Nosferatu

In 1922, a German director named F.W. Murnau could not get the film rights to Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, so he came up with the slightly altered “Nosferatu”. That silent film contains symbolic references to the horrors of WWI (in its death, disease, and rat-infested trenches) and to the occult, thanks to its producer, occultist Albin Grau. Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” resurrects the vampire story by staying faithful to the original.

Lonely thanks to her absentee father, young Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp, in an incredible performance) cries out into the darkness for an angel to come befriend her, but when none answers, she opens the invitation to “anyone… or anything.” An ancient vampire called Orlok answers her. He wants to share her mind, body, and soul, and only needs her to say yes. At first, delighted, Ellen agrees… but during a euphoric encounter with him, she sees his true form: a nightmarish corpse, perched on her chest, sucking the life out of her.

Years later, Ellen is happily married to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), an ambitious lawyer who receives an assignment from his eccentric boss to travel into the Carpathian mountains and finish the paperwork for the sale of a local home to a mysterious man known as Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Little do either of them know this will turn into a battle not only for their souls, but for the fate of their small town.

The Occult Elements

“Nosferatu” is and isn’t a Dracula story. A lot of its beats follow Stoker’s novel, with changes in the characters’ names and situations. It took a combination of wisdom and faith to defeat Dracula, with Van Helsing employing Christianity against this creature of darkness. But here, Orlok is the resurrected spirit of a Romanian evil sorcerer whose bargain with Satan allows him to reanimate his rotting corpse and drink the blood of the living.

In both versions of “Nosferatu,” the only way to defeat the vampire involves a willing female blood sacrifice (in the occult, this “replenishes the earth”). There are countless references to the occult, including a man communicating with Orlok through a pentagram drawn on the floor and worshiping him (this drives him insane).

When Thomas gets to Romania, he sees gypsies performing a pagan superstition to find a vampire (leading a naked virgin around on a horse, until it stumbles over a vampire’s grave).

Rather than being romanticized, we see Orlok as a demonic succubus—a horrible, rotting corpse dragging itself about his castle, wheezing, striking terror into Thomas, and coming to Ellen in nightmares. He threatens to slaughter everyone she loves or has ever met, unless she surrenders to him in the flesh and allows him to drink her blood.

In an interview, Robert Eggers admitted one of his fears is being drawn “too deeply into the occult.” Given his worldview in this film (God does not exist, only evil; white blood magic defeats evil), that is not surprising. There is a noticeable lack of faith as effective in any of his films; in “The VVitch,” Satan defeats a Puritan family and the bereft daughter becomes a witch. Here, the only person with faith is Ellen’s friend Anna, whose beliefs do nothing to protect her or her family. She falls prey to his demonic visits, and wakes to find her husband unconscious and Orlok murdering her children (after they have said a prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep / I pray the Lord my soul to keep…”).

The gypsies believe in God, carry around crosses, and tell Thomas Orlok he cannot enter the church, and he and Ellen would be safe here… but it doesn’t matter to the plot.

The film’s version of Van Helsing does not carry around crosses, but pagan symbols, and is into the occult and alchemy. His wisest remark is that the first action against evil is to admit it exists… but in this world, there is no divine authority to defeat it. Only the sun, and a blood sacrifice. Some could argue Ellen’s surrender turns her into an occult Jesus, but Ellen cannot resurrect herself.

Jesus told us that one demon cannot cast out another, and evil can’t be defeated by surrendering to it. Eggers wanted to pay tribute to the beautiful but disturbing imagery from the Middle Ages of “Death and the Maiden,” both in terms of plot and visually. Ellen is an ancient, powerful priestess who does not belong in an enlightened world. Because of its absence of God, the film feels spiritually hollow.

Demonic Activities

Orlok is a demon-vampire. He comes to Ellen as a spirit that gives her pleasure (at first she enjoyed it, but then it terrified her). Like demons, he cannot enter without an invitation. He needs Ellen’s permission to feed on her. This is Scripturally accurate and lines up with stories from people who came out of the occult. (Some encountered demons while being absent from their bodies; others found demons who wanted sexual congress with them; still more had demons make bargains with them, or who answered their summons).

Christians will see Ellen’s “fits” for what they are—demonic possession. Ellen’s eyes roll back in her head, and her body contorts, shakes, and snaps into unnatural positions. She channels Orlok’s voice in one scene and taunts her husband with him in another.

Production Design

On a technical level, this is one of the more well-directed, impressive films of the last decade. Eggers fills his world with interesting characters, camera work, practical effects, long shots, gorgeous cinematography, and incredible performances. He creates an eerie, unsettling and beautiful world for them to inhabit with muted tones. Thomas’ walk through the woods, in a patch of slanted moonlight, with the snow gently falling around him, before he meets a coach without a driver and is “lifted” into it is exquisite. I’ve never been more impressed with the scenes inside Dracula’s castle.

Thomas is terrified the first time he meets Orlok, and never recovers from his dread. The audience gets to share in his apprehension, as Bill Skarsgård, who becomes invisible in the role, wheezes and groans his way around the castle, sometimes being in two places at once. (Skarsgard also plays the demonic clown in Stephen King’s IT.) Everything about it, from the haunting music to the costumes, are done with total mastery of the screen. I found myself swept up by it, even as my spirit resisted the utter hopelessness and darkness of this godless world.

Offensive Content

It would not be a vampire movie without sexual themes, nudity, and violence. It’s vaguely implied that a man commits necrophilia with his deceased wife before he dies. Ellen’s demonic fits include sexually suggestive movements and heavy breathing. She provokes her husband into an angry round of lovemaking by taunting him (“you will never satisfy me as he does”), and this uncomfortable scene is long.

A naked man turns around, barely covering his groin with a book. We see full frontal male and female nudity three times (all brief). At the end of the film (spoiler), Ellen climbs into bed naked with Orlok, who sucks her blood until they both die (we see her breasts several times, and his shriveled body on top of her).

Violence includes a man biting a bird’s head off, and blood spraying everywhere. He attacks a man in the asylum and rips out part of his neck with his teeth. Orlok loudly gulps blood from people’s hearts. There are many possession scenes, where Ellen spasms, screams, and writhes around. Plague corpses litter the ground. Orlok rips into the neck of a man and blood spurts. A man drives a stake through another man’s heart. People puke up blood, ectoplasm, and saliva, and set corpses on fire to purify their souls. A woman watches as Orlok finishes sucking her children dry and tosses them aside.

Conclusion

Sadly, in secular terms, this may be one of the better production-quality movies of the year. But… it is filled with evil content—extremely dark occultism and depiction of Christ as ineffectual against evil, rather than being the joyous solution. Robert Eggers wanted to create something “different” from most vampire stories, which, for him, meant leaving out God as a solution. As a believer, I felt very spiritually troubled by this dark film.

• Occult: Extreme
• Violence: Extreme and bloody
• Nudity: Very Heavy— Female full frontal, except genitals; lengthy and repeated explicit nude female breasts; repeated upper male nudity; male rear nudity; ravishment by rats
• Sex: Very Heavy— Fornication scenes with accompanying nudity, movement and sounds; woman appears to be sexually touching her genitals (not graphic); necrophilia
• Drugs/Alcohol: Alcohol, tobacco, a drug
• Wokeism: Mild
• Profane language: G*d’s name (4), D*mn (5)
• Vulgar/Crude language: Bloody (3), B*stard

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