It was a dark and windy night. I was sitting in my car outside of my local AMC as freshly fallen snow blew through the frigid air. It looked like a snapshot straight out of Robert Eggers’ latest work, “Nosferatu.“
There was a sense of dread as I got out of the car for the late-night, 10:00 p.m. showing. One thing was for sure- when we came out of the theater past midnight after witnessing Count Orlock’s horrors, we would not be the same.
We all dragged ourselves into the theater, excited but terrified of the unknown. We had heard whisperings of just how unsettling this new release was.
I knew I might leave the film feeling a bit scared, but what I never expected was for Eggers’ “Nosferatu” to leave me emotionally wrecked. I never expected the final shot of a classic horror remake to leave me with tears in my eyes, feeling gutted at its tragedy.
I would even say “Nosferatu,” a vampire horror, was the most moving film of 2024 because of its depiction of the iconic Ellen Hutter and her deep emotional journey.
Let me explain.
This past fall, I busied myself reading Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in preparation for Eggers’ latest thrill. If you’re not familiar, the 1922 black and white silent film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” was an illegal remake of “Dracula”. The filmmakers never received proper authorization to pull the storyline from Stoker’s “Dracula” for their silent film. Plot-wise, the construct and pacing of events are nearly the same. The characters all line up perfectly and have a clear match. “Nosferatu”’s Thomas Hutter is the equivalent of Jonathan Harker and both play the role of the real estate agent and the devoted husband. The monstrous Count Orlock from “Nosferatu” is “Dracula”’s infamous Count Dracula. “Nosferatu”’s possessed and deeply haunted Ellen Hutter is a mishmash of Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra from “Dracula.” You get the picture. It’s pretty accurate to “Dracula,” minus the fact that Orlock presents more physically as a beast than a man, and his arc centers around his obsession with Ellen Hutter. He’s not nearly as charming or romantic as Dracula tends to be in adaptations.
I completely fell in love with the classic horror, especially with the character of Mina Harker, the main female protagonist of Stoker’s “Dracula”. Unlike most women in male-dominated pieces of classic literature, Mina quickly proves herself to be not only incredibly kind of heart but with an even more incredible mind. Though often positioned in the “damsel in distress” archetype in her narrative as she is bled repeatedly by the Count, she clings to her agency even when alienated by the men in charge and even becomes the brains of the operation by the story’s conclusion. Her circumstances as a “damsel” do not at all brush her character and inner strength aside. She is pointed out to be just as brilliant as the men who surround her, and her agency feels incredibly ahead of its time.
One thing is made very abundantly clear in the novel: Mina Harker is not in love with Count Dracula.
She wants nothing to do with him.
In the course of remakes, this has become twisted and fast.
Bring forth Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in 1992, and we’re quickly met with Winona Ryder’s version of Mina, a shell of her original form who seems to be dreamily connected (in this version, she’s made out to be a reincarnation of Dracula’s previous wife, a detail which is unique to the ‘92 retelling) and in love with Gary Oldman’s pinning Dracula. It’s a twisted romance between the two.
No!
It felt like an absolute slap in the face to watch this adaptation and to, yet again, see a woman in literature’s role be reduced to a forced, toxic romance. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Mina Harker never even considers Count Dracula over her devoted husband, Jonathan Harker. Her motivation lies in defeating the Count, not battling her romantic feelings for him. Coppola had it all wrong!
Bring forth the illegal retelling of Dracula entitled “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” and we meet Ellen Hutter (played very expressively by Greta Schroder), the Mina Harker equivalent. An outlier of the situation as she lingers anxiously around the Hutter home in her black mourning garments, there is an air of spirituality about her. Her anxieties from the start seem to forebode Count Orlock’s incoming arrival to Germany. Though not much characterization is given to her in this adaptation (it is a silent film), she is not ever implied to be in love with Count Orlock, and his advances are blatantly unwanted. The conclusion of “Nosferatu” includes Ellen sacrificing her life to save Thomas and the world from Orlock’s wrath, but it is never made out to be a decision she longs to make for romantic reasons.
Her characterization in the ‘70s “Nosferatu the Vampyr” (played by Isabelle Adjani of “Possession”) is somewhat better in terms of being more fleshed out, though she still felt to me much like an idea rather than a fully formed character.
Decked out in (more gothic aesthetic than historically accurate) black, smokey eye makeup, she again feels spiritual and out of place amongst her community. This iteration carries many similarities with the silent film and ultimately chooses to restore some of the Stoker names, such as using Lucy’s name for Ellen and Count Dracula’s name for Orlock. Though the vampire in this adaption feels more humanized, it still isn’t exactly romanticizing the situation.
Now, let’s talk about Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” and what he and actress Lily-Rose Depp have done with Ellen Hutter.
This adaptation makes it abundantly clear from the first scene: this “Nosferatu” is Ellen’s story. She is the centerpiece. She is to be taken seriously.
In an opening montage, we are submerged in darkness and only met with the cries of a young Ellen as she calls to a guardian angel. A call that is granted through the awakening of a centuries-old vampire.
We witness firsthand the start of her manipulation and coercion by Count Orlock as he possesses and takes over her body for the first time under the guise of being an angel and someone who “loves” her. Though it is not explained how the Count has gained his supernatural abilities, it is clear that they carry immense darkness and plague those who meet it. His motivation is his thirst for control and he quickly becomes infatuated with Ellen from the moment she first calls to him unknowingly. As we watch Lily-Rose Depp writhe and convulse through her intense possessions, we see that his idea of “love” is bringing her immense pain and suffering by force.
It is haunting. It is focused on her suffering, shame, and the process of her autonomy being lost.
It is made abundantly clear through Eggers’ storytelling that Orlock’s control and darkness symbolize inner turmoil, shame, and consent and is an allegory for assault. This is not new to the story of “Dracula” and has always been ingrained in its pages and its culture. Many adaptations choose to take the route of having the story explore repressed sexuality and desire, which can be said Stoker chose to explore in his original novel.
While Eggers’ retelling maintains this theme of sexuality and its repression in all its discomfort and confusion, it chooses to further heighten the true relationship between Orlock and Ellen of a predator and his prey. Of an abuser and his victim.
The film is dark and often hard to watch, but it’s vital for this very reason. It gives us a raw and guttural depiction of a woman’s pain and suffering through her abuse. Most importantly, it is without any romanticization in its depiction of Ellen’s relationship with Orlock. Unlike what Coppola did with “Dracula,” it’s not forcing Ellen into a role of loving and wanting to be with a monster. Though it’s evident she feels conflicted by her attachment to him, her inevitable fate of giving herself to the monster is clearly not what she wants.
Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen, like the previous Ellens mentioned, is also an outlier in her society. Due to her sleepwalking, her “melancholy,” and her tendency to act out and speak up, she is not treated with respect in her community. In a conversation with her husband, she even remarks how her father was embarrassed and ashamed of her presence following the start of her sleepwalking episodes and following finding her possessed and entirely naked in the woods. This was the start of her shame and discomfort. This alienation is also seen in the moments where her horrors are brushed aside and met with questions by the men around her about her menstrual cycle or if her corset is tightened enough. They try to control her through her anguish and even go as far as to blame her state on her femininity.
The community around her never fully understands her and, more importantly, doesn’t try to. Thomas is an exception to this, but even so, he fails to trust Ellen’s judgment when she pleads with him not to venture to Count Orlock’s castle from the very start. He presses that her melancholy and depression will get better, and this ultimately results in the chaos that unfolds as he brushes off her warnings.
This is one of the greatest tragedies of Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu”.
In an added conversation with the Professor (played wonderfully by Willem Dafoe), Dafoe’s character tells Depp’s Ellen that in another society, in another generation, she would have been praised as a “high priestess” and respected for her gifts. But in this story, she is only met with restraint, beratement, and misunderstanding for her identity, her past abuse, and her troubled mind despite her role as the community’s “salvation.”
No other film struck me as deeply as “Nosferatu” for how boldly it handled these intense themes in regard to feminine pain and shame. It’s uncommon to see a character like Ellen in the realm of horror, one who carries such intense shame that practically reeks off of Lily-Rose Depp’s performance. It’s refreshing in comparison to the other idealized portrayals of Ellen and in comparison to Coppola’s overly romantic take on Mina Harker. This feels raw. This allows a woman to be at the forefront and for her struggles to be taken seriously.
The final shot of Eggers’ “Nosferatu” is the icing on the cake of the brilliance of the adaptation. I won’t spoil the complexities of it, but it is certain to leave you breathless. It gutted me more than anything I have ever seen in a cinema and solidified the film as a masterpiece in my mind. Its shock value, combined with how painstakingly raw and guttural it feels, puts a spotlight on what Eggers has brought to the table in his new adaptation of his depiction of the tragedy of Ellen Hutter. His ability to tackle this story and put it under a fresh, Ellen-centric lens makes it incredibly compelling and well worth the watch.
As I left my local AMC, far past midnight following the showing, I had to blink back tears as I sat in my car. Although it’s all executed under supernatural and unrealistic circumstances, Ellen’s story feels unsettlingly real.