Like all good horror fans, I have a soft spot in my heart for the classic 1922 F.W. Murnau silent film Nosferatu. In this unauthorized (and therefore legally-troubled) adaptation of Dracula, Max Schreck plays Count Orlok, a vampire who relocates to the German town of Wisborg with the assistance of Herr Knock, a real estate agent. Knock’s employee, the young Thomas Hutter, says goodbye to his wife Ellen, and voyages to Transylvania. Horror happens, and only Ellen’s self-sacrifice can destroy the monster (this movie introduces the idea that sunlight is fatal to vampires; in the original novel Dracula is only weakened when he goes out in the sun).
Schreck is amazing as Orlok in this film, giving the vampire an inhuman physicality with his performance—I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Schreck doesn’t blink once while the camera is on him. The iconic scenes in this masterpiece of filmmaking have been copied and copied and copied again, one of the most famous being Orlok’s shadow moving along the wall toward his victim:
Nosferatu was remade in 1979 by Werner Herzog, starring Klaus Kinski as Dracula (They changed the names back to the originals from the novel, though the events are still set in Germany). This acclaimed adaptation portrays the vampire as a sad and lonely thing who wants to die, shows Lucy (Ellen in the 1922 version) being attracted to him despite herself, and gives us the downer ending of Lucy’s husband carrying on Dracula’s legacy as a new vampire.
It’s about time we got a new version, but only if it’s a good one. And Robert Eggers stepped up to give us Nosferatu (2024), which was released a few weeks ago—on Christmas Day! I guess horror fans got a present from Santa. I just got home from watching this film, and I HAVE THOUGHTS. My review will be split into Spoiler-Free and Spoiler-Full sections.
Spoiler Free Review of Nosferatu
This adaptation is meant to hew more closely to the 1922 version than the 1979, and we see that in several places. For one thing, the names are back to Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgård), Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny Depp), and so on.
Speaking of casting, for those who pay attention to these things, the casting adds an extra bit of fun to the experience. Willem Dafoe plays Professor von Franz, a expert in vampire lore. Dafoe had previously starred in Shadow of the Vampire, an odd meta-film about the making of Nosferatu (1922) that centered around the (fictional, of course) idea that the filmmaker (John Malkovich as F.W. Murnau) had hired an actual vampire (Dafoe) to play Orlok. Also, Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter, having just finished playing a different victim/servant of a Transylvanian vampire in 2023’s Renfield, opposite Nicolas Cage.
Several of the shots in the film evoke the 1922 original, and Eggers’ use of shadow is one of the more obvious connections. As in the original, we see the vampire’s shadow as a representation of his spiritual presence, moving across objects and people and locations. In one scene in the 2024 version, Orlok’s shadow-hand reaches across the city, and where his shadow falls, we can hear people screaming inside the houses below, showing the misery and torment that accompany the vampire’s presence.
Robert Eggers has made a name for himself with films such as The Witch and The Northman, and one thing that remains constant in Nosferatu is Eggers’ embrace of the physical. There is a raw, earthy quality to his films, using characters’ bodies as much as their dialogue as a tool of communication. Speaking of raw earthiness, DO NOT take the kids to see this film, because Eggers’ use of blood (and other bodily fluids) and unpleasant nudity is on full display—so to speak—in Nosferatu.
One thing that I greatly appreciated about this Nosferatu was the vampire himself. This Count Orlok is not a tortured Byronic artist, or an angst-ridden figure of existential sadness, or a hard-partying rebel, or any of the other ways that writers and filmmakers have made vampires sympathetic. There is no sympathy for this vampire. He is a disease. In the 1922 version, Orlok is a plague rat; this is shown in his facial features, in the hordes of rodents that accompany him, and the fact that his arrival heralds an outbreak of plague among the townsfolk. The 2024 version dials this up to eleven. In addition to physical sickness, he brings an epidemic of mental illness to Wisborg. This Orlok is a being of pure appetite, existing only to consume, like a spreading virus, with no redeeming qualities.
In a previous series of posts (Part One, Part Two, Part Three), I went into the philosophy and psychology of horror, drawing on the theory that the horror emotion is a compound of fear and disgust. This film hits both sides of that compound, and hard. Orlok is terrifying; nobody is safe from him, and he is monstrous in the scenes when he is enraged. And this Orlok is, frankly, gross. Unlike what we see in the 1922 and 1979 versions, we don’t even get the sleek bald-headed ivory-skinned figure. Orlok 2024 is withered and rotting, with scraggly patchy hair and a mustache that seriously needs some shampoo.
Robert Eggers’ version of Nosferatu is creepy, disturbing, atmospheric, and thoughtful, without feeling too slow-paced. Orlok’s voice is especially memorable; I read that Skarsgård worked with a opera coach to bring his voice down a full octave to achieve that throaty rolling growl. If you’re up for it (as I said, this film has an R rating for a reason), I recommend Nosferatu (2024). Watch the trailer here.
And now…
Spoilers Ahead (You Have Been Warned)
I appreciated the fake-out toward the end of the film. Thomas and colleagues race to find Orlok’s coffin in a scene that would be right at home in any Dracula adaptation. Anyone who hadn’t seen the original, or who didn’t quite catch the dialogue earlier between Ellen and Professor von Franz, might have been confused by what happened next. I was surprised though when they opened the coffin, only to end up stabbing Knock, who was just so sad that he wasn’t going to be made into a vampire as promised (“I was going to be the Prince of Rats” or words to that effect). But it was all a way to get Thomas out of the house long enough for Ellen to sacrifice herself. I have seen some reviewers point to this and call Nosferatu a feminist movie, as it is Ellen’s agency that defeats Orlok, instead of a group of men driving a stake through his undead heart. If it is, it’s very different from any other feminist movie that I’ve seen lately; Ellen’s victory comes through passively consenting to give herself to the vampire, instead of leaping through the air to kick Orlok in the head while the menfolk stand around looking stupid and an ironically-smirking girl-power song plays in the background. Ellen’s victory is the victory of the martyr, making her the perfect counterpoint to Orlok’s all-consuming selfishness.
Speaking of not making Knock into a vampire, it seems to me that the lack of vampiric reproduction in this film just underscores Orlok’s characterization as a being of pure appetite. This creature only takes from the world; he does not give, not even the perverse parody of human procreation that happens when a victim is transformed (willingly or unwillingly) into another blood-sucker.
The fact that Orlok only destroys without creating makes him one of the most complete figures of evil that I can remember seeing. He cares for nothing beyond his own desires, not even for Ellen (one major difference between this and Coppola’s 1992 take on Dracula). More than merely predatory, he is cruel. He kills the Hardings’ children (and THAT was another disturbing scene), and the pregnant Anna Harding, presumably only leaving Friedrich alive so that he can suffer the loss of his family.
And as I mentioned earlier, this Orlok is gross. There is nothing sexy or romantic about this vampire. When we finally see him fully exposed in the light of day, he is a decaying leprous corpse laying atop Ellen’s body. I’m glad I went and saw this one by myself, instead of bringing any members of my family with me.
I am going to be obsessed with this movie for several days, I just know it.
What did you think of Nosferatu?