Nosferatu

Movie Review

Such an opportunity! But at such a cost.

So thinks Thomas Hutter, a German real estate agent, after receiving his assignment. His boss, a Mr. Knock, is handing young Thomas his first real career break. Seems a curious old count some countries away has an urge to buy a sprawling property in Thomas’ hometown of Wisburg. Knock wants Thomas to handle the transaction. And should it go smoothly, Thomas will receive a handsome raise—enough to put Thomas and his lovely young bride, Ellen, on firm financial footing.

“A new husband requires new wages,” Knock says, with just the hint of a leer.

The count—Orlok, by name—has a property already picked out: The crumbling, long-deserted Grunewald Manor. He wishes, Knock says, to retire in Wisburg. “He has one foot in the grave, so to speak,” Knock adds, chuckling ever so slightly.

All Thomas needs to do is have Count Orlok sign the contract and the deal is done, as good as sealed with blood.

But the contract does come with one condition: Thomas must travel to the count’s current estate in a small country east of Bohemia, locked away in the Carpathian Alps. “He insists we offer him an agent,” Knock says. “In the flesh.”

Ellen doesn’t want Thomas to go. They can do without the money, she insists. Plus, she’s having nightmares again, dreams of Death, wreathed in the scent of lilacs and rotting flesh.

“It portends something awful for us,” Ellen insists. “You mustn’t leave. I love you too much.”

But leave Thomas does, entering a world very unlike the sane, urban landscape of Wisburg. When he arrives in the Romani village nearest Orlok’s castle, the residents beg Thomas to turn back. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds his horse gone—forcing him to go on foot.

And then, at a crossroads, a dark carriage arrives. He steps in, and it speeds up the path, through the mountain, wolves running close behind.

The carriage arrives at the castle. The door opens. Thomas is greeted not by a butler nor a maid, but Orlok himself—gaunt, pale, almost inhuman.

“You are late,” Orlok says. Thomas steps inside.

The dark door closes behind him.

Positive Elements

Count Orlok is up to no good: We know that full well. He is, we learn, a near material manifestation of both evil and death. But he goes not unopposed. Many stand across this story to stop him.

We should begin with Thomas himself. He takes the Orlok job for the sake of his wife and their shared future together. And when he feels as though Orlok also has his eyes on an, ahem, “shared future” with Ellen, Thomas braves a great deal to return home and protect her. (Easier said than done, to be sure.)

But Thomas has no idea what force he faces. Enter Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, a brilliant-but-eccentric doctor who comes to understand Orlok’s dark nature. While many of his ideas are ridiculed and his theories of Orlok initially scoffed at, he perseveres—pushing past the doubters to better face the horror now threatening not just Ellen, but all of Wisburg.

Ellen, perhaps, is the bravest of them all. She has (as we’ll see) a curious history with the count. Ellen knows that she, too, has a critical role in defeating him—and hers is unquestionably the most dangerous.

And before the credits roll and the dawn breaks over this dark film, all three will show a willingness to risk everything to destroy the monster.

Spiritual Elements

The movie opens with a flashback of a teen girl (or young woman), crying and pleading in the darkness. “Come to me,” the girl says. “The guardian angel. The spirit of comfort. Anything. Hear my call.”

Something did hear her call—but it was no angel, no wholesome spirit. The girl was Ellen, and what she called was Orlok himself. Itself.

Orlok was, we’re told, a “black enchanter” in life. (We hear a reference to someone named Solomonari—a wizard in Romani legend thought to ride a dragon—that seems to refer to Orlok.) Now, thanks to his infernal pact with the devil, he is a vampire (the word Nosferatu means Vampire in archaic Romanian). He’s no glittery, Twilight-era vampire; nor a suave, conflicted bloodsucker as we might find in Anne Rice novels. No, Orlok is a manifestation of spiritual evil. And as such, he must be fought by spiritual means.

Orlok’s crypt is adorned with an inverted heptagram (a seven-pointed star), an occult symbol. Franz thinks that Orlok is more than a mere vampire, but rather a demon, and we hear Bible verses reinforcing Orlok’s connection to the very worst sort of evil. (Someone recites Revelation 13:2 in the streets, for instance, referencing the apocalyptic beast.) “There is a devil in this world, and I have met him,” Thomas says at one point.

Ellen’s association with this darkness has left a mark on her. She mentions that she “knew the contents of my Christmas gifts” before ever opening them as she grew, and she can foresee other things, too. And even as Ellen is terrified and repelled by Orlok’s influence, Orlok has a magical, spiritual hold over her, too.

For Franz, Ellen’s connection to Orlok is an asset in the coming struggle: “I am but an able tourist in this occult world,” he tells her. “You were born to it. It is a rare gift.” (He also tells someone that “demonic spirits more easily obsess those whose lower animal functions dominate,” hinting at Ellen’s passionate nature.)

He tells her that in “heathen times,” she might’ve been a priestess of the Egyptian goddess Isis. “Yet in this strange and modern world, your purpose is of greater worth. You are our salvation.”

Certainly, all this occultic and heathen talk leans far afield from normative Christian doctrine. But the fight against Orlok takes, predominantly, Christian (or quasi-Christian) trappings.

Thomas’ life is saved in the Carpathians through the care and intercessory prayers of some Orthodox nuns (who also reassure him that he’s safe as long as he stays at the church, as “his evil cannot enter this house of God.”) Franz reinforces the sense that Thomas was divinely protected in his hour of need, and that faith remains the best defense. “Trust in God and your strength,” he tells Thomas. “The monster left you to the wolves, yet you prevailed.”

Franz implores that “Nosferatu [be cast] into the lake of fire … and not to be remembered before the face of God who shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” He tells a small group of vampire hunters that they must “sanctify the earth wherein he is buried.” He invokes the names of angels familiar from Christian and Jewish tradition (but not named in the Bible itself) and rattles off some rarely used names associated with God. (But at least one of the names he mentions is found in a well-known grimoire, written to invoke magical spirits.)

We should also note here that science is seen as more a hinderance to fighting Orlok than a help. Those who refuse to believe Franz’s warnings—scoffing at what they see as his superstitious madness—are often imperiled or killed. And Orlok himself seems to try to leverage humanity’s growing faith in science as a bulwark against his own supernatural schemes. “How I look forward to retiring to your city of a modern mind,” Orlok tells Thomas.

We hear Matthew 7:6 quoted from the Latin Vulgate. Magical symbols are seen carved in wood or scratched in stone floors. A nurse tells a doctor that they must let plague victims into their overcrowded hospital. “It ain’t Christian [not to do so],” she says. “The Day of Judgment is coming, sir. We must take pity.” We hear a reference to the Greek god Hermes and to alchemy.

Knock describes Ellen as “almost a sylph,” referencing a beautiful creature from mythology. We see the interiors and exteriors of various churches. Thomas is given a cross for protection before heading to Orlok’s house—but he rips it off his neck during a vivid “dream”. We hear people talk about the will and grace of God, as well as the power of “providence.” Girls say a prayer before bedtime. A strange ceremony done in the middle of the night features a naked woman riding a horse across a grave.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Bram Stoker’s original novel Dracula, and the original silent film Nosferatu, both contain plenty of allusions to desire and sex. But they were, for the most part, allusions—and certainly not played out with the sort of graphic excess we see here.

Ellen, as mentioned, had a connection with Orlok, and it becomes clear that they were, in a manner of speaking, lovers. She eventually confesses this to Thomas. “He is my shame, he is my melancholy,” Ellen says, telling Thomas that he gave her the “courage to be free of my shame.” But part of her continues to be pulled by the lure of Orlok (which, if we wanted to give this tale a real metaphorical spin, we might say would be the lure of sin itself).

To avoid providing that same sort of lure—and to steer clear of too many spoilers—we’re going to not go into too much detail here. But be warned, Nosferatu is just about as steamy as it is horrific.

We see both men and women completely naked: Female genitals are not shown on camera, but male genitals are. The movie alludes to homosexuality, necrophilia and pedophilia. (Ellen tells Orlok that “I was but an innocent child” when he first came to her.)

Sexual acts are depicted on screen. And Orlok’s sensual feedings push sex and violence—and even sex and death—into incredibly intimate proximity with each other. We see relatively crude illustrations of vampires perched on top of sleeping or dying female victims, calmly engaged in this horrifically intimate act of eating. Kisses can be carnally passionate. Attacks—both psychic and physical—can take on a certain sexual quality.

Thomas and Ellen are very much in love, and we see them kiss and caress one another. Ellen tells Thomas to stay home from work. “Our honeymoon was too short,” she says, baring her shoulders.

Violent Content

As mentioned, Orlok is more than a mere vampire: He is, it’s suggested, Death incarnate—and like the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, he brings with him a hint of Hades.

First, Orlok himself. “Like every plague, its sole desire is to consume all life on earth,” Franz says. “This creature is a force more powerful than evil; it is death itself.”

Orlok definitely bites and sucks and even eats the flesh of living people here, devouring both body and soul. He tears into people, with blood sometimes spouting out of wounds like fountains. Throats are ripped out. And the corpses that he leaves behind appear to be completely drained of blood.

But he brings with him a plague of plague-carrying rats as well. We see those rats attack and even kill people—a sight perhaps even more horrific. We see women and children killed in this manner, as well as people dying from the plague that the rats, and Orlok, brought with them.

Someone bites the head off a pigeon, the scene ending in spewing blood and a bit of chewing. A couple of vampires (or vampire-adjacent creatures) are stabbed in the chest with iron or wooden skewers, sending geysers of blood out of their mouths. Thomas nearly drowns. Rats and corpses are burned. Blood runs out of a woman’s eyes during dreams or visions.

[Spoiler Warning] You’ve probably heard somewhere that vampires don’t like sunlight—and man, Orlok shows us why. He’s exposed to sun at the movie’s climax: Blood pours from his eyes and nose. He screams in agony. And then, this undead creature dies—a mottled, disfigured, naked and desiccated corpse left behind.

Ellen has some disturbing, vivid dreams. And even though she simply tells us these dreams, they’re pretty disturbing anyway.

Crude or Profane Language

The most disturbing bit of profanity is used by a Romani innkeeper to some scallywags bothering Thomas. One speaker mixes a reference to God in with a reference to sodomy.

Other than that, we hear “d–n” about a half-dozen times and the British profanity “bloody” three times. God’s name is misused four times.

Drug & Alcohol Content

Characters smoke cigars. Alcoholic drinks are quaffed at get-togethers. A drink that Thomas consumes appears to be drugged. There’s a reference to the German liquor schnapps.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Someone vomits quite a bit of blood. Orlok, as you might imagine, can be quite deceptive. Ellen is subject to violent seizures, and the medical experts consulted insist that she sleep in her corset and (when they get no better) be tied up in bed.

Conclusion

“I have seen things in this world that would’ve made Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb,” Franz says. “We have not become so much enlightened as we have been blinded by the gaseous light of science. I have wrestled with the devil as Jacob wrestled the angel in Peniel. And I tell you, if we are to tame darkness, we must first face that it exists.”

And therein lies the dichotomy at the heart of this powerful, graphic re-imagining of the silent film Nosferatu.

Horror films are often replete with supernatural dangers. But in this increasingly secular age, filmmakers sometimes embrace those horrors without pointing to the obvious cure: God. We love vampires! They seem to say.

But even though the vampires of their imaginings are clearly creatures of supernatural evil, the filmmakers refuse to acknowledge the supernatural counterpoint. Often, faith (especially Christian faith) is shown as impotent in the face of such evils, leaving a sort of brave humanism to deal with the devil. And that robs the story of not only whatever truth it might have, but much of its power as well.

Nosferatu does not make that mistake. Sure, the spirituality can be inconsistent here. Anyone looking to pull a sermon fully formed from this horrific bit of storytelling will be either sorely disappointed or woefully off mark. That said, it gets the broad brushstrokes right: Orlok is evil. And what is our hope against that evil? Prayer. Sacrifice. God. The darkness here is not expelled by the gumption of a secular hero, but by light—physical, spiritual, sacrificial light.

But lest you think we’re giving Nosferatu a pass, let’s return to Franz’s quote: “I have seen things in this world,” he says, too terrible to be understood. And indeed, Nosferatu exposes us to terrible things. The sex and nudity here are, like Ellen’s corrupt desire for Orlok himself, both repellant and enticing. We’re encouraged to lean in even as our better natures encourage us to push it all away.

And the violence and gore? For all of Nosferatu’s high-art preenings, the grotesqueries we see would feel right at home in a brain-dead slasher flick.

Nosferatu has its merits. If I went into everything this film was trying to say, this review would be at least twice as long.

But a horror it is, too. It is a dark and troubling movie. And as Ellen herself learned to her peril, it’s often best not to play with the dark.