Nosferatu

The cinematography and sound design in this are truly incredible and really created this haunting and eerie scenery for the viewers. I believe you could find something astounding in every single frame if you really tried looking for it. I'm also as much of a sucker for symmetrical shots as Robert Eggers is :3 So glad I got to see this in cinemas to fully experience the impact of this, and I encourage anyone who hasn't seen this yet to go see it on the big screen if there's a chance for it! But although this is technically amazing, some criticism was born from me comparing this to the original 1922 version of this film. Some of the inherent creepiness feels lost when the very first seconds of this film try so hard to invoke such strong feelings. The slow unfolding of events leading to the big finale in the original really amplified the feelings created by it in the end, when the end kind of felt lackluster in this. On top of that the constant jump scares felt a bit cheap, when they could've tried to further emphasize the haunting creepiness of this film. And probably most importantly I was expecting them to lessen some of the racial motives in this story and was kind of shocked to see them even more amplified in this version. Maybe it's impossible to recreate the story of Bram Stoker's Dracula without those themes, but some scenes and dialogue felt unnecessary. But nevertheless, it was nice to see some other themes explored in this much more than in the original one, such as the themes of sexual abuse, trauma and mental illness. And this inherently still was a lot creepier than the 1922 version due to the increased liberty of filmmakers today. And still on top of that, I also really enjoyed the callbacks to the original film, like the looming hand in the stairway. While changing some plot points from the original, this version still remembers what it is drawn from completely, tries to honour it and does it very successfully.