‘The Witch’ Director Robert Eggers Reveals ‘Nosferatu’ Remake Is His Next Film
Robert Eggers’ The Witch is one of the more divisive horror films in recent memory. It received overwhelming praise from critics, but it had many moviegoers scratching their heads because they just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. That, of course, is no reason to chastise either party when you look back at other contemporary horror gems like The Babadook, It Follows, and Under the Skin that also had similar reception. Throwing in the fact that The Witch featured astonishingly realistic period dialogue made things all the more arduous for mainstream audiences to truly make sense of it.
One of the main reasons why The Witch was so wonderfully unsettling and stoic is because of Eggers’ superb direction. The film’s chilling tale of horror was so incredibly effective because Eggers made it feel like it actually could have happened (and, scarily enough, he did draw from archived stories about witches). If you haven’t checked out his work yet, you should go ahead and do so — now. Because while he’s not an A-lister just yet, his next project might just catapult him straight to the front of the pack.
The 1922 vampire film Nosferatu is an essential part of cinema history. Any student of the field should be well-versed with the horror classic already, with the film having influenced generations of directors since its release. It may not be flashy, it may not even be all that scary in this day and age. However it’s still an undeniably gorgeous silent film. And in a discussion on the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, Eggers revealed that a remake of Nosferatu will, in fact, be his next project.
The remake has been in development since last summer, so this is nothing unexpected for the director. Eggers said it was “shocking to him” that no one else had already taken his place. The filmmaker then went on to explain how he genuinely thinks he’s the right person for the job.
“It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do Nosferatu next. I was really planning on waiting a while, but that’s how fate shook out.”
Whether his mindset is a little self-absorbed or not is beside the point — this still sounds like an amazing idea. But Eggers is not actually the first one to ever do a Nosferatu remake. Back in 1979 acclaimed director Werner Herzog released his own version called Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski as the titular character. So, having to follow a stellar imagining like Herzog’s, puts even more pressure on Eggers’ shoulders to deliver something spectacular.
Hollywood’s currently flooding theaters with remakes and reboots, so taking on Nosferatu once again seems like a refreshingly prudent move for them. And with The Witch under his belt, Eggers’ vividly true-to-life style should blend ideally with the classic vampire tale.
Stay tuned because we will keep you updated as the project develops. If you have an opinion about the remake, whether it be optimistic or not, let us know in the comments below.