By: Josh Danis
Nosferatu, a classically gothic film released by director Robert Eggers, is the latest in a growing gallery of odd yet soothingly poignant tales. This film in particular is Eggers' first jab at a remake, an adaptation of the 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, which is in itself a not-so clever reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula by famous German director F.W. Murnau made due to the fact he could not get permission from Stoker's widow to use the rights to the property.
Opening up the film, we see the main protagonist, Ellen Hutter, played by Lily Rose-Depp, standing alone and in the dark, seemingly pleading for help. After a while, a voice is heard, deep and guttural, saying, "You have awoken me from my slumber." This is who we would later find out to be Count Orlok, the Dracula of our film, played by Bill Skarsgård. With a shocking grasp of undead hands around Ellen's face, the movie jolts back to a bedroom, revealing the scenario to be a dream or, more likely, a recollection.
The year is 1838 in Wisburg, Germany, and Ellen Hutter has just recently married the man of her dreams, Thomas, played by Nicholas Hoult, who is a doting and sensitive real estate agent looking to provide for their new family, his intentions being to raise them up in the social caste of the city. Thomas is given an offer by his boss, Herr Knock, to assist an old, withered Transylvanian count in purchasing property within Germany. Against Ellen's wishes, for fear of her nightmares and seizures returning in Thomas' absence, he accepts the commission and travels quite quickly to the Carpathian Mountains. This scene is actually the beginning of an overarching issue I have throughout the movie, that being the pacing. While I understand that there is a limited amount of time to display the individual scenes, it felt to me as though Thomas' journey through the Carpathians was incredibly rushed. Not only that, but certain scenes later on in the movie suffer from this issue as well. There are times where it seems as though just mere moments or hours pass when it's actually supposed to be multiple days.
These subsequent scenes introduce Orlok in all of his vampiric majesty. Thomas arrives at Orlok's haven after a couple of nights in a Romani village; he sees odd things like superstitious wards and even the staking of a lesser vampire. Orlok, though? He is the real deal: composed and noble and yet equally as erratic. Though his face is obscured, his monstrous features are still visible through the candlelight illuminating Thomas' various homestead deeds. His fingers are rotten and gray with claw-like nails akin to a bird's, and the camera closes in on his eyes enough to see a large, unkempt mustache grown over his lip and sunken-in, zombie-like eyes. This scene here is, truthfully, one of my favorites in the movie. Thomas is scared sh*tless as he realizes, slowly but surely, whatever this domineering force is has an inhuman origin.
In the opening exchange between Orlok and Thomas, Orlok’s vampiric powers are unmistakably revealed when Thomas, distracted, unwittingly draws blood from a fresh wound. In an instant, he blacks out, only to awaken later with mysterious bite marks on his chest. As he regains consciousness, Thomas notices Orlok has pocketed his pendant of Ellen, and in his voice he conveys admiration and a palpable envy. Utterly powerless, Thomas is commanded harshly into signing what he believes is the deed to the property.
The scene ends with Orlok bidding Thomas to stay a couple of extra nights, noting that he looks quite ill. He says, "It is a baaaaad omen to jourrrrrney in poorrrrr healthhh." (read that in a Romanian accent) And let me say I just love that quote from Orlok. The entire aura of the character is still somehow noble and regal in spite of the rat-filled labyrinth he lives in. When he talks to Hutter around the dinner table, he never once conveys the desperation within him. It's a hard emotion to catch from Orlok, but I promise you it's easier to piece together once you look at the scene in Romania. Not only is he desperate for Ellen, as made clear by his snatching of Thomas' pendant, but he is desperate for power and food as well. Those Romani villagers already have him figured out; they even kill a lesser nosferatu with ease. Orlok probably hasn't had proper prey to hunt in ages. Germany is his new hunting ground, his land of milk and honey.
Anyways, a quick TL;DR for you since this movie can be pretty dense: Thomas falls from Orklok's castle and is given medical attention and an exorcism by some nearby nuns. Ellen has been cursed with demonic possession by the shadow of Orlok; as a result, she falls into nightly fits and spasms, having to be tied to the bed and drugged by the Hutters' wealthy friends Frederich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Anna Harding (Emma Corrin). After enough repeated episodes, the Hardings' physician contacts his disgraced medical professor, who fell to obsessions with the occult, Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), or Von Franz for short. Thomas makes it back to Germany, and Orlok gets onto a Russian merchant ship and fills it with hordes of plague-ridden rats, crashing right into the port of Wisburg. Finally, after revealing to Thomas that Orlok was her ex-vampire hookup when she was spiritually vulnerable, it all clicks why Orlok is so jealous, and BAM! plot twist part two: Orlok tricked Thomas into signing a marriage annulment. He then offers Ellen three days to void her vows, or else he'll murder everyone she loves.
In a bittersweet sacrifice, Ellen actually takes Orlok up on his offer. She annuls her marriage and sleeps with him until the sun comes up, and with Orlok not back in his unholy coffin by daybreak, he dies, vomiting blood from every duct and orifice in his face, rapidly withering away. With Ellen almost completely drained of blood, she dies in the very first seconds of sunlight as Thomas pulls her into his arms. It's a confusing ending for sure, and I mean that emotionally. In some ways, you want the true and honest love of Ellen and Thomas to be preserved peacefully and happily. I mean, sure, Ellen had to die for the greater good, but did her entire marriage and its sanctity have to be violated too? Well, I'd argue yes if we are deciding to stick to the vampire's roots in gothic literature. Vampires are never just surface-level creatures; they're a metaphor for a whole bunch of things: the suave, rich European foreigner who came to steal your women with their hypnotic accents or, as shown with Orlok, a corruptor of the good, a plague upon the commoner, and a violator of normalcy.
Throughout the entire movie, Orlok's only job is to take what he perceives as good and twist it ever so slightly in order to make it evil or demonic; the love between Ellen and himself is mere lust for him, an infatuation. In many ways Orlok is an antitype to Thomas. In Thomas and Ellen's own intimate scene, we see a much more tender love between the two. Though it is performed with the intention of mocking Orlok, Thomas' care for his wife is still felt through the relationship of the two. Meanwhile, in Orlok's only intimate time with Ellen, he instantly becomes frenzied by her blood's scent and leaves her on the verge of death.
I think I've talked way too much so far, but in summary, go watch the movie. In fact, see it once or twice; you'll need to for sure.
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