With just a handful of films, Robert Eggers has established himself as the Merchant/Ivory, Powell and Pressburger of horror.

The writer, director and most tellingly production designer of “The Witch,” “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman” creates exquisitely detailed lithographic prints of the worlds of the past, veritable picture postcards of the primitive lives of settlers, Vikings and 19th century lighthouse keepers.

And every so often, he hurls so much gore onto the screen that you’d swear Rob Zombie showed up on set for a few days while Eggers took a long weekend.

“Nosferatu” is a grand homage to Gothic horror on the page, on the stage and on the screen. A loving adaptation of the 1922 F.W. Murnau silent cinema classic, it’s beautifully realized, Christmas card nostalgic and downright quaint — aside from the blood, devourings, vomit and nudity.

It’s a-by-the-book treatment of the Urtext of vampire tales, “Dracula,” and if anything, it’s less surprising and shocking than its silent cinema forebear. Eggers leans on Stoker far more than Murnau and 1920s German screenwriter Henrick Galeen.

If you have ever seen a “Dracula” adaptation on the screen, this “Nosferatu” offers not a single surprise. The names may change, but the tropes of the genre are all present and accounted for.

There’s a mysterious Transylyanian count with a passion for house-swapping, a “familiar” not named Renfield, a coffin carried in a sea voyage (less logical here), an endangered young bride and a vampire hunter who hasn’t gotten his license yet.

Eggers reaches for the occasional jolt, but while he was aiming for a horrific homage, what hits home time and again is how admiring and campy this is.

A young German woman (Lily Rose-Depp) is “bonded” to a mysterious, monstrous presence (Bill Skarsgård, unrecognizable of course) in her youth. When she marries, her nightmarish dreams about her future seem to come true. Her real estate agent husband (Nicholas Hoult) is summoned to far-off Transylvania to sign-off on the sale of a crumbling German mansion with the towering Count Orlok.

“Do not SPEAK his name,” Thomas is warned. “BEWARE of his shadow!”

As the contract is in “my own language,” poor Thomas has no idea what he just signed away. His pining wife slips into frantic spasms and wild delusions. He himself is trapped, awakening each day to more mysterious bites all over his chest. Weakened, how can he escape?

And what part did his realtor-from-hell boss (Simon McBurney) play in this scheme?

Bride Ellen’s friends, the Hardings (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin) are at a loss, as is the doctor (Ralph Ineson, perfect) they summon to treat her. But perhaps his mentor at university, the discredited alchemist von Franz (Willem Dafoe, in a fine lather) has some thoughts.

“Angels and demons protect us!”

A “plague” is coming, with every life endangered, from the ship’s crew imperiled by their “cursed” cargo, to the cherubic children the Hardings assure “there are no MONSTERS.” Mere science cannot stop it. But perhaps superstition can.

Eggers indulges himself in all the tricks of the scary cinema’s trade — simple historic ffects given a digital boost in recreating an 1830s Europe of gloom, greys and shades of brown and red. The most chilling image is of the shadow of count’s clawed hand, stretching across a sleeping city, reaching for Ellen.

His film has Currier and Ives look and his script has “A Christmas Carol” touches. What Eggers has given us here isn’t fresh collection of frights, but a serving of cinematic seasonal comfort food, with only a Roma (Gypsy) village, the crew of the unnamed sailing bark and Professor von Franz having the sense to dread the terrifying truth.

Rating: R, graphic, gory violence, nudity

Cast: Lily Rose-Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bill Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Robert Eggers, based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Henrik Galeen’s script to the 1922 film “Nosferatu.” A Focus Features release.

Running time: 2:15