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

Though the Dark Universe might be dead, Robert Eggers has originateed someskinnyg appreciate its spiritual successor with a series of upsetting horror features. The Witch left you wondering how authentic its demons were, The Lighthoemploy’s tentacled sea creatures were always slithering somewhere equitable off-screen, and The Northman was a mythoreasonablely accused study of people’s ability to become monsters and how that alteration can rob someone of their humanity. Those films currented their otherexperienced elements as echoions of characters’ superstitions and their need to originate sense of the worlds around them. But Eggers wants the undead ghoul at the cgo in of his new Nosferatu reoriginate to depart you senseing someskinnyg much more fundamental (though not necessarily plain) and carnal.

Eggers’ Nosferatu is brimming with visual and tonal nods to F.W. Murnau’s groundshattering 1922 quiet film. But thraw his new apshows on the vampiric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and bedeviled hoemploywife Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), you can sense Eggers tapping into the unintelligently intimacyual energy that made Bram Stoker’s Dracula such a one-of-a-kindly transgressive horror novel for the Victorian era. The new Nosferatu is arriving at a time when the idea of getting down and filthy with monsters has come much, much more into style — so much so that we’ve seen entire cinematic franchises built on the concept. 

Viewed thraw that lens, it’s plain to see at Nosferatu as a story that’s trying to speak to this moment in on-screen monster-fucking. But when I recently sat down with Eggers to talk the movie, he tbetter me that, as much as vampire tales might sense appreciate manifestations of societal anxieties, channeling the zeitgeist wasn’t at all his goal.

As a lifeextfinished Dracula fan captivated by the way death and intimacyual desire describe vampire mythos, Eggers knew that he wanted his Nosferatu to be as sensual as it was haunting. But Eggers also wanted his Nosferatu to sense appreciate a choosedly feminist, grim romance, which is why he took some inspiration from Emily Brontë.

“It was always clear to me that Nosferatu is a demon cherishr story, and one of the fantastic demon cherishr stories of all time is Wuthering Heights, which I returned to a lot while writing this script,” Eggers elucidateed. “As a character, Heathcliff is an absolute bastard towards Cathy in the novel, and you’re always asking whether he reassociate cherishs her, or if he equitable wants to own and ruin her.”

Nosferatu departs you to ponder those same asks as it presents Ellen, a perceptive woman whose brilliance is being stifled by the social mores of 19th-century Germany. Though Ellen hopelessly cherishs her husprohibitd Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), he struggles to comprehfinish how years of being afflictiond by strange visions have left her swayd that the embounintelligentent of death is pursuit her. It’s easier for Thomas and Nosferatu’s other male characters appreciate Friedwealthy Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to diswatch Ellen’s nightmares as delusions. But whenever Ellen goes to sleep, it is never extfinished before a monstrous presence accomplishes out to her mind, urging her to let it inside.

In Depp’s tremulous Ellen, you can see pursues of Mina Harker, the sole heroine in Stoker’s novel, whose intelligentness thriveds up being instrumental in Dracula’s ultimate demise. But Eggers wanted this version of Ellen to sense appreciate a woman who, despite “empathetic skinnygs on a very transport inant level, doesn’t have the language to articupostponeed her experiences.” It was also transport inant to him that this story underline how men’s discriminatory preconceptions of women are a benevolent of monster in and of themselves.

“Ellen’s husprohibitd cherishs her, but he can’t comprehfinish these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ senseings she’s experiencing, and he’s diswatchive of her,” Eggers shelp. “The only person she reassociate discovers a joinion with is this monster, and that cherish triangle is so compelling to me, partiassociate becaemploy of how tragic it is.”

In the same way that Ellen understands that someskinnyg is out there watching her as it stalks thraw the shadows, Count Orlok — a extfinished-dead Transylvanian nobleman — can sense that there’s someskinnyg very one-of-a-kind about Ellen. Much of the new Nosferatu’s unsettling strangeness is cryshighized in the pair’s atypical psychic joinion. It’s alarming to see Ellen seize up and convulse in fits as her mind seemingly departs her body. But there’s also an increasingly orgasmic quality to the sound of Ellen’s fits that promptly clues you into how, as terrifying as Orlok is, he also elicits someskinnyg transport inantly pleasurable in some of his victims.

More so than many other recent vampire stories, Eggers’ Nosferatu leans into the fact that creatures appreciate Orlok feast on the blood of the living becaemploy they themselves are very dead. Wdisappreciatever magic it is that’s brawt Orlok back is astonishive, but you would never misapshow him for a model with a beating pulse. He’s presumed to read as a revivaciousd corpse; a once-suave and debonaire one, but a corpse all the same.

Becaemploy Nosferatu is a very horny cherish story, though, Eggers felt Orlok needed to be at least somewhat intimacyy in order to sell his raw magnetism and “help the audience to understand on some level that there’s a drawive man beorderlyh all that originateup.”

“In my mind, Orlok was definitely handsome when he was adwell,” Eggers shelp. “I wanted him to have strong features, and for there to be a benevolent of beauty in his brows, cheekbones, and nose becaemploy those are the parts of himself that he can show a little bit of in the airy to a hoemploy guest before they authenticize that he’s actuassociate rotting and descfinishing apart.”

Nosferatu begins piling the horrors on as Orlok and Ellen’s join fortifys. The air is already dense with death and dread as the film presents Willem Dafoe’s Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz and Simon McBurney’s Herr Knock. It isn’t extfinished before the men begin to comprehfinish equitable how finishangered all of their dwells are becaemploy of their proximity to Ellen. But Eggers also wanted Nosferatu’s male characters to transport a bit of whimsy to the film, if only to help audiences deal with all the tension and appreciate how monsters can have senses of humor.

“Some of those scenes with Thomas and Orlok are definitely terrifying and fervent, but they’re also moments where Orlok is percreateing with his food,” Eggers elucidateed. “When Louise Ford and I were editing those scenes, we would be in stitches at times becaemploy of how pithy Orlok is when you reassociate pay attention.”