I must admit, I've never found much interest in the vampire genre. I've tended toward ambivalence and saw it recently as another popular culture obsession. Of course, I acknowledge its significance as a historic narrative and the importance of its symbolism; I just tired of the proliferation of adaptations and variations of the theme that seemed to reach a point of saturation for me. My departure point was probably around the time of Schumacher's, The Lost Boys, (1987) and Francis Ford Coppola's, Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). In this respect, I suppose that I developed a certain bias and just disengaged whenever I picked up on a vampire theme.
It's expected therefore that I heard nothing of Robert Egger's 2024 adaptation of Nosferatu but kind of surprising that I chose to watch it.
It should be acknowledged that given my certain lack of exposure to the recent developments of the genre, I will undoubtably miss or ignore some of the obvious elements of the film; but at the same time, I hope this review of sorts might offer up another perspective. It should also be said that some of the themes that I drew from watching the film were not necessarily due to the intent of the filmmaker.
What really drew me to this film was the incredible precision of the production. The details of the work are so lush and exuberant. I was completely absorbed by it almost immediately. There would be much for experts in film production to say, but the particular mise en scène, use of colour and shadow, composition, camera craft, costumes, makeup and performances all result in a dense and luxuriant film. All of these layers, which are so plentiful, result in a complexity that logically lends itself to a nuanced reading of the work. The details really just washed over me and my senses were almost overwhelmed in awe of what I was experiencing.
The one paragraph synopsis is as follows. Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) is possessed by Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård) at a young age. Ellen marries Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), who is dispatched to deliver the contract of an estate to a far off place – a medieval castle occupied by Orlock. Thomas is unaware that the contract is in fact the delivery of an agreement that releases Ellen to Orlock, who has been seeking a way to enter the modern world. Orlock comes with a plague of rats and darkness. Ellen sacrifices herself to Orlock and in doing so destroys him and her.
There have been many adaptations of the vampire figure, but typically, this character is known for being representative of evil verses good, animal verses human, primitivism verses modernism, occult verses science, etc.
With the stories we tell ourselves, via any medium, there's often a deferral to absolute notions such as 'evil', or 'good'. Unlike in life itself, where people, motivations and culture are incredibly tangled, messy and unclear; in our stories, it's far easier and more gratifying to attribute more simplistic and one-dimensional qualities to our characters.
But this was the surprising discovery about the film. While on the surface, the use of long standing motifs and symbols both from the original books and films, and from popular culture could lead to superficial interpretation of the film, there were many subtle details that suggested a more nuanced intention.
The obvious, literal interpretation of Count Orlock is of course, evil personified. Undead, deformed, from some ancient time where the creature – once human – made a pact to live on in some way, but incomplete, not wholly human, but wholly empty and seeking only to fill this void with the blood and suffering of its victims. This is the creature representing what many of us fear in that irrational sense: in the shadows, under the bed, peering through the dark crack of an unclosed door.
Carol Senf writes in her review of Egger's Nosferatu that Orlock holds a power over 'the agents of modernity including the lawyers, scientists, and real estate agents who introduce him to the modern world.' Indeed, the forces that Orlock represents: primitivism, the occult, transgressive sexuality, animality, etc; cut against the rational stance of modernity – along with its patriarchal custodians.
This leads me to the aspects of this adaptation which I found the most interesting.
It is important to consider the social and historical context of the time when a work of art originates. Bram Stoker's Dracula, from which Nosferatu was adapted was written in 1897, a period of the late 19th century leading up to the end of modernity. In western Europe, it was a period of widespread patriarchy, with virtually all institutions being led almost exclusively by men. This period saw the widespread oppression and exclusion of women. While the term 'hysteria' has a long history of over 4000 years, its associations with various conditions has morphed and changed over this period. Hysteria, originating from the Greek word for womb, had its origins as a way of describing psychological disorders experienced by women. These disorders were believed to be caused by the of movement of the uterus, and were thought to be influenced by the lack of a normal sexual life. Spasms, convulsive fits, seizures and paralysis were some of the symptoms associated with hysteria in the 19th century, and they stood in contrast with the counterpart and assumed male qualities of rationality, logic, reason and pragmatism; particularly of late stage modernity. Indeed, the notion of hysteria imbued and was saturated in a bias against women.
In Nosferatu, Egger leans on these notions to full affect. On the surface, we see in Ellen the symptoms of a very 19th century hysteria, and the visual treatment, coupled with the intensity of Depp's performance mine the depths of Ellen's symptoms and her pathway to deeper and more profound forces. We witness a complexity where Ellen is tortured by experiences she must bare alone: her premonition of being engulfed by some evil force, the contradictions of her extreme sexual desire yet wish of stability with the more conservative Thomas, and ultimately her self-sacrifice where she leverages Orlock's desire by holding him into the light of day, where both she and he perish.
With this backdrop of Ellen being progressively overcome by more severe episodes and convulsions, we see the male characters of modernity: rationally attempting to explain and ameliorate her symptoms but failing to do either. There is deficiency of the male characters to adequately explain or understand Ellen's condition and their paradigms of thought cannot bridge this divide. They resort to consulting with Albin Eberhart von Franz (Willem Dafoe), an eccentric scientist who engages with the occult. von Franz's explanations, of course, for the purposes of the film add to its narrative tension, but like the men of modernity's attempts, objectively are inept and serve only to restore the status quo, even at the expense of Ellen's life. We see this re-enactment and allegorical semblance of the complexity and nuance of women, which men have through the ages, failed to understand and explain. In turn, men turn to rational explanations, which have had a two fold, deleterious impact on women: subjugation and control, and indeed exacerbation of the very mental health impacts that men seek to explain away.
This discussion so far only serves to shine a light on the shortcomings of modernity and the stark inequality between the sexes, and it's not clear that this was Egger's intent. While we could leave it at that point of discussion, there are parallels here with other rejections of modernism and rationality. These rejections surpassed notions of gender and patriarchy, and instead sought to critique the root cause of inequality. Here I am referring to the outright rejection of the status quo of the time that was expressed by the surrealist and dada movements. The members of these movements were repulsed by the cataclysmic developments of the early 20th century, which came about through the utter deficiency of the social, economic and political perspectives and institutions of modernity. These movements' wholesale rejected the violence, war and nationalism that underpinned capitalism, of which patriarchy was but one negative aspect.
Drawing on Adorno's critique of the culture industry's use of conflict and its resolution towards the status quo, Judith Wright's 1974 essay underscores the narrative device of status quo and its role in diffusing the ambiguities experienced in the current social structure. Wright argues that genre films play a role in diminishing audiences' desire to examine or take action against systemic injustice.
When we consider Nosferatu and its depiction of the 19th Century inequalities and antagonisms that are embedded within the interactions between the characters, is it sufficient that our greatest fears are released into the world, with the sacrifice of a woman's life made in order to return the social order to a deficient status quo? Could we reject this ending and ask if these same inequalities and antagonisms are not being expressed today; and with the very real potential for even greater catastrophic consequences than those realised after the end of the 19th century? Capitalism, and its inherent deficiencies and injustices has had an opportunity to prove its worth. In this it has utterly failed.
Readings
Readings that contributed to the ideas conveyed in this essay are:
Adorno, T. W. (1991). The culture industry: Selected essays on mass culture. Routledge.
Burris, V. (1982). The dialectic of women’s oppression: Notes on the relation between capitalism and patriarchy. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 27, 51–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41035317.
Gupta, M., Madabushi, J. S., & Gupta, N. (2023). Critical overview of patriarchy, its interferences with psychological development, and risks for mental health. Cureus, 15(6), e40216. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.40216
Hopkins, D. (2004). Dada and Surrealism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192802545.001.0001
Senf, C. (2025). Nosferatu (2024): A truly monstrous monster. The Incredible Nineteenth Century: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fairy Tale, 3(1), Article 1. https://libjournals.mtsu.edu/index.php/I19/article/view/2615
Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G., & Fadda, B. (2012). Women and hysteria in the history of mental health. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health : CP & EMH, 8, 110–119. https://doi.org/10.2174/1745017901208010110
Wright, J. H. (2012). Genre films and the status quo. In B. K. Grant (Ed.), Film Genre Reader IV (pp. 60–68). University of Texas Press. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7560/742055-008/html
