Robert Eggers’ long-awaited Nosferatu is an unexpected hit. The film has currently grossed over $100 million worldwide, making it one of the most successful horror movies of 2024, not to mention Eggers’ biggest hit to date. This considerable success is especially impressive considering the outright legendary status of the original film, F.W. Murnau’s seminal and influential 1922 silent classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, itself an unauthorized remake of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Thus far, three versions of Nosferatu exist, all so distinct from Stoker’s original creation that Count Orlok no longer counts as a Dracula rip-off. Count Orlok is one of cinema’s most memorable villains largely because of the three actors who have played him on the big screen: Max Schreck in 1922, Klaus Kinski in 1979, and Bill Skarsgård in 2024.
These three takes on the elusive and near-ethereal character have perfectly suited not only their movies but their respective generations, mirroring the culture’s sensibilities and capturing the horror zeitgeist. And while each offers something unique, and everyone will have their favorite depending on their respective preferences, it’s certain that all three have lived up to the lofty expectations and knocked them out of the park.
1922’s Nosferatu: Shadow of the Vampire
The original Nosferatu is a true before-and-after in vampiric entertainment. Although an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu did just as much for vampiric lore as the literary masterpiece. Vampires being vulnerable to the sunlight, for example? That’s Nosferatu. The novel introduces many of the most common tropes, including wooden stakes to the heart and garlic, but the sunlight’s power over the undead is all Murnau. The vampire’s specific obsession with the female hero, Ellen? That’s also Nosferatu.
Stoker’s novel has Dracula targeting both Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, whereas Murnau’s film draws a direct bond between Orlok and Ellen. Nosferatu also begins a trend shared by its two successors: placing Ellen front and center, and while still confined by its epoch’s attitudes toward women, Murnau’s Ellen plays a direct role in Orlok’s demise, while Stoker’s Mina mostly leaves the task to the men.
Max Schreck plays Orlok like a living shadow: He twists and contorts, slowly creeping from corners and adopting an eerie, supernatural approach. Nosferatu is, first and foremost, a German Expressionist movie, meaning it has an enhanced visual and narrative style, rejecting reality in favor of hyper-stylized settings, themes, and performances. Thus, Schreck’s Orlok is a nightmare come to life, the embodiment of the occult and the unknown, otherness manifested into being. A crucial theme in Orlok’s story is longing, and Schreck’s initial take on the sentiment takes an antagonist approach to it. To Schreck’s Orlok, longing takes the form of coveting, desiring everything to satisfy his selfish desires.
A lot has been written about Nosferatu‘s connection to nature and Murnau’s ability to find the sinister beauty in it. German Expressionists usually favored inside shooting, building elaborate sets that twisted and distorted reality — think of the angular, near-kaleidoscopic sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or the lush, aggressive sights in The Golem: How He Came Into the World.
With Nosferatu, Murnau went against the norm and shot on location, creating a tempestuous atmosphere that blurs our reality, turning familiar scenery — a mountainside, a cloudy sky, a narrow street — into something surreal and dreadful. As Gilberto Perez Guillermo writes for the BFI, “Its view of the world [is] inescapably oppressive and sinister, however natural and commonplace it may seem. Far from a decoration on the Dracula story, the natural world is the true protagonist of Nosferatu.”
Murnau introduces a third major change to his plot by drawing a direct parallel between Count Orlok and the plague. In 1922, the world was still reeling from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, which killed over 21 million worldwide; the subject was still fresh in people’s memories when Murnau’s bald vampire came to the silver screen. Orlok’s rats spread the bubonic plague, but to regular audiences, a plague by any other name was still a plague. Introducing such a theme to the story made Orlok more dangerous, turning an already scary film character into an outright icon synonymous with death, destruction, and misery.
1979’s Nosferatu: Misery, thirst, and horniness
Fifty-seven years after Murnau’s classic, another renowned auteur took a shot as another version of Nosferatu. Werner Herzog opted not to make yet another version of Dracula; instead, he remade Murnau’s version of Dracula. This is the point where Nosferatu becomes its own entity; whereas Murnau’s version still existed as a spiritual sibling to Stoker’s classic, Herzog’s remake legitimized it as a true cinematic masterpiece and the product of a singular mind who found new layers to a well-told story.
To play his vampire, Herzog reunited with his common collaborator, infamous and mentally unbalanced character actor Klaus Kinski. Herzog and Kinski chose to showcase Orlok, now reverted to Dracula, not as a sinister villain but rather as a pitiful and tragic creature doomed to spend eternity alone and with an undying thirst. In Kinski’s hands, longing takes the form of constant and utter misery, endless pain at wanting something so unattainable and foreign. This version of the Count is the most human; Kinski’s makeup is subtle, and aside from the goblin ears and long nails, he looks the most like a regular, albeit pale, person compared to Schreck’s rat-like ghoul and Skarsgård’s literal walking dead.
Herzog also enhances the erotic themes present in Murnau’s original. In the 1979 version, the Count is desperate for any semblance of connection and intimacy and willing to settle for crumbs. Kinski speaks between moans and whimpers as if the mere presence of others were enough to arouse and physically hurt him. During the scene where the Count licks Jonathan’s blood, Dracula satiates both his metaphorical thirst for connection and his literal one for blood. It’s a bold approach that remains quite novel even today and a large reason why Herzog’s Nosferatu works so well; there’s a desperation to this being who is not only tired of waiting for someone but is also exhausted by merely existing. To Herzog, life is pain, so eternal life must be literal hell.
Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy, adopting the name of the original character, is a crucial part of the Count’s suffering. Unlike the 1922 version, she actually empathizes with him, to the point where she seems to willingly welcome him during their final moments together, as she sacrifices to bring him down. It’s not attraction that she feels for him but something much more powerful: acceptance. The Count’s demise takes a much more poetic approach, as he willingly dies having finally found what he so desperately longed for. So what if the film’s actual ending is bleak as hell? The Count, in his own twisted and broken way, finds redemption and solace.
The natural elements of Murnau’s original also play a major role in Herzog’s Nosferatu, albeit with a refreshing twist. In 1979, nature is the real enemy, once again manifested through the plague charging against humanity’s senseless materialism and greed. Here, the Count might be nature’s instrument for the ultimate reckoning, exploiting his weakness and using him as a vessel to wreak havoc on mankind.
In one of the film’s most famous scenes, as the plague ravages the town, the people take to the streets to indulge in one last hurrah before the end: They ride goats and dance between the rats, letting go of all pretense and proving that, in the end, it really is all about instinct. To Herzog, the true horror in Nosferatu is not the vampire and his thirst for blood but rather humanity’s separation from the natural and the fact that one literally has to die to connect with it again.
2024’s Nosferatu: An appetite, and nothing more
The third Nosferatu remake came out in 2024, 45 years after Herzog’s version and over a century after Murnau’s. This time, it was Robert Eggers’ turn to tell the story of Count Orlok and find a new way to make it topical for a generation that is so accustomed to horror that it consumes it once a week in different forms — be it on the silver screen or the daily news. Eggers had a strong starting point, as Murnau’s 1992 original is already a timeless cinematic masterpiece widely considered among the scariest and most important horror movies ever made. However, the director, famously interested in historicity and mysticism, approached the film with a unique perspective that allowed him to deliver a product that stands on its own.
Eggers’ Nosferatu is Ellen’s story from beginning to end. Lily-Rose Depp is front and center here, completely driving the story forward to the point where she kickstarts the plot years before her future husband even sets foot in the Carpathian mountains. Eggers’ first major change comes from Ellen’s role in summoning Orlok: Here, she’s the one who unwittingly awakens him and succumbs to his influence.
In 2024, Ellen is Nosferatu‘s main driving force, and everyone else, including Orlok, is just dancing to her tune. Unsurprisingly, many have drawn similarities between the film and themes of abuse and grooming. However, I think it’s less straightforward, as Eggers and Depp go to great lengths to show the large role Ellen’s desire and desperation play in the plot. Crucially, Ellen and Orlok share a mutual attraction; it’s not love, but it is desire, sheer lust for each other in ways neither can understand.
Because this version of Nosferatu is highly erotic and focused on the physical and psychosexual connection between Ellen and Orlok, the casting of Bill Skarsgård takes a meta layer. He is buried under prosthetics and a mustache that’s been particularly divisive, appearing almost unrecognizable. And yet, anyone who has been paying any kind of attention to the film knows it’s Bill Skarsgård under there. This role could’ve been easily played by any actor — Eggers’ constant collaborator, character actor Ralph Ineson, would’ve worked, for instance. However, it takes an actor like Skarsgård — young and attractive — to sell this version of Orlok. Eggers wants you to understand Orlok’s supernatural appeal and Ellen’s near-inexplicable attraction to him. You must find Orlok alluring and erotic yet still grotesque and off-putting.
In Eggers’ version, longing takes the form of the unexpected and undesired: Orlok responds to Ellen’s call and finds himself inexplicably tied to her. He has little patience for everything; he doesn’t kill out of desire per se but rather out of necessity to meet a goal. This Orlok is impartial, neutral even, true chaos brought into being by dark powers that existed before he became a vampire. Nature once again plays a huge role, but not in the same way as Murnau and Herzog used it.
Bill Skarsgård’s Orlok is nature itself: He is literally rotting, earthy and decaying, almost as if he’s still aging despite his eternal life. Orlok is instinct and savagery embodied, caring little for anything other than consuming everything on his path: He can, so he must. His attraction for Ellen is more of an unspoken commitment, a promise that must be met because it was deemed so. Unlike 1922, where he is tricked, and 1979, where he outright commits suicide, 2024’s Orlok dies because it’s time: He has won the ultimate prize, and there is nothing left to consume. To Eggers, nature includes the unnatural, and Orlok is his vessel.
Which Nosferatu is the best of them all?
All three versions of Nosferatu have succeeded in depicting a new aside to what is arguably horror’s most widely known and recognizable story. Now, Count Orlok is as influential as Dracula; in fact, he is arguably the most famous cinematic vampire, narrowly edging out his inspiration thanks to the sheer strength of his visual imagery.
Whatever version appeals the most to you, Nosferatu has proven itself a timeless tale of desire, sacrifice, and, of course, longing. More impressively, it has found a way to stay relevant and visceral for over 100 years, reinventing itself to fit new generations of horror lovers and casual viewers. The original 1922 version will probably always reign supreme, with 1979’s take enduring as a more auteur-driven effort and 2024’s version standing as a near-perfect marriage between artistry and commercialism.
Yet, the fact remains that Nosferatu is a timeless tale of dread that will never go out of style. With a pretty perfect trilogy of films thus far, this notorious vampire has cemented his place in cinematic excellence. When the inevitable fourth remake comes out in 2075, we might be here again, discussing his dark legacy. For now, let’s just sit back and appreciate the three Count Orloks we’ve had thus far and be ready to fall under their sinister spell again and again.
1922’s Nosferatu is available to stream on PlutoTV. 1979’s Nosferatu is available to stream on Tubi. 2024’s Nosferatu is now playing in theaters worldwide.
