I love vampires; I mean, I really love vampires. As a kid, I set this goal in my head that I would see every vampire film ever made, and with the release of Eggers’ long-awaited remake of Nosferatu, I’ve decided that the time has come for me to write out a genealogy, if you will, of unlicensed adaptations of Bram Stoker’s seminal novel, Dracula.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
This film was directed by F.W Murnau, and is the one of the first vampire films ever produced. It's an unlicensed rip-off of Bram Stoker’s novel, directed while the novelist’s widow was still alive. Stoker's widow took it to litigation, and won, but it had already seen international release. People ordered copies of the film to keep it from the fires, but like any vampire infection worth its fangs, the fires of perdition couldn’t eradicate its evil.
Nosferatu starred Max Schreck (remember this name) and Greta Schroeder. Murnau changed the name of Dracula to Count Orlok, Mina to Ellen, and Johnathan to Thomas Hutter (I say this now because it's going to get crazy later; just know all of these characters are the same representations with different names).
Count Orlok, is directly based on the Wallachian Mythology of the Strigoi. They are a restless spirit that feeds off of blood. They can transform into rats, bats, wolves, and even mist. Although sometimes beautiful, the Strigoi are mostly characterized as bald, pale, with elongated spines, teeth like needles, and long horrifying fingers. The earliest documented case of a Strigoi was written in the 1600's. It concerned a Croatian man named Jure Gurando Alilovic. It's thought to be the first ever actual vampire case in Europe, and quite honestly is probably the great-grandfather of all modern European vampires. There is a lot of folklore about becoming a Strigoi: being the 7th born son, having red hair, committing suicide, or dying unbaptized. The only time I've ever seen this used in film was the series Hemlock Grove, with Bill Skarsgard, who, funnily enough, also stars as the vampire in Eggers’ Nosferatu (do check out Hemlock Grove’s first season by the way, it’s terrific, although it falls apart after that).
This is all essentially preamble to my true point: F.W. Murnau was a horrible human. He used the Strigoi mythology to create anti-Jewish ideas and imagery, which breaks my heart. I have been such a folklore enthusiast that I failed to see what this film really did. Nosferatu was made in 1922, less than 10 years before the Nazis took over. The Renfield character, Knock, is obviously a caricature of a Jew, hoarding money and even worse, a minion for the evil Count Orlok. Orlok himself is a veritable rat-king bringing the plague to a small German town and trying to corrupt their women.
All these years, I had no idea. I loved this movie as a child and took it on its own merits, having never engaged seriously with the criticism of Nosferatu or even the greater Dracula legacy. Orlok and his Strigoi imagery was used as antisemitic propaganda, and the usage of vampires and their rat-like teeth in propaganda did not die there. Every version of Nosferatu and even Coppola’s Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) continues with the rat-king imagery without fully realizing what it's doing, or so I'm choosing to believe. Eggers uses it but I truly believe he's just a folklore-junkie like me who fell in love with a vampire and didn't know how monstrous it really was. Be careful creating Monsters guys, you might actually be one. Murnau was a film genius, and I will say that Murnau was gay. He was a gay German with a Jewish lover who died in the war. Perhaps this makes him a little more human than I am giving him credit for.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
This is my favorite Nosferatu movie. It was made by Werner Herzog and starred Klaus Kinski and Isabella Adjani, and is pure poetry. It was the first Nosferatu/Dracula film to make viewers feel sorry for the creature: Sympathy for the Devil (cue The Rolling Stones). In real life Klaus Kinski was a horrible human and woman abuser, but that being said, as an age old vampire, he portrays a tragical monster that is hard not to pity. This film uses color and dialogue sparingly. Imagery is king in this film. It has none of Murnau's previous constraints, and freely gives Stoker credit. Orlok becomes Dracula again, Ellen becomes Lucy (not Mina), and Thomas Hutter becomes Johnathan, everyone's favorite. The colors in this film have a drained quality. The use of the color indigo and beauty of moonlight add such mood and feeling, a surrealist dream. Herzog imported eleven thousand rats for this film, who still infest the town they shot in to this day. The plague breaks down the town, leaving people dancing in the streets and having a morbid Last Supper, while Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) beautiful and dressed like a Pre-Raphaelite dream inspired by John William Waterhouse, to be exact, tries to save the day. She sacrifices herself to the monster to save her husband and the town. Her death is so beautiful, and evokes Ophelia’s death scene, covered in flowers as she is.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
This film is based on the mythology surrounding the making of Nosferatu and the idea of Max Schreck being a real-life vampire. This rumor was created in 1953 by Ado Kyrou in his book Le Surrealisme Au Cinema. The film stars John Malkovich as F.W Murnau and Willem Dafoe as Schreck the vampire, who incidentally plays the Van Helsing character in Eggers new version. I will also note this movie has Udo Kier, who was one of the first homosexual Dracula's on film, playing a disabled, sickly count in Blood for Dracula (1974) and Cary Elwes who played Arthur Holmwood in Francis Ford Coppala's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
The vampire in Shadow is old and tragic, unable to remember why he was really made or how he could die. He has made a Faustian deal with Murnau: he will play Count Orlok, and in return, Murnau will allow him to feast on the beautiful actress Greta Schroder. Of course, the vampire is going to do what vampires are going to do, and he feasts on the production crew. This film uses real vampire mythology to explain some of the original Nosferatu's controversies. The vampire/strigoi refuses to cross the ocean for the ship sequence, which lines up with the lore of vampires being unable to cross large bodies of water. There is real life controversy that those scenes in the film use another actor, and not Schreck himself. As the film progresses, you realize that even though Schreck feeds on the blood of humans, he is not the real monster of this film. The true monster is the madman director, Murnau, risking the lives of not just himself and his crew, but the vampire as well.
Nosferatu (2024)
This is the first truly important vampire film to come out in a very long time. This movie takes Victorian sexuality and oppression and makes it truly terrifying. The visuals in this film are haunting, bleak, and beyond beautiful. I can say while watching this in the theater that almost all of the audience audibly jumped in the first five minutes. I'm going to be very careful in what I say about this film so as not to spoil it for anyone. This film stars Bill Skarsgard as Count Orlock, Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, the vampire-hunting Van Helsing character; Nicholas Hoult (who played Renfield in the horror/comedy from 2023), and Lilly-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter. Robert Eggers takes us back to the original names of the characters created by Murnau. I can honestly say I love Egger’s brain. The way he uses mythology and folklore and creates beautifully horrific stories is unlike anything I have seen on film. This version of Count Orlok does not look or feel like the Nosferatus of the past. He still has some of the characteristics of the strigoi, but with a layer of decay. He has a thick mustache, and definitely embodies old Romanian royalty. "He is appetite.”
I will also say, unlike most conventional vampires, he does not bite Ellen’s neck, but her chest closest to the heart, which is very true to some folklore.
There is nothing sympathetic about this monster. He is grotesque, murderous, and straight up evil. Although there is beauty in this film, everything has this debilitating feeling of decay and depravity to it, and the attention to detail is immaculate. When Ellen is not being haunted by Orlok, she wears a broach with a glass eye on it, the evil eye for protection. Her final death scene once again features Ophelia-like flowers in her hair, but a bloody decaying body of a dead monster lies on top of her. Nicholas Hoult's portrayal of Thomas Hutter was the first time I have ever seen that character as tragic and caring. Willem Dafoe's character nods to the spiritualists of the day, and quite honestly adds an interesting layer to the plague and our human need to rationalize everything. This film is a work of art. The humans in this adaptation are so refreshingly and tragically human. This film is brutal on both emotional levels and in it's violence. It’s gory, it’s scary, and it’s human. When Ellen determines to surrender to Orlok, he doesn’t just disintegrate in to the sun, she holds his face to the light and and blood starts pouring from his eyes and it’s grotesque but beautiful. Even the controversial necrophilia scene is treated with tragedy and compassion, also it’s shockingly disturbing. This film is a true horror masterpiece.
As I said in the title, this is a Love Song to a Vampire, which is the title to Annie Lennox’s song for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Although it was really a tribute to Anne Rice’s vampires, it was made for Dracula. These films tell more than a story about monsters, the show how humanity sees the monsters in our world.
