How scary is the new Dracula movie from the director of The Witch?

For die-hards, no horror movie can be too scary. But for you, a bitch, the wrong one can make you unhappy. Never fear, fear, because Slate’s Scaredy Scale is here to help. We have put together a very scientific and mostly spoiler free system for rating new horror films, comparing them to classics along a 10-point scale. And because not everyone is afraid of the same things—some viewers can’t stand jump scares, while others are haunted by more psychological terrors or can’t resist arterial splashes—it breaks down each film’s scares across three criteria: suspense, creepiness, and gore .

If you haven’t had enough of towering Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård scaring the living daylights out of you as the killer clown in Theso I’m happy to announce that this edition of Scaredy Scale will be about his attempt to do it all over again. The new one Nosferatu finds Skarsgård trying to match writer-director Robert Eggers’ freak, which is no small task given the auteur (also responsible for The witch, The lighthouseand The Norwegian) is known for its signature mix of spooky folklore, horror, and, in short, delightfully weird shit. Now, in his first non-article feature, Eggers decided to take on the classic vampire tale and revamp the classic 1922 German film of the same name starring Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult and Willem Dafoe. There’s no doubt that the film is good – for a genre film it boasts unusually high numbers on review aggregators – but how scary is this not-so-jolly Christmas release? Is it OK to take the kids who are in town on vacation, or should you sneak out of the festivities to see it alone? Let’s dive in.

Nosferatu starting with the sound of labored breathing set to only a black screen from which you don’t know what will emerge. Then it delivers its first, truly surprising, jump scare within the first five minutes. It’s a movie that shows you from the start how much it wants to scare you as a movie that isn’t about what’s going on bump at night, but BAM. There are plenty of scares, but they are nothing if not elaborate. Lots have been achieved with sound that unexpectedly crescendos and thus can be avoided by a well-timed plugging of ears. But it would be a shame to miss how its combinations of high-volume strings, fast cuts, darkness and bodily fluids are used to raise your heart rate. Some of the moments of heightened tension are even playful, like a particularly successful shock that is followed by a gunshot so angelic that my screening laughed at the tonal whiplash. Of course, the heavenly tableau forms a set piece, practically lifted from a future textbook of horror master classes, which will make you unconsciously hold your breath. Be prepared for your nervous system to get a workout.

Grand Guignol in Nosferatu isn’t frequent or fundamental to the plot like it is in some other horror series, but whenever it’s time to get creepy, Eggers breaks down. Naturally, given that the story follows a vampire who brings a plague to an entire town, there’s a healthy amount of bodily fluids on display. Chief among them, of course, is blood: It splatters, it splatters, it pours, it pools, it even, somehow, bursts. In the film’s most repulsive moments, something alive is always bitten into, whether it’s a human neck or an animal head. And considering the whole plague thing, there are also enough morbid sights to gross you out. Not to mention the abundance of spit and mucus, which admittedly is, not my thing. Your mileage may vary, but if you’re even the slightest bit tired, you might want to reconsider your decision to watch this one at a diner.

Watching Lily-Rose Depp’s body contort demonically can certainly stay with you. But the truth of the matter is: Set in a specific time and place, the film unfolds as it does because of a character’s poor decision-making years earlier. The movie is a total trip, but as long as you don’t time travel back to 1838, go to Germany and make a deal with the devil, you should be able to mostly put this one behind you.

2024 has had no shortage of creative horror films, like Nicolas Cage’s viral Long legsthe riveting social commentary The substancethe high concept Late night with the deviland the daring Hugh Grant vehicle Hereticsnot to mention international standouts like South Korea’s Exhumation and France’s MadS. It’s only fitting that the year ends with another entry in this category of Actually Good Horror Movies. Though Nosferatu might not keep your pulse pounding for long after you leave the theater, its full-throttle exploration of art meets terror should leave a mark on you in the best possible way. You’ll certainly want to close your eyes to the carnage and cover your ears to the shocks, but nothing about its scares comes cheap. Not everyone lives forever, but some Christmas memories still can immortal.