‘Nosferatu’ review: Freaky remake crowns a new King of Horror

The press loves to hail a star as “unrecognizable” when they transform for a movie role. 

With Bill Skarsgård, however, that plaudit is not only deserved but increasingly redundant. 

The 34-year-old actor has carved out a niche as a spooky shape-shifter; a modern-day Lon Chaney who was born with a knack for nightmares. And, as he more than proves with the film “Nosferatu,” Skarsgård is Hollywood’s new King of Horror. 

In Robert Eggers’ skin-crawling remake, the performer with deeply set, almost demented eyes takes on a part even more iconic than Pennywise the Clown in “It”: Count Orlok, the undead villain of F.W. Murnau’s seminal silent vampire masterpiece from 1922.

Skarsgård, adopting a deep and unsettling Carpathian accent, is petrifyingly creepy and unexpectedly alluring as he becomes what is basically Dracula.

Murnau’s ingenious black-and-white original was an unauthorized German version of Bram Stoker’s novel that changed names, places and minor plot points to resonate with Deutschland. (He still got sued.) But the tale, set in gloomy and repressive 1838, hews closely to that of the OG bloodsucker. 

And, although nearly an hour longer and with audible dialogue, “Nosferatu 2024” also stays the storytelling course of its classic cinematic forefather. Eggers, whose “The Witch” cemented him as a visionary of the horror genre, is clearly a devoted fan of Murnau’s film. Rightly so.

Most at home in the dark, Eggers embraces “Nosferatu’s” famous shadows, Orlok’s long, spindly fingers, suffocating Victorian-era rooms, thousands of disgusting live rats and doors magically creaking open by themselves and seductively updates it for today’s eyes and ears.

Another shrewd piece of casting is the haunting Nicholas Hoult as Thomas, a naive real estate agent who’s sent by his eccentric employer Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) to Transylvania to get a contract signed by a wealthy home buyer — Orlok.

He bids farewell to his wife, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), and rides to the castle by horseback. Once he’s in the woods, Eggers’ talent for summoning primal fears using nature takes the reins. No one since “The Blair Witch Project” can make leafless twigs as spooky as Eggers can.

The downcast villagers warn Thomas against going up to Orlok’s, and once he arrives it’s immediately apparent why. His host’s a vamp. 

Back in Wisborg, Ellen begins suffering from strange spells and seizures as she’s cared for by friends Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, taking a bite out of the role) and Anna (Emma Corrin). And Knock has gone off his rocker, chomping the heads off chickens and ranting and raving about blood.

Thomas, meanwhile, endeavors to kill Orlok, but soon the thirsty Count is cargo on a ship bound for Germany where he will unleash his wrath.

Some might be put off by Eggers adding in some humor, especially from Willem Dafoe as Professor von Franz — the Van Helsing stand-in. The jokes lend balance, though, to a longer movie that can’t run entirely on dread. I’d reckon it still comes in at about 98% dread.

Eggers’ casting is a fang of beauty. Blood-drained Gothic faces abound, like they were all kidnapped from an Edgar Allen Poe-themed cocktail party. 

Depp, who freakily channels Linda Blair as tormented and bedridden Ellen, surely learned a thing or two about the undead from her father, Johnny Depp, who, besides starring in “Dark Shadows” and “Sleepy Hollow,” has a band called Hollywood Vampires. 

A few actors here have nightwalkers on their résumé. Not long ago, Hoult played Dracula’s beleaguered assistant in “Renfield,” and Dafoe has an even closer connection. He was Count Orlok — a k a Max Schreck — in 2000’s “Shadow of the Vampire.”

Skarsgård’s the ace though. Without going overboard, and never being anything less than terrifying, he fleshes out Orlok into a richer character than bat-like Schreck was able to. 

His tragic, albeit disturbing, final scene almost puts a stake right through our hearts.