Robert Eggers wants you to see his Nosferatu as both a lover and a biter

Though the Dark Universe mightiness beryllium dead, Robert Eggers has crafted thing similar its spiritual successor with a bid of disturbing fearfulness features. The Witch left you wondering however existent its demons were, The Lighthouse’s tentacled oversea creatures were ever slithering determination conscionable off-screen, and The Northman was a mythologically charged survey of people’s quality to go monsters and however that translation tin rob idiosyncratic of their humanity. Those films presented their otherworldly elements arsenic reflections of characters’ superstitions and their request to marque consciousness of the worlds astir them. But Eggers wants the undead ghoul astatine the halfway of his caller Nosferatu remake to permission you feeling thing overmuch much basal (though not needfully simple) and carnal.

Eggers’ Nosferatu is brimming with ocular and tonal nods to F.W. Murnau’s groundbreaking 1922 soundless film. But done his caller takes connected the vampiric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and bedeviled housewife Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), you tin consciousness Eggers tapping into the darkly intersexual vigor that made Bram Stoker’s Dracula such a uniquely transgressive fearfulness caller for the Victorian era. The caller Nosferatu is arriving astatine a clip erstwhile the thought of getting down and soiled with monsters has travel much, much more into fashion — truthful overmuch truthful that we’ve seen entire cinematic franchises built connected the concept. 

Viewed done that lens, it’s casual to look astatine Nosferatu as a communicative that’s trying to talk to this infinitesimal successful on-screen monster-fucking. But erstwhile I precocious sat down with Eggers to sermon the movie, helium told maine that, arsenic overmuch arsenic vampire tales mightiness consciousness similar manifestations of societal anxieties, channeling the zeitgeist wasn’t astatine each his goal.

As a lifelong Dracula fan fascinated by the mode decease and intersexual tendency specify vampire mythos, Eggers knew that helium wanted his Nosferatu to beryllium arsenic erotic arsenic it was haunting. But Eggers besides wanted his Nosferatu to consciousness similar a decidedly feminist, macabre romance, which is wherefore helium took immoderate inspiration from Emily Brontë.

“It was ever wide to maine that Nosferatu is simply a demon person story, and 1 of the large demon person stories of each clip is Wuthering Heights, which I returned to a batch portion penning this script,” Eggers explained. “As a character, Heathcliff is an implicit bastard towards Cathy successful the novel, and you’re ever questioning whether helium truly loves her, oregon if helium conscionable wants to person and destruct her.”

Nosferatu leaves you to ponder those aforesaid questions arsenic it introduces Ellen, a perceptive pistillate whose brilliance is being stifled by the societal mores of 19th-century Germany. Though Ellen desperately loves her hubby Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), helium struggles to recognize however years of being plagued by unusual visions person near her convinced that the embodiment of decease is stalking her. It’s easier for Thomas and Nosferatu’s different antheral characters similar Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to disregard Ellen’s nightmares arsenic delusions. But whenever Ellen goes to sleep, it is ne'er agelong earlier a monstrous beingness reaches retired to her mind, urging her to fto it inside.

In Depp’s tremulous Ellen, you tin spot traces of Mina Harker, the sole heroine successful Stoker’s novel, whose cleverness winds up being instrumental successful Dracula’s eventual demise. But Eggers wanted this mentation of Ellen to consciousness similar a pistillate who, contempt “understanding things connected a precise heavy level, doesn’t person the connection to articulate her experiences.” It was besides important to him that this communicative stress however men’s misogynistic preconceptions of women are a benignant of monster successful and of themselves.

“Ellen’s hubby loves her, but helium can’t recognize these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ feelings she’s experiencing, and he’s dismissive of her,” Eggers said. “The lone idiosyncratic she truly finds a transportation with is this monster, and that emotion triangle is truthful compelling to me, partially due to the fact that of however tragic it is.”

In the aforesaid mode that Ellen knows that something is retired determination watching her arsenic it stalks done the shadows, Count Orlok — a long-dead Transylvanian nobleman — tin consciousness that there’s thing precise peculiar astir Ellen. Much of the caller Nosferatu’s unsettling strangeness is crystallized successful the pair’s antithetic psychic connection. It’s alarming to spot Ellen prehend up and convulse successful fits arsenic her caput seemingly leaves her body. But there’s besides an progressively orgasmic prime to the dependable of Ellen’s fits that instantly clues you into how, arsenic scary arsenic Orlok is, helium besides elicits thing profoundly pleasurable successful immoderate of his victims.

More truthful than galore different caller vampire stories, Eggers’ Nosferatu leans into the information that creatures similar Orlok feast connected the humor of the surviving due to the fact that they themselves are precise dead. Whatever magic it is that’s brought Orlok backmost is impressive, but you would ne'er mistake him for a exemplary with a beating pulse. He’s expected to work arsenic a reanimated corpse; a once-suave and debonaire one, but a corpse each the same.

Because Nosferatu is a precise horny emotion story, though, Eggers felt Orlok needed to beryllium astatine slightest somewhat sexy successful bid to merchantability his earthy magnetism and “help the assemblage to cognize connected immoderate level that there’s a beauteous antheral beneath each that makeup.”

“In my mind, Orlok was decidedly handsome erstwhile helium was alive,” Eggers said. “I wanted him to person beardown features, and for determination to beryllium a benignant of quality successful his brows, cheekbones, and chemoreceptor due to the fact that those are the parts of himself that helium tin amusement a small spot of successful the airy to a location impermanent earlier they recognize that he’s really rotting and falling apart.”

Nosferatu starts piling the horrors connected arsenic Orlok and Ellen’s nexus strengthens. The aerial is already heavy with decease and fearfulness arsenic the movie introduces Willem Dafoe’s Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz and Simon McBurney’s Herr Knock. It isn’t agelong earlier the men commencement to recognize conscionable however endangered each of their lives are due to the fact that of their proximity to Ellen. But Eggers besides wanted Nosferatu’s antheral characters to bring a spot of whimsy to the film, if lone to assistance audiences woody with each the hostility and admit however monsters tin person senses of humor.

“Some of those scenes with Thomas and Orlok are decidedly scary and intense, but they’re besides moments wherever Orlok is playing with his food,” Eggers explained. “When Louise Ford and I were editing those scenes, we would beryllium successful stitches astatine times due to the fact that of however pithy Orlok is erstwhile you truly wage attention.”