Rather than a mere sprinkling of horror inflections, Eggers is confident in what his
Nosferatu sets out to do. “Yeah, it’s a scary film. It’s a horror movie. It’s a Gothic horror movie,” he tells
Empire in the
2024 Preview issue, featuring the world-first look at the film. “And I do think that there hasn’t been an old-school Gothic movie that’s actually scary in a while. And I think that the majority of audiences will find this one to be the case.” It won’t just be viewers experiencing pure terror – as seen above, Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen Hutter, the wife of Nicholas Hoult’s estate agent Thomas, will be petrified by the power of the bloodthirsty Count Orlok. “It’s even more Ellen’s story than previous versions,” teases Eggers. “And Lily-Rose is absolutely phenomenal.”
The one causing that reaction of utter, wide-eyed shock? Bill Skarsgård, once again pushing the limits of human performance to conjure a creature all his own. “I’ll say that Bill has
so transformed, I’m fearful that he might not get the credit that he deserves because he’s just… he’s not there,” Eggers says. While it’s Skarsgård’s own spin on the Count, there will be echoes of past incarnations too, both Max Schreck’s and Klaus Kinski’s versions. “He felt like honouring who had come before him. It’s all very subtle,” Eggers explains. “But I think the main thing is that he’s even more a folk vampire. In my opinion he looks like a dead Transylvanian nobleman, and in a way that we’ve never actually seen what an actual dead Transylvanian nobleman would look like and be dressed like.” Buckle up, and bolt your windows and doors – a brand new Robert Eggers nightmare is about to unfold.
