Robert Eggers Wants You To See His Nosferatu As Both A Lover And A Biter

Though nan Dark Universe mightiness beryllium dead, Robert Eggers has crafted point for illustration its belief successor pinch a bid of disturbing scary features. The Witch near you wondering really existent its demons were, The Lighthouse’s tentacled oversea creatures were ever slithering location conscionable off-screen, and The Northman was a mythologically charged study of people’s expertise to spell monsters and really that translator tin rob personification of their humanity. Those films presented their otherworldly elements arsenic reflections of characters’ superstitions and their petition to make consciousness of nan worlds astir them. But Eggers wants nan undead ghoul astatine nan halfway of his caller Nosferatu remake to clip disconnected you emotion point overmuch overmuch basal (though not needfully simple) and carnal.

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

Viewed done that lens, it’s easy to look astatine Nosferatu arsenic a communicative that’s trying to speak to this infinitesimal successful on-screen monster-fucking. But erstwhile I precocious sat down pinch Eggers to talk nan movie, he told maine that, arsenic overmuch arsenic vampire tales mightiness consciousness for illustration manifestations of societal anxieties, channeling nan zeitgeist wasn’t astatine each his goal.

As a lifelong Dracula instrumentality fascinated by nan measurement decease and intersexual desire specify vampire mythos, Eggers knew that he wanted his Nosferatu to beryllium arsenic seductive arsenic it was haunting. But Eggers too wanted his Nosferatu to consciousness for illustration a decidedly feminist, macabre romance, which is why he took immoderate inspiration from Emily Brontë.

“It was ever clear to maine that Nosferatu is simply a demon personification story, and 1 of nan awesome demon personification stories of each clip is Wuthering Heights, which I returned to a batch while penning this script,” Eggers explained. “As a character, Heathcliff is an absolute bastard towards Cathy successful nan novel, and you’re ever questioning whether he really loves her, aliases if he conscionable wants to personification and destruct her.”

Nosferatu leaves you to ponder those aforesaid questions arsenic it introduces Ellen, a perceptive female whose brilliance is being stifled by nan societal mores of 19th-century Germany. Though Ellen desperately loves her hubby Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), he struggles to understand really years of being plagued by different visions personification adjacent her convinced that nan embodiment of decease is stalking her. It’s easier for Thomas and Nosferatu’s different antheral characters for illustration 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, nan sole heroine successful Stoker’s novel, whose cleverness winds up being instrumental successful Dracula’s eventual demise. But Eggers wanted this type of Ellen to consciousness for illustration a female who, contempt “understanding things connected a very dense level, doesn’t personification nan relationship to articulate her experiences.” It was too important to him that this communicative accent really men’s misogynistic preconceptions of women are a benignant of monster successful and of themselves.

“Ellen’s hubby loves her, but he can’t understand these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ feelings she’s experiencing, and he’s dismissive of her,” Eggers said. “The only personification she really finds a narration pinch is this monster, and that emotion triangle is truthful compelling to me, partially because of really tragic it is.”

In nan aforesaid measurement that Ellen knows that thing is retired location watching her arsenic it stalks done nan shadows, Count Orlok — a long-dead Transylvanian nobleman — tin consciousness that there’s point very emblematic astir Ellen. Much of nan caller Nosferatu’s unsettling strangeness is crystallized successful nan pair’s different psychic connection. It’s alarming to spot Ellen prehend up and convulse successful fits arsenic her mind seemingly leaves her body. But there’s too an progressively orgasmic worth to nan sound of Ellen’s fits that instantly clues you into how, arsenic scary arsenic Orlok is, he too elicits point profoundly pleasurable successful immoderate of his victims.

More truthful than galore different caller vampire stories, Eggers’ Nosferatu leans into nan truth that creatures for illustration Orlok feast connected nan joke of nan surviving because they themselves are very dead. Whatever magic it is that’s brought Orlok backmost is impressive, but you would ne'er correction him for a exemplary pinch a beating pulse. He’s expected to publication arsenic a reanimated corpse; a once-suave and debonaire one, but a corpse each nan same.

Because Nosferatu is simply a very horny emotion story, though, Eggers felt Orlok needed to beryllium astatine slightest somewhat sexy successful bid to discarded his earthy magnetism and “help nan assemblage to cognize connected immoderate level that there’s a beautiful man beneath each that makeup.”

“In my mind, Orlok was decidedly handsome erstwhile he was alive,” Eggers said. “I wanted him to personification beardown features, and for location to beryllium a benignant of beauty successful his brows, cheekbones, and chemoreceptor because those are nan parts of himself that he tin show a mini spot of successful nan ray to a location impermanent earlier they admit that he’s really rotting and falling apart.”

Nosferatu starts piling nan horrors connected arsenic Orlok and Ellen’s nexus strengthens. The aerial is already dense pinch decease and fearfulness arsenic nan movie introduces Willem Dafoe’s Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz and Simon McBurney’s Herr Knock. It isn’t agelong earlier nan men commencement to understand conscionable really endangered each of their lives are because of their proximity to Ellen. But Eggers too wanted Nosferatu’s antheral characters to bring a spot of whimsy to nan film, if only to thief audiences woody pinch each nan hostility and admit really monsters tin personification senses of humor.

“Some of those scenes pinch Thomas and Orlok are decidedly scary and intense, but they’re too moments wherever Orlok is playing pinch his food,” Eggers explained. “When Louise Ford and I were editing those scenes, we would beryllium successful stitches astatine times because of really pithy Orlok is erstwhile you really net attention.”