The strongest directorial decision in Nosferatu is almost invisible

Since we know that Eggers can and has traditionally directed exciting action, the lack of action in “Nosferatu” is a clear creative decision. One of the best examples of Eggers rejecting action comes early in the film when Thomas Hutter attempts to escape Count Orlok’s castle. Other directors may have filmed this sequence with speed and intensity, perhaps alternating between close-ups and a rapidly roving camera. This would certainly have made the scene more exciting and put the audience directly in Thomas’ shoes. Instead, Eggers films this desperate man and his desperate actions from a distance, showing him in wide shots dominated by his gloomy prison. When he moves quickly, the camera tends to pan with him slowly, capturing the beat of the action but making him seem helpless and pathetic. We’re not in Thomas’ shoes. We don’t feel his adrenaline rush. We are an isolated observer, watching from a distance, completely powerless in the face of something that makes any decisive human action seem completely useless.

Every human action in “Nosferatu” feels…small. Only the all-powerful Orlok is allowed to dominate the picture, and the film only uses quick cuts or other typical action cinema devices when he emerges from the shadows to hunt down a victim. The vampire is filmed using imagery associated with power, while any human character might as well be an ant crawling through the dirt. We watch them wander and they look so weak and so alone.

The wide angle shots, the static shots and the graceful but icy camera movements are present throughout the entire film. It should be exciting when the “men on a mission” gather for the final journey to Orlok’s hideout, but Eggers won’t let it happen. Ultimately, their quest is a wild goose chase, and the vampire’s defeat comes elsewhere, through a character who realizes that the only way to defeat him is to surrender completely. Giving in to inaction.

Many horror films are about defeat and how frail we are in the face of things that want to harm us. But “Nosferatu” is the rare film that actually makes us feel it to the core.

I talked about this (and the rest of my favorite films of 2024) on the latest episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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