It’s a fact of life that you’re going to be disappointed. It just can’t be helped. Whether it’s soggy leftover pizza in the refrigerator for dinner yet again, not making enough salary to fuel your wild imaginative lifestyle, or purchasing a large scented candle only to find that it doesn’t smell as you’d expect, but now you’re stuck with it anyway because it’d be a waste to throw it away, you’re going to be met with disappointment. Here in 2025, the biggest disappointment I’ve encountered this year goes to Nosferatu. Directed by Robert Eggers, the guy who directed The Witch starring Anya Taylor-Joy, one of my favorite horror movies between 2010 – 2020 and likely even further back, I’d gladly die on that hill and fight anyone who challenges me. It’s that perfectly crafted dread and horror I’d expect to be present in Nosferatu. It’s really a perfect combo with Nosferatu’s story. With Nosferatu hitting the streaming platforms, we can finally enjoy this movie in the pleasure of our own home. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed. So, so disappointed. 😢

Let’s get this out of the way first and foremost. Nosferatu is obviously not a new story. I’m sure there are many cheap remakes or spinoffs over the decades. However, none of those directors were named Robert Eggers. None of them likely had the talent, budget, and marketing clout of this one. So, it goes without saying that a lot is riding on this. Starring Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter and Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok aka, Nosferatu, could this duo make it work on the big screen? I’d have to say not really. I’d have to also admit that I’ve never seen Lily-Rose on the screen prior to this, meaning I have no idea who she is. But no matter because her acting in Nosferatu was more of a miss than anything and hardly memorable. Many parts felt overacted, and her character just felt, I don’t know of a better way to put it but, lifeless? She does have this exotic look to her that commands attention on the screen, but some of the cheesy-sounding dialogue and lack of dread and chemistry between her and Count Orlok didn’t help. Maybe that was by design and I just didn’t get it?

When it comes to Count Orlok, my one major observation was that Bill Skarsgård’s talent was absolutely wasted on this role. For one, bro hardly had any screen time. Second, when he actually was on screen, we hardly could see anything. All the dark scenes and shadows and quick transitions away from Count Orlok hardly afforded us a good look at him. By design? Sure. By the time we do get a longer look at him towards the end, he’s so covered with CGI and other costume effects that I guarantee you no one would have guessed it was Bill Skarsgård. Hell, I’m even willing to bet that many others likely couldn’t have guessed it was him throughout the movie if they didn’t know ahead of time. I felt he literally spent more time perfecting his voice as Count Orlok for the movie than on his actual acting. And why the porn mustache? Also, is no one is going to mention that heavyweight champion boxer Oleksandr Usyk could have also auditioned for the role of Nosferatu? 😂

One of the biggest disappointments I felt was due to the lack of pure suffocating dread throughout the movie. Once again, Nosferatu’s story presented the perfect opportunity for this. Bro is literally so whipped he’s willing to travel such a far distance at great peril to himself along with killing literally everyone just for a one-night hookup. I’m assuming many will agree that the best scene in the entire movie was towards the beginning when Thomas met Count Orlok for the first time inside his castle. That pure sense of fear and dread the audience felt of not knowing what would happen was sadly missing afterwards. When it comes to Willem Dafoe’s character to lighten the mood a bit, I couldn’t care for it too much. He’s just playing his usual self, sort of like Liam Neeson or Nicolas Cage in any other movie they are in nowadays.

Looking at other reviews, I’m seeing that many others are disgusted with the amount of sexual content in the movie. I’m just going to pretend those are all trolls. There is no way I can believe that many of them actually left the movie theater midway through Nosferatu because they were either “offended” by the amount of sexual content or disappointed and bored with the movie. That’s just wild, and again, I’ll assume they are just trolling for attention. Nosferatu is not a bad movie despite all that I’ve written. I, along with many others I can only assume, had put too much hope into the director. I rarely praise a specific director nor care about who directs a movie, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, The Witch was such a perfect type of horror movie for myself and others that we could only have hoped for something similar. A beautifully shot movie with great cinematography simply cannot carry a movie alone; in my opinion, though Nosferatu is obviously worth a watch for all horror and general movie fans alike just for the fact that it was a long time coming.

And finally, no, Nosferatu definitely does not beat Smile 2 for my best horror movie of 2024.