Nosferatu (2024)

In a dramatic return to the origins of vampire lore, director Robert Eggers takes us on a suspenseful and creepy journey into demonic possession and the plague. It is atmospheric, symbolic, and powerful in its presentation of evil, but neglects the light. I feel genuinely torn about it, because it's a visual masterpiece but also is one I find theologically problematic.

A lonely young woman who feels neglected by her father, Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) cries out into the darkness of the night for an angel, a messenger, for anyone or anything to come to her… and an ancient voice wakens from its sleep to take possession over her. It tells her that her place is not among the living but the dead, and that she will serve him to his purpose. At first, Ellen feels contented by this demonic force, but then her eyes open to behold the rotting corpse attacking her. Years later, she has happily married the love of her life, Thomas (Nicholas Hoult). In his desire to improve their standard of living, he accepts a commission from his new employer to travel thousands of miles to Transylvania to collect the signature of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) on the documents, pertaining to the recent sale of a decrepit old castle in their small German town. He leaves his young wife in the care of his friends Frederich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Anna (Emma Corrin), but his wife soon descends into midnight fits, distraught over his life being at risk. She senses a threat, long before he reaches the castle in the Carpathian Mountains and meets the Count. Rasping and wheezing his way around the castle, the Count strikes terror into his soul, but there is little Thomas can do to prevent the sale of the house so near his own. Nor does he know that this desiccated corpse, who seems to sup upon his blood at night, is the demonic force that answered Ellen’s pleas for a friend that night so many years ago…

I like my vampire romances and for them to be tragic, sexy figures, but I also enjoyed this story, because it returned vampire stories to their horrific origins, complete with Transylvanian styling of the Count and his garments, and authentic Germanic and Romanian spoken by the natives. He also rationally explains everything about Orlok, including his ability to influence people’s minds. He used to be an occultist sorcerer in life, who made a pact with Satan that he would rise from his grave and sup upon the blood of the living. Ellen’s call woke him from his centuries of sleep, and he has taken possession of her, leaving her without free will or much conscious awareness of what happens amid her epileptic fits. There is nothing romantic about it; it’s disturbing as hell. Thomas’ terror of him is unparalleled and the best depiction of the horrors of Castle Dracula on screen. He trembles and sweats, waking with teeth marks in his chest, weak and chased by wolves in the castle. And there is an end to the monster, but not without a great personal cost.

But it is not an easy movie to watch. Throughout are undertones of sexual abuse and a lack of consent. Ellen found the count ‘pleasurable’ for a short time when first he came to her, but now he abuses her in her reams and through epileptic seizures. Nor has she any autonomy, and most of the men in her life see no problem with this; it’s only the Doctor van Franz (William Dafoe) who gives her agency, by insisting they cease drugging her and tying her to the bed. There is a lot of symbolism about female sexuality, demonic possession, encroaching evil, and the true hideous nature of it, but it’s also without Christian undertones. Instead of faith defeating the monster, it’s white magic and a human sacrifice. No one who prays or believes in God lives. Children who commit themselves to the Lord’s Prayer wind up being savaged in their sleep. Anna talks about how God is with them, but it renders her powerless against a monster who drives her insane, infects her with the plague, slaughters her twin girls, and kills her. Rather than invoke God’s name when dealing with Ellen’s possession, van Franz shouts the names of philosophers and occultists at him. Why avoid religious undertones, when they were the foundation of the Dracula novel that inspired this? Because in Roger Eggar’s worldview, God doesn’t exist. He is a phantom that has no effect in the real world against monsters (similar to his story in The Witch, where a Puritan family, despite being devout, has no recourse against Satan, and evil wins). The scenes of Ellen having demonic fits reminded me of exorcism movies. She channels him or speaks under his influence, taunts her husband with him, spasms, convulses, and contorts, her eyes rolling back into her head and dripping salvia/ectoplasm. Christians know it is a possession, and van Franz says as much. He also tells the audience that the first battle against evil is to “admit it exists,” but… there is no good in the dark world Nosferatu inhabits, so there is no way to truly defeat it.

And yet, I liked most of it. Not the absence of faith, or the sexual violence, but the different take on vampires, the faithful adherence to Thomas’ visit to Orlok’s castle, the tragic symbolism of a victim of assault conquering her rapist (even if it, spoiler, costs her life), the picturesque setting, the slow but interesting narrative, the exquisite costumes, the period-authentic details, and the homage to various famous pieces of art, including Death & the Maiden. If it had showed a little more restraint and a little less nudity, it would rank among my favorite vampire films, especially if it had kept van Franz as a man of faith rather than turning him into a devotee of the occult. It’s well-acted, well-directed, and has a stellar cast who turn in insanely good performances. The attentiveness to period detail is amazing. From a purely artistic point of view, it's a visual masterpiece of Gothic Horror, but it may trouble your spirit. I found mine a bit down-heartened afterward. 

If you want to read further thoughts on the occultist worldview that underpins Nosferatu, read my blog post here.

Sexual Content:

Some of Ellen’s spasms and possessions include sexually suggestive movements and moaning; a man sees a naked woman riding through the woods on a horse as a sacrifice to a vampire (we see her breasts and public hair). Thomas awakens a vampire from his sleep and he rises fully nude from his grave (we see all of him from the front, though shadows partially obscure him). A man reads from a demonic book, while seated naked on a pentagram, and then turns to face the camera, the details of his groin barely concealed by a book. A woman’s nightgown gets soaked with sweat and we glimpse her nipples through it. Another woman, one breast exposed, moans on the floor, covered in rats. A man has a brief hallucination of his naked wife. After a woman tells her husband, he cannot satisfy her as Orlok can, he angrily has sex with her, and the scene lasts for an uncomfortably long time (thrusting and moaning, with her eyes rolling back in her head). It’s implied a man has committed necrophilia with his dead wife (they find his dead body draped over her in her coffin, between her legs). Several times, we see a naked, desiccated corpse bending over and sucking on people, although you can’t make out details. The end of the film includes several shots of a woman’s breasts as she invites the vampire into her bed, and keeps him there all night. There’s an overhead shot of his shriveled corpse on top of her as dawn breaks. A gypsy also puts a curse on people by saying he hopes God buggars their souls.

Violence:

Many scenes of possession in which Ellen screams, writhes around, moans, and contorts her body into terrible positions. We see people dead from the plague and littering the streets, covered in rat bites. Orlok kills several people by biting into their necks, or loudly slurps blood from their chests. An insane man bites into the neck of his guard, killing him, and tears out a chunk of his flesh. This is after he bites the head off a pigeon and blood sprays in all directions. A man drives a stake through a man’s chest, with bloody results. People puke up blood, saliva, and ectoplasm, dozens of times. People set corpses on fire to purify their souls. Orlok sucks two children dry and tosses them aside.

Other:

Demonic possession, occult books, mentions of sorcery, and discussions about good and evil, but no one ever calls on the name of God or Jesus to help defeat the vampire. There is no happy ending here, and no hope.