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Nosferatu: Then and Now
The many forms of the popular vampire story that refuses to die.
Karl R. De Mesa
2025-03-04T10:30:23.150Z
At the heart of “Nosferatu” (the story) is a real estate deal gone wrong.
Personified by Thomas Hutter and his perilously attractive wife, the tale proves that, since the early days of capitalism, work in the sales force can be a real grind. You may find yourself making a house call in a derelict castle to close a pitch to a creature of the night—but only the landed wealthy ones, of course.
However, at the heart of the making of the movie is a copyright lawsuit that is testament to, at the very least, how lucrative the concept of a bloodsucker romance can be. So much so that a widow would sue a film studio and the court grant a win that would see almost every last one of director FW Murnau’s film copies destroyed.
Our idea of the duality of the vampire in popular culture is thanks to the survival (and eventual spread like wildfire) of those copies. Very few, too.
Today, we think of the Western vampire as a caricature of two extremes. The Dracula that is charming and well-dressed, has impeccable manners and seduces as a way to hunt is courtesy of Bram Stoker’s novel and its subsequent visualizations. Still very much human (and can even walk in subdued daylight). Ah, but the bestial Orlok, a cave-skulking monstrosity that can’t hide his incredibly long fingernails and buck teeth, looks like a rat with tufts of hair growing wild in strange places is all due to German auteur Murnau. This vamp is allergic to sunlight and bulldozes dreams to hunt the choicest, prettiest prey.
In 1897, Bram Stoker gave us his novel. In 1925, all copies of “Nosferatu” were ordered destroyed. Luckily, some copies were already distributed abroad, out of Germany, where its ponderous spirit thrived among the surrealists and horror directors.
With the theatrical release of “Nosferatu” (2024) on Philippine shores (months late, I know), here’s the notable movies that came before director Robert Eggers’ own symphony of blood.
Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
One of the most powerful moments in the original silent movie is when real estate agent Thomas Hutter is fetched by Count Orlok’s carriage. The narrative title card reads: “And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”
Previous to that, Hutter had a night ill-spent at an inn where he was treated pretty badly, had begged the proprietor to let him stay the night, and once he’d accomplished that was then besieged by awful dreams and even more awful local customs. Climbing aboard the warmth of the carriage was the first hospitable gesture he’d had since stepping foot on the Carpathians. There’s no going back for poor Hutter. Little does he know about the horrors waiting for him, either, but for that short ride he was comforted; given kindness.
The “phantoms” line became a psalm for the surrealist movement of the 1930s and early 1940s. About meeting spirits and the dead when you cross that bridge, conjuring the allure of the otherworldly. Murnau’s movie hit its mark with kindred souls and lit a fire that burns to this day.
Vibing with the novel, Murnau and his production nevertheless failed to secure permission from Stoker’s estate. “Dracula” would not enter the public domain until 50 years after the author’s death. Which meant 1962. Undeterred, they simply worked around it and Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter, Mina Harker was changed to Ellen, the minion Renfield is Herr Knock, and vampire hunter Van Helsing became Prof Bulwer.
Count Dracula became Count Orlok and Max Schreck’s performance as a castle-creeping, ship-prowling, beauty-craving bloodsucker is the foundation on which all of Murnau’s now iconic shots is based. Orlok reflects disease and the specters of ancient dread, mirroring the European concerns of plague and war at the time. Especially fears of the Spanish flu.
Another pivotal concept is how Count Orlok can only be destroyed if he stays up, away from his coffin when morning comes and a roster crows. Thus Ellen’s sacrifice, as someone who martyrs herself by luring the vampire into a prolonged bloodsucking fiesta, is the tragic centerpiece of Murnau’s grisly tableau.
The erotic undertones are pretty explicit by the end. Only the beautiful and innocent can conquer the beast.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Werner Herzog’s (yeah, the “Grizzly Man” director) movie is notable primarily because it’s an adaptation of BOTH Murnau’s 1922 movie and Stoker's 1897 novel.
How? Because Dracula had by then entered public domain. He’s able to call the characters by their originals. Hutter is now back to the put upon real estate agent Jonathan Harker. Interestingly, there’s a version where the actors talk in English and another in German, which must have been a decision to court both a Euro and international audience.
French femme fatale Isabelle Adjani as object of vamp craving Lucy Harker is a standout in this movie, as Herzog immerses the camera in her sensuality, fear, and vulnerability. This was way before the 1990s when “Diabolique” made her famous, but she was already occupying a niche all her own here. She does all this adeptly, even covered in layers of period costume.
Opposite Adjani is Klaus Kinski as Orlok, who’d already starred in Herzog’s previous two movies. Aside from a stupefying and heavy aura of sadness—plus heavy use of animal imagery and references to primevalism—Kinski doesn’t offer much newness or dimension to his monster. He is mostly a figure of sorrow, dragging his sorry, lifeless carcass across the screen as if weighed by an anvil, like an early progenitor of the “Twilight” bloodsuckers sans the glitter and “Ah, me!” Certainly not much reveling in the power of the beast there. Actually, without Herzog’s iconic voiceover or much of a musical score to thread things together I found this a self-indulgent exercise. It tries to mimic the horrors of the original but keeps on interrupting itself with bursts of emotion instead of a rising flow. Everything felt muted. Neutered. Even the death of Orlok provided only a mild dopamine hit.
Likely it was also where Herzog shot the scenes. None of the London grit or Carpathian emptiness here. The ultra clean canals of the Netherlands stood in for England, while Slovakia and the Czech Republic became Transylvania.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
A movie about the making of a vampire movie? Sign me up! Plus, it stars John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.
E. Elias Merhige’s movie about how FW Murnau made “Nosferatu” is a triumph of meta twists and masterful use of pulp tone. It really turns on one premise: what if Murnau found a real vampire to become Max Schreck?
Malkovich plays tyrannical visionary Murnau, by then a darling of German Expressionism. Dafoe plays the lonely Orlok; a bloodsucker masquerading as an actor playing a centuries old vampire. Does he play himself or an idealized version of himself? It doesn’t matter, because, like any eccentric lead his needs must be met. And his appetites run deep. He wants to eat his co-lead, the theater and film super star Greta Schroder. The crew thinks he’s doing deep method acting, suspecting his ways as strange but necessary for this cinematic achievement. He murders his way through the movie and the production staff and Murnau films it all. He dines on the make-up girl and the assistant director, and the locals curse Murnau for bringing this evil down on them, to his spotlight.
This was highly entertaining and propulsive, even as it was paced only in bursts of action with musings on cinema and ambition in between. Borrowing heavily from the original’s silent film angles, shadowplay, and cinematography, Malkovich and Dafoe buoy this movie to an absurd, funny, undeniably bitter end. While around them an able supporting cast either lift or refute his madness. Notably Eddie Izzard who plays the hapless Hutter and Cary Elwes as a jockish and macho cinematographer who eventually takes part in trying to kill Orlok/Schreck.
Soaked in the 2000s transgressive imagery and spirit, this was a horror movie so entertaining that it even came to the attention of award giving bodies. Oscar noms for Best Makeup and Best Supporting Actor (for Dafoe). A travesty that Catherine McCormack, who played Greta, the actress playing Ellen Hutter, was snubbed for an award—despite getting little screen time, her outrage and insecurity lit up the scenes whenever she was up to the bat.
Nosferatu (2024)
Eggers’ filmography so far, if you’ve seen them all, are simply long mood pieces. “The Northman”? Revenge set in medieval Scandinavia (loosely on the story of Amleth, or Hamlet) and the downward spiral to a bestial nature to get that long-hankered for retribution. “The Lighthouse”? Two dudes going batshit insane without entertainment (and too many lobsters) while trying to run an isolated shipping safety device. And “The Witch”? All about how a family trying to eke out a living in the frontier falls prey to ancient powers and superstitions roaming the land. Plus, farm animals gone amok. Damn long mood stuff.
Now, “Nosferatu,” for my money is all about calling out to the dark in your helpless hours, wanting the loneliness to end because it’s breaking your heart. Tween Ellen wanted "a guardian angel, a spirit of comfort...anything!” And what if the night answered back?
So this movie is mostly about Ellen Hutter (played by Lily-Rose Depp) and her craving for love, her desire to be desired, even if it’s from an Orlok. Later on, she’ll get married to the certifiably nice and upstanding guy that is real estate man Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) but way before that the bloodsucker had her first. So now, the vampire has found her again and wants her to give up herself, keep that promise she made on first blush. To Thomas’s matrimonial love, Orlok replies: “I was totally the first boyfriend; I had her first!”
Drenched in gothic fervor and cinematography that burns past your eyeballs, Eggers has created a modern mood piece that transcends the 1922 original. Even the faults of his actors trying their best to live up to his standards—as well as Murnau’s original standards, it feels like. Sure Hoult knocks it out of the park with real dread and real terror dancing across his sclera as Bill Skarsgard’s Orlok conjures dark machismo on screen (the man has parlayed supernatural villains like Pennywise into a worthy career,) trapping him in the castle. The costumes and the visuals here all conspire to sink the actor and bring forth the monster. What a sight it is! Orlok, a Hungarian warlord who’d made a pact with the devil, stalks and murders through Germany and the Carpathians like a barely restrained beast. Even his mental feats are bullying—he consumes the Harding children in a show of brute force (close childhood friends of the Hutters), he unleashes a rat plague upon the city like a casual flex.
Arguably some of the over the top acting from both Lily-Rose Depp (naysayers may critique that she can’t act) and Willem Dafoe (who plays the Van Helsing character here as Prof. Von Franz) can be a turn off for those unfamiliar with the gothic horror tropes. They’re all part of the courses that lead to the symphony’s climax—Ellen’s madness, Thomas’s fears, Von Franz’s resignation, Harding’s shock. Eventually, Ellen’s acceptance and conspiracy with the vampire hunter to sacrifice herself (“I am convinced only you have the faculty to redeem us,”) to seduce the beast into staying at her throat until he is so intoxicated that the sunlight shines down on his skinny, unloved shell.
Even as Orlok perishes, Ellen rejoices, realizing how she had the power all along, how the vampire had said to her, vulnerable, like a plaintive ex-lover beseeching she give him another chance: “Your passion is bound to me…I cannot be sated without you.”
All the minor complaints distract little from the kind of cinematic bravura that Eggers has already consistently brought to fans of horror movies. There’s a reason that so many memes and lines (like “I am an appetite, nothing more”) have become viral, memes that have reached even beyond the usual algorithms and have extended the life of this seemingly unkillable beast.
Personified by Thomas Hutter and his perilously attractive wife, the tale proves that, since the early days of capitalism, work in the sales force can be a real grind. You may find yourself making a house call in a derelict castle to close a pitch to a creature of the night—but only the landed wealthy ones, of course.
However, at the heart of the making of the movie is a copyright lawsuit that is testament to, at the very least, how lucrative the concept of a bloodsucker romance can be. So much so that a widow would sue a film studio and the court grant a win that would see almost every last one of director FW Murnau’s film copies destroyed.
Our idea of the duality of the vampire in popular culture is thanks to the survival (and eventual spread like wildfire) of those copies. Very few, too.
Today, we think of the Western vampire as a caricature of two extremes. The Dracula that is charming and well-dressed, has impeccable manners and seduces as a way to hunt is courtesy of Bram Stoker’s novel and its subsequent visualizations. Still very much human (and can even walk in subdued daylight). Ah, but the bestial Orlok, a cave-skulking monstrosity that can’t hide his incredibly long fingernails and buck teeth, looks like a rat with tufts of hair growing wild in strange places is all due to German auteur Murnau. This vamp is allergic to sunlight and bulldozes dreams to hunt the choicest, prettiest prey.
In 1897, Bram Stoker gave us his novel. In 1925, all copies of “Nosferatu” were ordered destroyed. Luckily, some copies were already distributed abroad, out of Germany, where its ponderous spirit thrived among the surrealists and horror directors.
With the theatrical release of “Nosferatu” (2024) on Philippine shores (months late, I know), here’s the notable movies that came before director Robert Eggers’ own symphony of blood.
Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
One of the most powerful moments in the original silent movie is when real estate agent Thomas Hutter is fetched by Count Orlok’s carriage. The narrative title card reads: “And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”
Previous to that, Hutter had a night ill-spent at an inn where he was treated pretty badly, had begged the proprietor to let him stay the night, and once he’d accomplished that was then besieged by awful dreams and even more awful local customs. Climbing aboard the warmth of the carriage was the first hospitable gesture he’d had since stepping foot on the Carpathians. There’s no going back for poor Hutter. Little does he know about the horrors waiting for him, either, but for that short ride he was comforted; given kindness.
The “phantoms” line became a psalm for the surrealist movement of the 1930s and early 1940s. About meeting spirits and the dead when you cross that bridge, conjuring the allure of the otherworldly. Murnau’s movie hit its mark with kindred souls and lit a fire that burns to this day.
Vibing with the novel, Murnau and his production nevertheless failed to secure permission from Stoker’s estate. “Dracula” would not enter the public domain until 50 years after the author’s death. Which meant 1962. Undeterred, they simply worked around it and Jonathan Harker became Thomas Hutter, Mina Harker was changed to Ellen, the minion Renfield is Herr Knock, and vampire hunter Van Helsing became Prof Bulwer.
Count Dracula became Count Orlok and Max Schreck’s performance as a castle-creeping, ship-prowling, beauty-craving bloodsucker is the foundation on which all of Murnau’s now iconic shots is based. Orlok reflects disease and the specters of ancient dread, mirroring the European concerns of plague and war at the time. Especially fears of the Spanish flu.
Another pivotal concept is how Count Orlok can only be destroyed if he stays up, away from his coffin when morning comes and a roster crows. Thus Ellen’s sacrifice, as someone who martyrs herself by luring the vampire into a prolonged bloodsucking fiesta, is the tragic centerpiece of Murnau’s grisly tableau.
The erotic undertones are pretty explicit by the end. Only the beautiful and innocent can conquer the beast.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Werner Herzog’s (yeah, the “Grizzly Man” director) movie is notable primarily because it’s an adaptation of BOTH Murnau’s 1922 movie and Stoker's 1897 novel.
How? Because Dracula had by then entered public domain. He’s able to call the characters by their originals. Hutter is now back to the put upon real estate agent Jonathan Harker. Interestingly, there’s a version where the actors talk in English and another in German, which must have been a decision to court both a Euro and international audience.
French femme fatale Isabelle Adjani as object of vamp craving Lucy Harker is a standout in this movie, as Herzog immerses the camera in her sensuality, fear, and vulnerability. This was way before the 1990s when “Diabolique” made her famous, but she was already occupying a niche all her own here. She does all this adeptly, even covered in layers of period costume.
Opposite Adjani is Klaus Kinski as Orlok, who’d already starred in Herzog’s previous two movies. Aside from a stupefying and heavy aura of sadness—plus heavy use of animal imagery and references to primevalism—Kinski doesn’t offer much newness or dimension to his monster. He is mostly a figure of sorrow, dragging his sorry, lifeless carcass across the screen as if weighed by an anvil, like an early progenitor of the “Twilight” bloodsuckers sans the glitter and “Ah, me!” Certainly not much reveling in the power of the beast there. Actually, without Herzog’s iconic voiceover or much of a musical score to thread things together I found this a self-indulgent exercise. It tries to mimic the horrors of the original but keeps on interrupting itself with bursts of emotion instead of a rising flow. Everything felt muted. Neutered. Even the death of Orlok provided only a mild dopamine hit.
Likely it was also where Herzog shot the scenes. None of the London grit or Carpathian emptiness here. The ultra clean canals of the Netherlands stood in for England, while Slovakia and the Czech Republic became Transylvania.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
A movie about the making of a vampire movie? Sign me up! Plus, it stars John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.
E. Elias Merhige’s movie about how FW Murnau made “Nosferatu” is a triumph of meta twists and masterful use of pulp tone. It really turns on one premise: what if Murnau found a real vampire to become Max Schreck?
Malkovich plays tyrannical visionary Murnau, by then a darling of German Expressionism. Dafoe plays the lonely Orlok; a bloodsucker masquerading as an actor playing a centuries old vampire. Does he play himself or an idealized version of himself? It doesn’t matter, because, like any eccentric lead his needs must be met. And his appetites run deep. He wants to eat his co-lead, the theater and film super star Greta Schroder. The crew thinks he’s doing deep method acting, suspecting his ways as strange but necessary for this cinematic achievement. He murders his way through the movie and the production staff and Murnau films it all. He dines on the make-up girl and the assistant director, and the locals curse Murnau for bringing this evil down on them, to his spotlight.
This was highly entertaining and propulsive, even as it was paced only in bursts of action with musings on cinema and ambition in between. Borrowing heavily from the original’s silent film angles, shadowplay, and cinematography, Malkovich and Dafoe buoy this movie to an absurd, funny, undeniably bitter end. While around them an able supporting cast either lift or refute his madness. Notably Eddie Izzard who plays the hapless Hutter and Cary Elwes as a jockish and macho cinematographer who eventually takes part in trying to kill Orlok/Schreck.
Soaked in the 2000s transgressive imagery and spirit, this was a horror movie so entertaining that it even came to the attention of award giving bodies. Oscar noms for Best Makeup and Best Supporting Actor (for Dafoe). A travesty that Catherine McCormack, who played Greta, the actress playing Ellen Hutter, was snubbed for an award—despite getting little screen time, her outrage and insecurity lit up the scenes whenever she was up to the bat.
Nosferatu (2024)
Eggers’ filmography so far, if you’ve seen them all, are simply long mood pieces. “The Northman”? Revenge set in medieval Scandinavia (loosely on the story of Amleth, or Hamlet) and the downward spiral to a bestial nature to get that long-hankered for retribution. “The Lighthouse”? Two dudes going batshit insane without entertainment (and too many lobsters) while trying to run an isolated shipping safety device. And “The Witch”? All about how a family trying to eke out a living in the frontier falls prey to ancient powers and superstitions roaming the land. Plus, farm animals gone amok. Damn long mood stuff.
Now, “Nosferatu,” for my money is all about calling out to the dark in your helpless hours, wanting the loneliness to end because it’s breaking your heart. Tween Ellen wanted "a guardian angel, a spirit of comfort...anything!” And what if the night answered back?
So this movie is mostly about Ellen Hutter (played by Lily-Rose Depp) and her craving for love, her desire to be desired, even if it’s from an Orlok. Later on, she’ll get married to the certifiably nice and upstanding guy that is real estate man Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) but way before that the bloodsucker had her first. So now, the vampire has found her again and wants her to give up herself, keep that promise she made on first blush. To Thomas’s matrimonial love, Orlok replies: “I was totally the first boyfriend; I had her first!”
Drenched in gothic fervor and cinematography that burns past your eyeballs, Eggers has created a modern mood piece that transcends the 1922 original. Even the faults of his actors trying their best to live up to his standards—as well as Murnau’s original standards, it feels like. Sure Hoult knocks it out of the park with real dread and real terror dancing across his sclera as Bill Skarsgard’s Orlok conjures dark machismo on screen (the man has parlayed supernatural villains like Pennywise into a worthy career,) trapping him in the castle. The costumes and the visuals here all conspire to sink the actor and bring forth the monster. What a sight it is! Orlok, a Hungarian warlord who’d made a pact with the devil, stalks and murders through Germany and the Carpathians like a barely restrained beast. Even his mental feats are bullying—he consumes the Harding children in a show of brute force (close childhood friends of the Hutters), he unleashes a rat plague upon the city like a casual flex.
Arguably some of the over the top acting from both Lily-Rose Depp (naysayers may critique that she can’t act) and Willem Dafoe (who plays the Van Helsing character here as Prof. Von Franz) can be a turn off for those unfamiliar with the gothic horror tropes. They’re all part of the courses that lead to the symphony’s climax—Ellen’s madness, Thomas’s fears, Von Franz’s resignation, Harding’s shock. Eventually, Ellen’s acceptance and conspiracy with the vampire hunter to sacrifice herself (“I am convinced only you have the faculty to redeem us,”) to seduce the beast into staying at her throat until he is so intoxicated that the sunlight shines down on his skinny, unloved shell.
Even as Orlok perishes, Ellen rejoices, realizing how she had the power all along, how the vampire had said to her, vulnerable, like a plaintive ex-lover beseeching she give him another chance: “Your passion is bound to me…I cannot be sated without you.”
All the minor complaints distract little from the kind of cinematic bravura that Eggers has already consistently brought to fans of horror movies. There’s a reason that so many memes and lines (like “I am an appetite, nothing more”) have become viral, memes that have reached even beyond the usual algorithms and have extended the life of this seemingly unkillable beast.
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