#nosferatu analysis

There are two principal narratives running through the flesh of Nosferatu, both of them rooted heavily in the cultural and literary origins of the story. It is a nightmare; it is also an erotic fantasy. It is horrifying, and it is also achingly romantic. From what I've seen so far, the vast majority of discourse that has already emerged around the film is caused by people misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring the relationship between these different lines of analysis; so please trust me when I say, from the bottom of my heart, that this duality is the very lifeblood of the movie.

The reason for that is, quite simply, that Nosferatu is a gothic horror film, set in 1830s German Confederation; and its plot relies on the same (sometimes contradictory) complexities often displayed in Victorian gothic fiction.

From the beginning of the movie, we are given to understand that Ellen Hutter met Count Orlok - the eponymous nosferatu - psychically, when she was very young. They spoke, she pledged herself to him, and was horrified to realize what she had done when he revealed his true visage to her in their first visual (and sexual) encounter.

Here, under the lilacs, the paths diverge.

The first reading of the film is perhaps the more straightforward. A young girl is essentially catfished and groomed by a much older, dangerous man. When they meet for the first time, she is a teenager; the lilacs that bloom where it happens become a trigger. He is the source of her madness and "melancholy" (depression), she has nightmares about him regularly enough that her husband is aware of them, and it is implied that she has been institutionalized in the past. Thomas Hutter is the physical representation of her one desperate hope for a normal life - but as the story progresses, she finds herself being denied even that. Orlok's psychic connection with her verges on demonic possession; in chilling, The Exorcist-inspired sequences, she writhes and mutters, prophesying a city-wide reign of death and terror. In pursuit of his claim on Ellen, Orlok terrorizes her husband, murders her friends - and, eventually, she gives her life to take him with her to the grave, saving the city from the plague he caused.

That is the horror element of Nosferatu; it deals with an exploration of childhood trauma, of PTSD, of difficulties maintaining a social life after the fact. It is easy to understand even from a modern viewpoint, and it pushes the film to its conclusion with a bleak, heart-wrenching punch.

The horror is not the only element of Nosferatu.

To contextualize the alternate - though just as correct - reading of the film, it is essential to understand that Ellen’s society was extremely sexually repressed, especially in regards to female and queer sexuality.

Both were severely medicalized, demonized, and restricted; and as such, when these topics do make an appearance in contemporary fiction, they are often inextricable from disgust and fear.

Dedicated as always to historical accuracy, Eggers maintains the same setting-based narrative coding.

In anticipation of morality arguments vis à vis monstrosity, depiction, and modern purity culture, let me clarify: this is something that works within his chosen genre. Horror, and especially gothic horror, invites a deeper analysis in regard to morality and motivation, and in this case, Eggers' homage to the origins of that genre grounds the narrative in its time and location, as well as fleshing it out much further than a purely modern cultural lens would permit. In this context, the details of Ellen's connection with Orlok become paramount to the understanding of the film.

As bits and pieces of their background become revealed, the audience realizes that her psychic gift did not begin with him - and neither did her melancholy, or her isolation. She was born with her abilities, and throughout her childhood, she was a bit of a tomboy by her contemporary standards, running wild in the woods near her father's property; however, once she foretold her mother's death, and once she was too old to get away with eccentricities, her father became frightened of her abnormality. She was isolated, confined indoors, and that is when her melancholy had begun. Painfully lonely and aching for some form of companionship, she called out into the ether; and Orlok responded.

Over the course of their story, he becomes the physical manifestation of everything Ellen perceives as dark and sinful about herself.

He is psychic, he is vicious, possessive, and blatantly sexual; her sensual affection with Anna parallels the evident and physical attraction he displays towards Thomas; and the social power he so easily commands is the same that she lacks, being a woman in a rigidly patriarchal society.

In the end, the severely questionable age gap, the murders, the coercion, the betrayal - all of that comes down to respect. Throughout the film, that is the one thing that Ellen is consistently denied. She is young when she meets Orlok, yes; but she is aggressively infantilized by her surrounding society even when she is a grown, adult, married woman.

It starts from the beginning of the film, when the Hutters visit the Harding family. During those scenes, the men are shown talking business - while the women play with children in the parlour; and the same social framing persists into the body of the film. When Ellen is suffering from what appears to be some form of mental illness, she is referred to as a child by multiple different characters; and when the condition progresses, she is swiftly diagnosed with hysteria and drugged - thus being forcibly removed from the discussion of her own illness. The general reactions to that illness - which is, in fact, a display of her psychic abilities - range from annoyance to fear to curiosity; it is seen either as a disability or a curse, rather than anything entirely innate to who she is. Her fears are dismissed. Harding tells her to learn some deference. Even closer to the finale, when Von Franz admits that she could have been a great priestess in another age, he does so with pity rather than anything else; in their industrial era, he cannot help but see her only as a tragic sacrifice - horrible, but necessary to save the city from a plague. Brought in to heal her, he instead guides her to her death.

All these aspects of Ellen's circumstances find a direct opposite in her relationship with Orlok. Unlike all other characters in the film, he only ever sees her as his equal, which is made even more evident when his interactions with Thomas and Herr Knock are brought into consideration. With both men, Orlok insists on being addressed by his lordly title, "as his blood demands it"; and yet, Ellen never calls him by any title at all, be it "My Lord" or even a simple "Herr." She argues with him freely, and there is a familiarity between them that he is demonstrated to never tolerate from anyone else. Similarly, while he disguises the covenant he makes with Thomas, the terms of his covenant with Ellen are laid out clearly, in full. He does not hide from her; she already knows the worst of him, the same way he knows that she is intelligent, that she is powerful, and that she is not meant to be demure and deferring. Again and again, Orlok insists that Ellen is not meant for humanity - and the true horror, the horror she cannot bring herself to face, is that he is right.

In a sense, he is a mirror held up in front of her own face. Ellen is painfully aware that she does not fit in, and that she never has. The "normal" society, epitomized by the Hardings (wealthy husband, pretty blonde wife, 2.5 kids), has no place for her - and actively dislikes her.

The film makes this ostracism impossible for the viewer to ignore. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that the other human characters - even those that do sincerely care for Ellen - never truly know her. Anna loves her, but wishes she would not talk of dreadful things - and lashes out as a result of that discomfort, scolding her. Sievers finds himself bewildered by her; Knock sees her as an object to trade; Von Franz pities her, Harding hates her, and Thomas cannot truly satisfy her, even after being touched by the supernatural himself.

Seeing a flash of a monstrous face while they are together, he flings her away. To him, his experience with Orlok is merely traumatic, and he wishes for nothing more than to leave it behind. However, to her, it is something she cannot help but crave; and she continues to wear her lilac perfume.*

All that to say - Count Orlok is, simultaneously, everything Ellen wants and everything she is terrified of being.

That specific dichotomy reaches its climax during their mutual finale. As it is to be expected from a vampire wedding night, they rejoin in a sequence of sex, blood, and renewed vows - and what is particularly notable is that (unlike Murnau) Eggers makes it clear that this Orlok never intended to kill his Ellen, despite his inability to resist her blood. Though he drinks from her through the night, he stops at cock-crow; and she guides his head back down herself, distracting him long enough for the sun to rise. It is a duet of accident and intention. He drains her; and she holds him as the sun drains him. They cling together as they end - on a bed that serves their wedding and their death.

It is romantic. it is unquestionably romantic. However, that does not mean that the horror isn't also present; Ellen's consent, under these circumstances, is highly debatable, and Orlok is cruel, amoral, and murderously possessive. At the same time, the characters are also acting out folkloric archetypes, with precious little adjustment to that framework - which further removes them from a modern understanding of morality. He is Death, a Koschei the Deathless, a monster; she is the Maiden, a Vasilisa, a damsel. I hesitate to liken them to the Beauty and the Beast, largely because in the original premise of that story, the Beauty falls in love with the kindness that the Beast consistently displays; and it is essential to stress that Orlok has none. He does care for Ellen, in his own way, but he admits to being incapable of love as she defines it in human terms;** and, curiously, that seems to be her primary concern when it comes to the idea of accepting his proposal - rather than all the blood and carnage.

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that there are multiple ways of following a story, and multiple different stories in a film as nuanced as Nosferatu. Yes, it is about grooming and trauma. Yes, it is about finding love outside of the cage that is "polite society." I'm sure that it is many other things besides, with as many meanings as there are people in the theatres; after all, I am only one person, and the film grossed something over $40M in its first three days. The point is, really, that this is a story in which a rotting vampire is woken from centuries of deathlike slumber by a lonely voice asking him to be her friend; and whatever these two strange and aching souls do with that can go down any myriad of paths. The film trusts the viewer to interpret the narrative they choose.

* LILAC PERFUME - in fact, it is such a consistent favourite of Ellen's that Orlok smells it on her hair in the locket she sends with Thomas to the castle. Thomas never really learns the reason she likes that scent - even though he knows that preference well enough that he gifts her lilacs in the beginning of the film.

nosferatu resonated with me in the way experiences where pleasure and pain can blur. sometimes, we’re put into situations where we can’t distinguish between the physical responses our bodies have and the emotional or psychological toll those responses are taking. theres a process of dissociation, bodies moving and reacting as if they're separate from the person we are inside like possession or a curse.

ellen’s eventual sacrifice—offering herself up to orlok not out of choice, but as a last resort to protect the people she loves—speaks to the exhausting nature of living under coercion. she’s not choosing to free herself or embrace her desire; she’s submitting because she sees no other way to stop the destruction or to escape the perpetual violence that is being incited upon her. it echoes the idea that, when trapped in cycles of manipulation or exploitation, sometimes we make choices not to empower ourselves but to put an end to the suffering of others. her choice is one made from guilt, fear, and a desperate attempt to reclaim what little power she has left.

there’s also something horrifyingly familiar about this. the idea of being pulled toward destruction not because you want it, but because it feels like the only way to stop the pain, resonates deeply with the way suicidality can feel in the wake of trauma. it’s not always an active desire to die—it can be a passive, creeping understanding that the world does not offer you a path forward. that giving in to oblivion is easier than continuing to fight a losing battle. that there’s no one waiting for you at the altar but death.

but this coercion isn’t just about orlok—it’s embedded in the structures around ellen, in the way people see her, in the way power is wielded over her at every turn. when thomas suggests calling doctor sievers, ellen’s pleading response, “please, i’ll be good,” before adopting a soft, submissive expression reveals how she has learned to use performative compliance as a means of survival. this moment is devastating because it encapsulates the way coercion and power imbalances persist even in relationships that are supposedly built on love. she feels that resisting will only lead to further institutional scrutiny, so she fawns, deploying her body and her tone as tools of de-escalation. she is not trying to reestablish genuine intimacy—she is trying to retain whatever autonomy she has left.

after experiencing the violation of her bodily autonomy at the hands of orlok, she finds herself in a position where her only agency comes from anticipating what men want and offering it on her own terms. this is a painfully familiar reality for many survivors of sexual assault—the idea that reclaiming power often means negotiating with the very forces that have taken it away. for ellen, sex becomes less about pleasure or connection and more about maintaining stability, preventing further loss.

thomas, for his part, does not seem to grasp the full extent of what ellen is experiencing until he sees it first hand during the first act. he is affectionate but oblivious, well-intentioned but ultimately incapable of seeing beyond his own perception of their relationship. his love for ellen is not in question, but his inability to recognize the ways trauma has altered her means that his efforts at closeness often have the opposite effect.

the film does not frame thomas as a villain, but it does highlight the limits of love when it is not paired with understanding. ellen’s struggle with intimacy is not just about orlok’s assault—it is about the way trauma lingers, reshaping relationships, distorting the boundaries between love and obligation, comfort and control. thomas represents a kind of passive harm, the harm of good intentions that fail to see the full picture. he wants to save ellen, but he does not know how, and in his attempts to do so, he inadvertently reinforces the very dynamics she is trying to escape.

talking more about motifs of medical care in nosferatu, dr. sievers’ act of tying ellen up is particularly insidious because it is not born of overt cruelty but from a belief in the authority of medical intervention—a belief that his actions are justified under the guise of care. this is what makes institutional power so dangerous in nosferatu; it does not always manifest as explicit violence but rather as a paternalistic enforcement of control under the pretense of reason. sievers does not see himself as harming ellen; he sees himself as protecting her, both from herself and from whatever external madness he believes has gripped her. yet in doing so, he robs her of agency, reducing her to a patient, a body to be restrained rather than a person to be understood.

this ties into foucault’s concept of the medical gaze—the way institutions depersonalize those they seek to treat, transforming individuals into objects of study and discipline. ellen’s experiences with sievers reflect the historical treatment of women who defied societal expectations, particularly within psychiatric institutions where diagnoses like hysteria became catchalls for female distress, rebellion, or even simple nonconformity. sievers’ actions are not overtly villainous, but they are emblematic of a larger system that polices women’s bodies and emotions under the guise of care.

friedrich harding, by contrast, represents a more overt disdain for ellen. where sievers’ control comes from a place of institutional paternalism, harding’s comes from outright contempt. he does not see ellen as someone who is sick or in need of help—he sees her as a nuisance, a source of disorder that must be corrected or removed. his interactions with her are laced with a fundamental lack of respect; he does not entertain the possibility that her experiences are valid or that her suffering is real. instead, he dismisses her, treating her not as a person but as a problem to be solved, a loose end to be tied up.

harding’s disdain for ellen also reflects a broader social attitude toward women who disrupt the expected order. whereas sievers’ approach is shaped by medical rationality, harding’s is shaped by social hierarchy—he sees ellen as someone who should fall in line, and his frustration with her stems from the fact that she does not. his interactions with her are cold, and ultimately dehumanizing especially with his chuckle in the script after sievers suggests he restrain her. in this way, harding embodies another facet of patriarchal control: the belief that women who refuse to conform, who speak too loudly or feel too deeply, are not just inconvenient but dangerous.

ellen’s treatment by both men illustrates the ways institutional power and social power intersect to suppress those who do not fit neatly within their structures. sievers binds her out of a misguided sense of medical authority, believing that restraint is the best course of action. harding, on the other hand, does not even afford her the dignity of misguided care—he simply sees her as a disturbance to be managed. together, they highlight the inescapable nature of the forces working against ellen: even when malice is absent, control remains.

ellen’s interactions with von franz are also interesting to me. there’s a tension in the way von franz approaches the occult. for him, it is an intellectual pursuit, something to be unraveled, understood, and controlled. he’s merely an “able tourist” but for ellen, it is not theoretical—it is lived. her body and mind are at stake in ways his never will be. this reflects a broader issue in how trauma and violence are often discussed: those who study it from a distance, even sympathetically, still maintain a degree of separation that allows them to remain unharmed. ellen doesn’t have that privilege.

so while von franz might be an ally in the sense that he exists outside of institutional power, he is still a product of its logic. his role in ellen’s life is not one of savior or oppressor but of a deeply flawed intermediary—someone who sees her suffering, perhaps even wants to stop it, but cannot fully break free from the structures that dictate how he understands and responds to it.

i think this makes his character all the more tragic. he is someone who, in another world, might have been able to help. but in this one, he is just another man whose power lies in his ability to name and recognize (still more than i can say for the others), not in his ability to liberate, ultimately sending ellen to the grave when there could be another way he just isn’t privy to.

when von franz tells ellen, "in heathen times you might have been a great priestess of isis," he’s positioning her within an ancient lineage, one that existed outside of and often in opposition to the patriarchal structures that now entrap her. the cults of isis and other goddesses in the greco-roman world were unique in that they allowed women a degree of spiritual authority that was otherwise denied to them in public life.

isis, as a goddess, represents a paradox of power and submission, creation and mourning, autonomy and devotion. in the greco-roman world, her cult was one of the most widespread mystery religions, absorbing elements of egyptian traditions and adapting to a rapidly changing imperial landscape. she was a mother, a healer, a magician, and a mourner—qualities that resonate deeply with ellen’s role in nosferatu.

one of isis’ defining attributes was her mastery over life and death. in the osirian myth, she gathers the dismembered pieces of her husband osiris, bringing him back to life just long enough to conceive their son, horus. this act—both of resurrection and strategic reproduction—establishes her as a figure who wields power in the face of loss. ellen, too, operates within this framework; she does not fight orlok through direct confrontation but through sacrifice, using her body as a vessel to absorb and redirect his destruction. in this sense, her suffering becomes the means through which she enacts her power, much like isis’ grief becomes a transformative force.

isis was also associated with hidden knowledge, particularly through her connection to magic and femininity. the greco-roman isis cults emphasized this aspect, portraying her as the keeper of mysteries, a goddess who granted wisdom to those deemed worthy. ellen’s struggle with institutional power—the doctors, her father, orlok—mirrors the tension between feminine knowledge and patriarchal suppression. she is perceptive, aware of what is happening to her, yet she is constantly dismissed, overpowered, or forced into subservience. von franz’s comment about her being a “great priestess of isis” could then be read as an acknowledgment of this latent wisdom, a recognition that she possesses something beyond what the men around her can understand or control.

but this reference is deeply ironic. von franz sees ellen as someone who could have wielded power in another era, yet in the world they inhabit, she is reduced to an object of sacrifice. it also suggests a nostalgia for a lost past—one where feminine spirituality wasn’t feared or dismissed but instead held sacred significance. the reverence for priestesses of isis existed within a context where the feminine was celebrated, but that structure was later overwritten by patriarchal control, much in the way that ellen’s agency is continuously eroded. the tension here mirrors what happened to these goddess cults in antiquity—many of them were either absorbed into patriarchal religious structures or violently suppressed. the cult of isis, for example, was both venerated and feared in the roman empire. while it attracted women, slaves, and outsiders due to its promises of personal transformation and divine intimacy, it was also seen as a threat to state power.

ellen, in a way, embodies this dynamic: she is someone who carries the potential for power, but in a society that refuses to grant her the space to wield it. her ability to manipulate orlok through her own sacrifice could be read as a distorted echo of these ancient priestesses, who used ritual and devotion as a means of influence. but instead of presiding over sacred rites, she is forced into submission, her power existing only in the act of surrender.

this also complicates von franz’s role. his acknowledgment of ellen’s lost power could be seen as sympathetic, even admiring. but it also reinforces his limitations—he recognizes what she could have been, but he does not offer her any means of reclaiming that authority in the present. he sees her as a figure out of time, rather than someone who could actively reshape her fate.

so the invocation of the priestesses of isis is not just a throwaway line—it’s a moment that speaks to the historical erasure of feminine power, the way patriarchal structures co-opt and suppress it, and how even those who recognize this loss (like von franz) remain trapped in the frameworks that enforce it. ellen is not a priestess; she is a woman stripped of autonomy, forced to navigate her world through submission rather than through sacred authority. and in that, we see the long shadow of history repeating itself.

anyways in meta what’s especially troubling is the tendency to romanticize orlok’s figure—seeing him as seductive, as the archetypal “bad boy” who might somehow liberate ellen. but orlok is no liberator; he’s a predator, taking advantage of her vulnerabilities, forcing her to experience what should be a deeply personal, understanding of connection as something violent and detached. his actions are not about offering pleasure, but about consuming it, removing any semblance of consent or mutuality. and its a farce to think so imo. threatening to kill everyone you love in three nights if you don’t bed this guy is quite literally coercion.

this is a hard thing to confront because it’s not just a story about a vampire imo it’s a story about manipulation, and the ways in which pleasure is often weaponized against those who don’t have the power to stop it. the way nosferatu portrays the violence of pleasure is difficult to ignore, yet many do, preferring to focus on the allure of orlok, the fantasy of the vampire, and the seduction of the forbidden. but doing so misses the point. it's not about just fucking the vampire it’s also about acknowledging how deeply rooted in violence these dynamics are. pleasure, in this sense, becomes the mechanism through which that violence is carried out.

At first glance, the stories of Dracula and Nosferatu are almost identical. The beginning sections follow the same essential plot beats - a young, newlywed solicitor travels to a creepy castle in Eastern Europe to assist a reclusive Count in his immigration to the West. This Count is, in fact, a vampire (otherwise known as a nosferatu), and terrorizes the young man for weeks, before departing and leaving him imprisoned; the solicitor escapes, is rescued from the wilderness by a nunnery, and returns home - where the Count has already begun his murderous process of settling in.

Here, in my opinion, is where the similarities end.

The key to understanding Nosferatu is remembering that Orlok is not Dracula; Thomas is not Jonathan; Ellen is not Mina, and so forth; and despite the mutual inspirations that affect each film adaptation of either story, the characters never react to the plot as a viewer would expect, if their precursory experience has been limited to only one or the other version.

Naturally, there are reasons for the continued addition of Nosferatu elements to Dracula adaptations. The most prominent of them is that, quite simply, audiences enjoy a fated, dangerous, inadvisable monster romance. By and large, we are titillated by the taboo; and - without adapting Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872), or adding a vampiric element to an adaptation of Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1910), or expanding on the queer elements of Jonathan Harker's sojourn in Transylvania - the easiest piece of classic media to sample for this sort of theme is Nosferatu (1922).

The 1922 film was, in a sense, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (at least, enough to get the creators sued by his estate). In its efforts to circumvent copyright laws, it plays fast and loose with Stoker's lore and characters, renaming the Harkers, the Count, and everyone else - and, crucially, adding an element of erotic fixation that the vampire develops upon seeing a portrait of his solicitor's young wife. While still overseas, he builds a psychic connection with the melancholy and sensitive Ellen; it is both horrifying and sensual, and ultimately what she uses to destroy him - sacrificing her own blood and life to keep him out of his coffin until cock-crow. Ellen dies, but the sunlight annihilates Count Orlok, and the ending is a bittersweet new dawn.

This fixated, possessive, murderous eroticism (first displayed in its currently recognizable form by Carmilla) has become a cornerstone of the vampire genre. Elements of it are recognizable even in relatively modern media like Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, as well as numerous Dracula adaptations (of which the 1992 Coppola film might be the most well-known); it is even present in other, indirect offshoots like NBC's Hannibal TV series. It is, therefore, essential to note that these overtones did not exist in the same way in Dracula the novel; and the reason for that is, specifically, a difference in character.

Count Dracula, while dangerous, vampiric, and psychic, does not possess that same singular fascination with any given character in Stoker's book (save perhaps for Jonathan Harker, temporarily). He does drain Lucy night after night, and his method of killing, like with all vampires of his type, is allegorically sexual; but it isn't personal. She keeps receiving blood transfusions - effectively, refills!.. Other than her blood, he has little interest in her. He has companionship enough already - after all, he lives with three female vampires, who may be courtesans or wives, but are colloquially referred to as Vampire Brides; and, additionally, he maintains ongoing communication with some of the people and animals that live on his land. As such, when he does bite Jonathan's wife Mina, it is a practical decision - made in order to establish a potential spy in a group of people who appear to be intent on hunting him down.

Similarly, Mina herself - despite the usual characterization of her film portrayals, which are in many ways epitomized by Coppola's 1992 version - was not originally a vulnerable maiden. She is confident and educated, she has worked for a living as an educator prior to her marriage, and she knows how to use a typewriter as well as shorthand. She has no emotional connection to Dracula whatsoever beyond pure incandescent hatred; and, frankly, forcing her into any sort of romance with him is deeply inaccurate to her character - because Mina Harker is endlessly in love with her husband Jonathan.

They may be on the lower end of middle-class, but relatively stable and planning a life together - not only as husband and wife, but as solicitor and secretary, as well. It's as close to a power couple as a novel from the 1890s will approach.

This is not the case for Ellen Hutter, largely because her social circumstances are far more precarious.

Unlike Mina, she has been forcibly isolated for the majority of her life. In that, she is yet another in the line of tragic madwomen of the gothic genre - mostly due to her eccentricities and her psychic gift, which (as the Eggers version specifies) manifested early in her childhood and became socially inexcusable during her teenage years, much like any real-world form of neurodivergence. It is implied that she has been institutionalized at some point as a result; and even prior to that, her father kept her confined indoors and away from other people in efforts to control her.

This isolation is what originally leads to her connection with Orlok - who was woken from his centuries-long deathlike sleep when he heard her reaching out into the ether, begging for a friend. Then, later in her life, the same circumstances unfortunately have a direct effect on her relationship with her husband Thomas, too; while she is attached to him, she cannot ignore that she is also utterly dependent on him as her ticket to a stable life, as well as out from under her father's thumb. Again, unlike Mina, she has no marketable skills or opportunities outside of this marriage; and while Thomas never shames her for her past, he still pressures her to ignore and repress it. The manifestations of her psychic ability concern, then unsettle, then frighten him - and, ultimately, there is a transactional aspect to their union. Thomas expects himself to move ahead in the world, like his friend Friedrich; and Ellen is expected to eventually become normal. She is expected to become a happy, pretty wife and mother like Anna Harding - because, while Thomas cares for her and fully intends to provide for her, he refuses to actually understand her.

Furthermore, it must be noted that leaving her father's estate for her husband's house did not entirely save Ellen from her isolation. Unlike Mina, she has no real friends of her own. Her only friend in the 2024 film is Anna, her husband's best friend's wife; and in the 1922 original, even that tentative affection is unclear. As such, Orlok remains the only character that truly knows and accepts her as she is - which inevitably complicates their dynamic.

While Orlok is, by his own admission, incapable of a human love, he is overwhelmingly and exclusively obsessed with Ellen. Unlike Dracula, who even in death keeps the company of his women and his people, Orlok exists in utter solitude. Prior to his death, he was also heavily avoided due to his being in "covenant with the devil." The 2024 film especially makes it clear that Ellen's call, which woke him from his slumber, is exceptional; their connection is intensely personal, and it is as close to love as he can ever feel.

This aspect of the vampire's characterization fundamentally alters the context of his behaviour throughout the film. While Dracula moved to England in search of new hunting grounds and little else, Orlok goes to Germany specifically to find Ellen. By marrying Thomas Hutter, she broke the covenant she made with Orlok in her youth; thus, knowing that his claim has been infringed upon, the Count makes contact with Hutter's real estate law firm, summons him to the Carpathians, crosses the sea, and arrives to Wisborg as a physical manifestation of every dark urge and ability she has been attempting to repress. He torments her husband, tricks him into signing a marriage annulment, plagues the city, and murders the Hardings - all of it for her. She is his unique and all-consuming motivation. Again and again, he insists upon their covenant, reminding her that she has never truly belonged to the human world, and he is not incorrect in his assessment. Ellen's surrounding society infantilizes and binds her, often literally. She has nothing to lose by leaving it, except for her own sense of morality; and that is why Orlok, who represents her own abnormality, remains a beautiful, nightmarish temptation.

The other characters diverge from Stoker's just as much.

Thomas Hutter has little in common with Jonathan Harker beyond his choice in career and his time at a vampire's castle. Despite his careful attachment to his wife, he does not actually take her opinions into consideration when he plans their life - he prioritizes his social and financial advancements, which are of no interest to her, and which he sees as his duties to her and to himself; and, when she exhibits any of her unusual or melancholic traits, he does his best to try and move past them as quickly as possible. He does not experience the same attraction to the horror that she does; he cannot bring himself to understand it; and both in 1922 and in 2024, he is also largely oblivious to her eccentricities, gifting her flowers despite the fact that she does not like to see them picked and dying in a vase. That is a far cry from Jonathan - who knows his wife's love of train schedules, who is practicing shorthand with her, and who is willing to join her in cursed, godforsaken undeath when faced with the possibility of her turning. Ultimately, Thomas exists too firmly within the same societal constraints that Ellen abhors, and their relationship has none of the foundation that is unshakably shared by Jonathan and Mina.

At the same time, while the Anna is a parallel to Lucy, and her husband is a corresponding Arthur, the Hardings (once again) have no particular commonality with them. Their characterization remains undeveloped in the original 1922 film - and while Eggers does grant them some definition, it is still in no way similar to Stoker's.

Stoker's Lucy is a charming, cheerful, flirty, and a little coquettish young girl; she exists on the cusp of womanhood and marriage, and her pre-vampire arc revolves around her choice between three almost-equally delightful suitors. She adores and idolizes Mina, she is childishly excited about her future; and in these things, she is very different from Anna, who is already married, a mother of two with one on the way - and who does care for Ellen, but in a motherly, rather than girlish, fashion.

Her husband, too, is quite different from Arthur Holmwood.

In 2024, Friedrich Harding is - above all else - the film's personification of the trap that is patriarchy. He is the epitome of what a man is expected to be: a successful business owner with a pretty blonde wife and 2.5 kids (I thought Anna's pregnancy was very much on the nose. Quite literally, 2.5 kids!). He is generous, he cares for his family, and he is firmly Rational. On the surface, Harding appears to be an ideal made flesh; and as the film progresses, it becomes evident that this ideal is designed to crumble.

Much of Harding's rationality is heavily hypocritical. While he claims to be making all his decisions based on pure logic, Ellen's - an outsider's - perspective exposes the truth behind his motivations. He ignores her warnings because he does not like her and considers her impudent; he kicks his own sick best friend out of his house with only his similarly sick wife to care for him, because he is annoyed and unsettled by their references to the supernatural; he refuses to listen to Von Franz and ignores the danger his family is in, because he is frightened of losing them to something he cannot comprehend, rather than a mundane, potentially treatable illness. All of these decisions are emotional, rooted in his misogyny and closed-mindedness - and so, Harding loses his daughters, his wife, his unborn son, as well as the unflappable, rational facade he had been so carefully maintaining. He ends the film a wreckage of himself, having committed necrophilia with the corpse of his wife because he was emotionally, irrationally unable to let go of her even in death; he dies of the plague that came to Wisborg through his own ship yard, holding her in his arms. Even under the guise of benevolence, his patriarchal worldview undermines and fails him entirely. It is a terrible thrill to watch him fall apart, and the ruin that is left in his place is one of the most obvious illustrations of the story's principal themes.

The other characterizations follow a similar sort of pattern. Sievers, unlike Seward, has no romantic rivalry with Harding; and beyond a professional connection, they are not really friends. Von Franz is far less knowledgeable about vampires than Van Helsing - for the majority of the film, he is stumbling in the dark with the rest of the cast, only finding a way of destroying Orlok in Herr Knock's codex. Knock, too, is far less noble than Renfield - even though he is just as insane as his counterpart, he sees Ellen as an object to be traded for money and power, rather than a kind soul that he would die to protect.

(Quincey Morris, unfortunately, does not exist in Nosferatu. Murnau hadn't found a place for a cowboy in his production; consequently, Eggers could not, either.)

The point is, really, that while Dracula and Nosferatu share a common premise, a comparison between them cannot be made without acknowledging the glaring differences between their characters. For instance, even though Orlok's relationship with Ellen is toxic in the usual vampiric way - part sex, part horror, part possession, part liberation - Thomas is by no means a perfect partner for her, either, because he is not Jonathan Harker, and Ellen is not Mina. Similarly, Von Franz, Sievers, and Harding are not a brave vampire hunting team - they are all blind, each in their own specific way (Von Franz, lacking straightforward knowledge; Sievers, trusting Von Franz without question; Harding, unable to think outside of societal rules). Expecting them to react to their situation the same way as the cast of Dracula is an exercise in futility.