I managed to catch this new movie on Boxing Day. I’ve always been a huge admirer of this story — especially Werner Herzog’s 1979 adaptation. Keeping that film as my benchmark, I was pleasantly surprised by how excellent Robert Eggers’s new version turned out to be.

Matt Zoller Seitz at Roger Ebert.

Technically and logistically, this movie is an awesome achievement. The wind, the rain, and the darkness seem to do Nosferatu’s bidding. The force of the monster’s unknowable malevolence seems to distort the movie itself, making it shudder and break down. It’s made with the most modern filmmaking technology but feels like an artifact from another century, like one of those inscribed tablets that adventurers find in a tomb and insist on translating aloud even though there’s a drawing of a terrifying demon on it.