Ten years ago, Robert Eggers established himself as a master craftsman after hitting the ground running with his breakthrough feature debut, the seventeenth-century folktale starring Anya Taylor-Joy, “The Witch”. A proven hand at well-researched, immersive horror movies steeped in mythology and folklore that send chills down your spine, the American genre specialist returned to the scene last December to put a fresh spin on the bloodcurdling, centuries-old vampire tale of Nosferatu.
Based on the 1922 German Expressionist silent film by F.M. Murnau, Eggers’ long-gestating dream project stars Nicholas Hault, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Bill Skarsgård and introduces the menacing Romanian Count Orlok to contemporary audiences. The film has earned solid reviews and has already raked up $138 million at the global box office.
A medieval epic (“The Knight”), an untitled western, and a Rasputin miniseries are all in the pipeline for Eggers. But in the meantime, to celebrate the return to theaters of a director who’s rapidly become his own brand name especially among Criterion collectors and A24-crazed cinephiles, we have rounded up every film, both feature and short length, directed by Robert Eggers to date, to see how “Nosferatu” stacks up against the rest.
7. Hansel and Gretel (2007)
In a conversation with The Guardian in 2022, Eggers minced no words while reflecting on this 27-minute short, based on the famous 1812 fairy tale by the brothers Grimm of the same name, describing it as “absolutely terrible”. He not only lamented the fact that it’s out in the world but explained how, on his way home from a screening in the Boston Underground Film Festival, he realized he had to do something better if he wanted to make it big in showbiz. Granted, the director certainly had a long way to go before coming into his own behind the camera, but to his credit, there’s a lot to be appreciated in his spin on “Hansel & Gretel”, as long as you take it for what it is: an experimental film shot on a shoestring budget by a then-unproven, twenty-something former stage director and production designer.
Shot in black-and-white in anachronistic silent form with intertitles, the 2007 adaptation provides a tissue sample of Eggers’ pet interests, sharp attention to detail and uncanny ability to get under the viewer’s skin. For the most part, it sticks to the well-trodden source material — putting us in the shoes of the titular siblings (Luke Allison and Isabella Pease) as they venture into the forest and fall in the hands of a sinister witch who plots to fatten them before gobbling them up.
You can sense that the young director wasn’t entirely confident yet, but if nothing else, his debut proved he wasn’t afraid of swinging for the fences and has always marched to the beat of his own drum.
6. Brothers (2013)
Originally intended as a proof of concept to be shown to studio producers Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen in hopes of securing funding and getting his feature-length debut (The Witch) greenlit, this 11-minute short film finds Eggers drawing from the deep well of religion and mythology once again to retell the biblical tale of Cain and Abel as we watch two siblings called Tom and Jake spending some time out in the woods of rural New Hampshire before things take a dark, unexpected turn.
Despite its limited runtime and barebones production value, “Brothers” marked a stride forward in Eggers’ craft that effectively showcases the director’s knack for foreboding mood, and ability to instill the viewer with a creeping sense of dread and sustained paranoia. Eggers worked closely with frequent collaborators DP Jarin Blaschke and editor Louise Ford to get the short off the ground, and credits the production as a formative experience that ultimately helped him proved to himself that he could indeed pull off “The Witch” shortly after (a film which features a similar aspect ratio, scary woods, starred children, and had naturalistic performances). You can check it out online at Vimeo.
5. The Tell-Tale Heart (2008)
If you’re intrigued and want to dip your toes into Eggers’ early-career work but can’t be bothered to track down and take the plunge on all three of his obscure shorts, we suggest you stick to this 2008 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short novel of the same name, about a young servant (Carrington Vilmont) murdering his bedridden elder employer in cold blood after becoming increasingly fed up with his monotonous job.
Clocking in at twenty-odd minutes and shot in an abandoned 19th-century New Hampshire manor throughout eight months of production, “The Tell-Tale Heart” marked the first collaboration between Eggers and DP Jarin Blaschke (who’d go on to shoot all four of his feature-length films from “The Witch” to “Nosferatu”). By all accounts, it stands as the first true sign that suggested they were on the path to become one of Hollywood’s most formidable creative duos.
Until recently, your only hope to see the whole thing for yourself was to lay hands on one of its extremely-rare DVD copies floating around on eBay, as it remained completely unavailable online until finally resurfacing in 2022 on the heels of “The Northman” theatrical release. Eggers’ sure-handed direction, unsettling use of puppetry and keen eye for period detail keeps you engaged from start to finish and easily outbalances the occasional dull stretches of the story.