them as cursed humans who drink blood and eat flesh of healthier humans to keep themselves young and healthy (this goes back to the jewish blood libel myth), other regions describe them as wretched undead who cannot withstand the sun and subsist in the dark living off flesh, many such iterations. A lot of vampire tropes are a combination of all such iterations so you cant exactly say Eggers is sticking to the source material when in the modern canon of vampirism, the Dracula canon, hes supposed to be similar to Dorian Gray instead of Gollum. It may be accurate to one specific iteration of vampirism but it doesnt necessarily work here imo, especially given the film is about rape and seduction, not animalistic consumption.

Edit: In fact now that I think about it, Vampires are to women what Sirens are to men, theyre meant to be beautiful and seductive but ultimately predatory. If youre making a movie which involves seduction on some level, it only logically makes sense to make the characters attractive. Orlok in the original film was not attractive but he at least looked like a human being and in that movie he hypnotizes miss hutter instead of some prophecy shit.

What in the hell? It's obvious which vampire lore Eggers is using based on the setting. Modern day lore is based on Bram Stoker's Dracula novel and the movies with Bela Lugosi.

Vampires are nothing like sirens and they feed on both men and women. Even Dracula in the novel not only goes after Lucy and Mina, but Jonathan in the first part of the book and on top of that whoever else encounters him in London.

 

[Caligura]

The only minor thing that annoyed me in Nosferatu was how Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character slept with a loaded pistol and we even have a full ten seconds of it on frame yet he never uses it, not even once. idk why, not like that would work on Count Orlock but still.

 

[Wild at Heart]

I've watched all of Eggers' movies, I saw Nosferatu twice. I had a bad theater experience the first time and a great one the second time. I have to agree with the previous poster that this is just a watered down (plotwise) edition of the 90's Bram Stoker's Dracula with Oldman. Eggers' movies usually steep in tone and atmosphere, Nosferatu seemed to speed along and blow through scenes one after the other. Thomas spends about 10 minutes of screen time in the castle total. I could not immerse myself in the world when I was being pushed through scenes at such a speedy pace.

So what I was left with was the Germanized cliffnotes version of Dracula that doesn't do Dracula/Orlok , the female lead, or Helsing justice like Coppola's did. I did not enjoy Lily Rose-Depp's acting. She was okay. When watching I was thinking in the back of my head "I bet he wanted Anya Taylor Joy for this part originally" and wouldn't you know it, he did. She would have killed the convulsing and possession scenes.

I'm surprised Eggers didn't go harder with Orlok's dark powers. He should have shown the audience unspeakably uncomfortable things that portrayed Orlok's effect on normal people. There were small uncomfortable moments that were not focused on, which diminish the threat of the entire movie. Someone mentioned Eggers getting a new editor, this may be the main problem I have with his 2 newest films. I would put Nosferatu a bit below The Northman. That at least had some badass werewolf and beheading shit.

 

[QE65]

The only minor thing that annoyed me in Nosferatu was how Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character slept with a loaded pistol and we even have a full ten seconds of it on frame yet he never uses it

And his wife didn't take the pistol either, which I thought was a little odd.

 

[Caligura]

And his wife didn't take the pistol either, which I thought was a little odd.

Missed out on a really cool and scary scene where they try to shoot Count Orlock (maybe a nice blood/gore effect) but he just shrugs it off and still kills.

 

[RSU 1741]

this is just a watered down (plotwise) edition of the 90's Bram Stoker's Dracula with Oldman

I'd say there's a big baseline difference between Eggers' version and Coppola's: Coppola does portray the Count as the protagonist of the movie, and essentially the love story is weirdly mutual and very, very melodramatic. As much as the count is a Monster we're supposed to find the love he has with Mina real (in opposition to the relationship he has with his vampire wives) and in the end it kinda sorta redeems him.

Orlock is a undead, repulsive hell-spawned monster. He has no charming form like the Coppola version, nor tragic backstory nor redemption. He flat-out admits he knows no love, only hunger and the desire for destruction of all things. The only reason he's active is because a mentally ill woman with psychic powers enthralled him to assuage her loneliness without full understanding of the consequences.

The only "redemption" in Egger's version is Ellen, offering herself as a sacrifice to solve the horrors she caused.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

He flat-out admits he knows no love

He says this but there are scenes that hint that he can feel it at least a tiny bit and the movie is about the love triangle between Ellen, Thomas and him. But it's all dark and twisted and horrifying.

 

[Pomniman]

Ended up watching Nosferatu on a whim today.

I mostly liked it, but strangely it ended up feeling more cheesy and melodramatic than the original 1922 movie despite doing away with its vaudevillian style silent film acting and fairy tale like whimsy. It's hard to really blame Eggers for going in this direction with it, and it more or less gets the job done, but the modern approach to filmmaking stripped it of a lot of the charm the original had despite that version being pretty flawed in its own right.

Also I thought Greta Schröder looked better as Ellen than Johnny Depp's daughter, but it's not an entirely fair comparison because she didn't have to writhe around so much or be covered in snot.

 

[Your Starter for 10]

He's going to do a werewolf movie, excuse me, a Werewulf movie, next. It's set in the 13th century, so it could be kino, but honestly it seems to me like every movie has gotten worse since The VVitch (with the steepest drop from Lighthouse to Northman), so who knows, it could be a pile of shit.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/robert-eggers-direct-13th-century-werewolf-thriller-werwulf-1236114172/

Not worth archiving, there's a thousand articles that say the same things.

He's working with the co-writer from Northman, and producers from Nosferatu. No casting info yet. Also will be a Christmas day release in 2026.

 

[The Cringe Connoisseur]

We need more Eggers in hollywood, i've liked all of his movies and they all look so much better than the generic shit the hollywood hacks keep crapping out.

 

[Kharash]

Got around to watching Nosferatu. By the end I just wondered what the point was.
None of the characters were interesting, there was no one to get invested in.
Some of the sets were nice and there were a few shots that looked fantastic but there was nothing else there.
I get that he wanted to try and make classic vampires scary again to a modern audience, they've been a joke for ages. Perhaps in some ways he succeeded but that doesn't make the rest of the film interesting.
Then there's the shitty discount exorcist scenes which felt like a Depp nepobaby vanity project. The constant retarded jumpscares where someone screams at the camera. Wow so spooky.
It was just a completely superficial experience, I can't imagine ever returning to it.

 

[cactus]

Then there's the shitty discount exorcist scenes which felt like a Depp nepobaby vanity project. The constant retarded jumpscares where someone screams at the camera. Wow so spooky.
It was just a completely superficial experience, I can't imagine ever returning to it.

Lmao did you even read the thread? Anya Taylor-Joy was his first pick, but she wasn't available. Sounds like you just wanna shit on Johnny Depp's daughter for whatever reason.

 

[frozen_runner]

Lmao did you even read the thread? Anya Taylor-Joy was his first pick, but she wasn't available. Sounds like you just wanna shit on Johnny Depp's daughter for whatever reason.

Probably for the best. That girl was always odd-looking, but she was pretty. Whatever plastic surgery she got makes her look like a praying mantis.