In Robert Eggers’ ‘Nosferatu,’ a newly married Ellen Hutter bids goodbye to her husband, Thomas, when he is sent away on his first assignment at his new job. He has to sell a property in Wisburg to Count Orlok who is known to be a recluse. However, Ellen discourages Thomas from taking the job, and he finds out why when he comes face to face with the Count. From here, the story takes one terrifying turn after another. However, to those familiar with the vampire lore in pop culture, the story is all too familiar. It seems to follow along the same lines as Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ which has received dozens of versions of its own over the years. Still, Eggers marks his ‘Nosferatu’ as a cinematic feat that carves its own space in a genre that never goes out of style. SPOILERS AHEAD
Nosferatu was Loosely Inspired by Dracula
When Bram Stoker wrote ‘Dracula,’ he drew from real folklore and mythologies surrounding the creature to craft his own version that would serve the purpose of his tale. When F.W. Murnau decided to adapt it into what would become a landmark in the German Expressionist horror fantasy genre, he made some changes in the presentation of the character as well as the plot. Allegedly, the storyline was only loosely based on the book because the creators didn’t want a clash for royalty with Stoker’s estate. Later, it emerged as a problem when Stoker’s widow filed a lawsuit against the producers, almost leading to the permanent destruction of the film. Some of its copies survived, and the film eventually found its way to a young Robert Eggers, who was captivated by the film and Max Schreck’s portrayal of the Nosferatu. In terms of the storyline, Murnau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen kept the basic skeleton of the story. The husband goes to a decrepit castle where he comes across an old Count who turns out to be a plague-spreading vampire. In the book, Dracula sets his eyes on Lucy, Mina Murray’s friend, and turns her into a vampire before turning his attention towards Mina. A psychic connection is formed between them when he makes the young bride ingest his blood, which would turn her into a vampire when she dies. This psychic connection between the two is not in Murnau’s version, but Eggers used it to set a more compelling storyline for Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen Hutter.
Because Murnau wanted to make a film for the German audience, he turned the characters and the central locations into Germans. So, while Dracula moves to the town of Whitby, Nosferatu comes to Wisburg. Count Dracula becomes Count Orlok, Mina Murray becomes Ellen Hutter, and so on. Because a film has to be more compact than a novel, Murnau also brushed away several plotlines and characters that didn’t seem to fit with his version, like Mina’s other suitors, her move to Budapest to help her fiancée heal and the eventual quest where Dracula tries to flee back to his castle in Transylvania. Instead, he gave more agency to Ellen, who sacrifices herself to keep Orlok occupied till sunrise so he can die and everyone else can be saved. Eggers stuck with Murnau’s version, but he elevated the material by focusing on the history between Ellen and Orlok and tying it in with her repressed sexuality, the shame of it, and the innate rage that eats away at her.
Robert Eggers Developed a Unique Look for Count Orlok
In Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ the titular villain is presented as a tall, old man with a long white mustache and pale skin. His appearance is more human, but there is still a sense of unease around him, which gets worse with each page, and that’s what makes him so terrifying. In his version, Murnau opted for a completely different look, which presented Orlok as a literal monster who, with his pointed teeth and claws for hands, looked more animal than human and became a stuff for the nightmares. In creating his own version of ‘Nosferatu,’ Eggers wanted to do something new rather than rely on the repeated versions of what Dracula or Orlok would look like. He didn’t want to stay in the trend of having sexy vampires like the ones popularised by movie franchises and TV shows. At the same time, he didn’t simply want to copy Max Schreck’s look. The search for something new led Eggers deep into the past, where he referred to old tales about vampires.
Having always been fascinated by vampires, Eggers knew that he had already consumed so much information about them that he was “too contaminated by the cinematic tropes.” As he dived into the research, he had to tell himself to forget what he already knew. From the early accounts of the creatures of the night, the director found certain things that revealed him to be very different from how he was presented in the popular media. This eventually led him to see Orlok as “a dead Transylvanian nobleman,” which is what led to the development of his entire look, from his decaying wardrobe to the cast that Bill Skarsgård eventually donned for the movie. To make things more authentic, Eggers also incorporated the use of the Dacian language, which gave a more occult feel to the character.
Bill Skarsgård Transformed His Voice to Play Orlok
It is one thing to create a terrifying character on paper and entirely another to bring him to life. To slip into the skin of Nosferatu, actor Bill Skarsgård went through a rigorous process. To begin with, the prosthetics created for Orlok, which would sometimes have the actor on the make-up chair for six hours, were effective in making him feel closer to the character and understand who he is. The other thing that he did was to explore the voice of the character, which would invariably affect his portrayal and decide how he comes across to the audience.
When he found out that the character’s voice would be modulated, he advised against it. Instead, he focused on working on his own voice so it wouldn’t have to be digitally manipulated and would come across as more real and guttural. For this, he worked with Icelandic opera singer Ásgerður Júníusdóttir and learned to lower his voice by an octave to give more depth and growl to Orlok’s voice. To get into it, he built a 20-minute routine to warm up his voice enough to make it more gravelly for the scenes. He incorporated Mongolian throat singing into the routine and then came up with different sounds Orlok would produce to display different emotions. At the end of the day, his hard work paid off, and Orlok was turned into a horrifying presence that would haunt the audience just as he haunted Ellen Hutter. Read More: Why Does Nosferatu Feed From the Chest and Not the Neck?
