Article by Marcus Siu

It’s been 102 years since the classic German Expressionist vampire film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was introduced to the world. For the last century Max Schreck as Count Orlok stood as the ultimate “Nosferatu”. Who can forget the many terrifying (and sometimes laughable) scenes in the classic F.W. Murnau silent film?

It was the movie that influenced the horror genre, crossing over to America and inspiring Universal Studios in the early thirties to produce “monster” box office hits starting with Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, among others.

However, Nosferatu was never intended to be a commercial hit, not even in its own country. Based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, “Dracula”, the 1922 classic was made without permission. It was a low-budget film made by Germans for Germans and was a complete rip-off of Dracula. Only the names of the characters were changed to make it more adaptable for its audience. The German filmmakers never intended this to be seen outside Germany and globally embraced.

Even with the character name changes and some of the details altered, they were still sued for copyright infringement by the Stoker estate, including a court ruling that all remaining film prints be destroyed. Luckily, some survived and helped make it become a classic as it is today.

Werner Herzog considered Nosferatu the greatest German film ever made, which he remade in 1979 with two versions; a German and an English version with most scenes shot twice for each language. Unfortunately, Klaus Kinski was dubbed in the English version and Isabelle Adjani was dubbed in both versions. Herzog still considers his German version as more “authentic”.

This season, American audiences will not only get one Nosferatu movie, but two. This will be the second and third remake of Nosferatu and both are must see movies for horror fans as they are very different, though will most likely attract arthouse moviegoers rather than the mainstream ones who thrive on unlimited gratuitous blood spurts and cheap scares.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror directed by David Lee Fisher is more true to the original. It stars Guillermo Del Toro’s “go-to” monster man, Doug Jones, in the title role and is currently playing in limited release in movie theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime and is coming to Apple TV+ on October 18th.

The other Nosferatu is an updated re-interpretation by one of the master directors of arthouse horror, Robert Eggers (The Witch) which gets a Christmas Day release from Focus Pictures and will be exclusively in theaters.

Nosferatu was never made exclusively in English or as an American production, until now.

“I wanted to create a faithful tribute to the iconic original film. A familiar return to its haunting world, while also bringing new elements such as dialog and enhanced storytelling to revisit this timeless tale for an audience of today.” – David Fisher

Just like Fisher’s earlier film of the classic German silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (2005), Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was not only remade with sound and dialogue, but also a shot-for-shot remake utilizing practical sets and CGI that allowed the cast in the original film through green screen. Many of the scenes from the original 1922 film was used to create digital sets and backgrounds to place live action within with the actors being digitally integrated inside a visually enhanced virtual recreation of the film’s original sets and locations.

DOUG JONES – THE MAN OF MANY MONSTERS

After having played so many monsters and creatures in so many different movie universes (Amphibian Man in “The Shape of Water”, Saru in “Star Trek”, Billy Butcherson in “Hocus Pocus”), and before casting even started for Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, Doug Jones had just one dream role left.

“I haven’t played a proper vampire yet…I want fangs…I want to be a classic vampire…I’m too old and gross to play a young sparkly vampire.  Jones continued.  “Who’s old and gross? “Nosferatu!”.

As chance would have it, Jones would get a phone call from Fisher, to see if he wanted to play Count Orlok in his upcoming project, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror not knowing this was Jones’ absolute dream role.

“Not only did I get to play that character that I longed to play, but I got to play in the environment that Max Schreck got to play in.” Jones added.

I can’t think of a better actor to play Count Orlok than Doug Jones.

ROBERT EGGERS VERSION

Ironically, around the same time in 2016, writer/director Robert Eggers announced “Nosferatu” would be his second film, after “The Witch”, but expressed “It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do Nosferatu next. I was really planning on waiting a while, but that’s how fate shook out.” Even though the following year it was announced Anya Taylor-Joy was cast, Eggers was still unsure the film would ever be made. It was and would be his fourth film after “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman“.

Nosferatu finally wrapped principal photography in 2023. The cast includes Bill Skarsgård in the title role, Nicholas Hoult, Willem Dafoe, Lily-Rose Depp, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. 

The film will be released on Christmas Day.

Now America has room for two more interpretations of the pointy-eared blood sucker with fingernails that haven’t been manicured in centuries, but this time with sound and English dialogue.

Just in time for Halloween and Christmas. Who says holiday seasons suck?