Robert Eggers Says His Nosferatu Is A Gothic Horror Movie That Will Actually Scare You
It’s not just the horror elements; where masculinity was a major element in both “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman,” it sounds as though “Nosferatu” will see Eggers returning to the feminine themes of “The Witch.” The film stars Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, the woman whose husband, the real estate agent assistant (and not so thinly disguised stand-in for Jonathan Harker from “Dracula”) Thomas Hutter, encounters the vampiric Count Orlock during a business trip to his castle in Transylvania in Murnau’s original silent classic. In this version, however, it sounds as though Ellen will get a larger role to play. “It’s even more Ellen’s story than previous versions,” Eggers explained to Empire. “And Lily-Rose is absolutely phenomenal.” (Personally, I still wish Anya Taylor-Joy was starring as originally planned, but I’m willing to give Miss Depp a fair shake.)
Meanwhile, Bill Skarsgård is bringing Count Orlock to life in the film, giving him another iconic movie monster notch to add to his belt after his turns as Pennywise in “It” and “It Chapter Two.” To hear Eggers tell it, the actor is “honoring who had come before him” in the role while at the same time leaning even harder into the “folk vampire” aspect. “In my opinion, he looks like a dead Transylvanian nobleman, and in a way that we’ve never actually seen what an actual dead Transylvanian nobleman would look like and be dressed like,” Eggers added. After “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” gave us an unconventionally inhuman take on the original Dracula (as played by creature actor specialist Javier Botet), I’m all the more intrigued to watch Skarsgård work his own magic in a similar capacity.
“Nosferatu” will release theatrically at some yet-to-be-announced date in 2024.
