Nosferatu Comparison: Murnau vs. Herzog vs. Eggers
More like Nosf3ratu
Consider this an epilogue to my Dracula December series from last month. Having now seen Nosferatu (2024) from Robert Eggers multiple times, I decided it would be a good opportunity to compare and contrast the three most famous versions of Nosferatu with each other as well as Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) novel from which they are based. I also considered adding Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (2023) directed by David Lee Fisher to the mix, but having now seen it that wouldn’t have added much to the conversation (the whole thing is shot in front of a green screen with the backgrounds being the sets from Murnau’s film).
This may seem obvious, but please be aware that there will be spoilers for all three versions of Nosferatu as well as the novel Dracula in this piece. If you don’t want to know what happens in any of these films or novel, then turn back now. You have been warned.
Please also note that I am discussing the events of Nosferatu (2024) from memory. I haven’t been able to take notes on it since it’s still only in cinemas, so it’s possible that I’ll get some details wrong. Please don’t cancel me if I do.
The Setting
Dracula (1897)
Stoker’s novel was a contemporary one in that it was set in the time period it was written: the 1890s. The novel primarily takes place in two different locations. The first half of the novel is set in the Carpathian Mountains where Count Dracula’s castle is located. The second half of the novel is mostly set in London, England.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
We already have a change right off the bat (pun intended)! Murnau’s film changes both the time period and one of the locations. This film takes place in the 1830s, so it is now set six decades prior to when the novel is set. While this adaptation also spends the first half in the Carpathian Mountains, the second half is set in the fictional city of Wisborg, Germany. Why change the location to Germany? Well, it was a German director with a German cast and crew. Why a fictional German city instead of a real one? I don’t know. Stop asking so many questions.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Herzog’s remake of Murnau’s classic film makes a few alterations to the setting. This film is set in the 1850s instead of the 1830s. The locations are mostly the same, but the German city is now the real city of Wismar. I guess Herzog also did not understand why Murnau chose a fictional city.
Nosferatu (2024)
Eggers goes back to the Murnau film with his remake and sets it in the 1830s once more. He also sets his remake in the Carpathian Mountains for the first half and Murnau’s fictional city of Wisborg in the second half.
Count Dracula
Dracula (1897)
I want you to try something for me. Close your eyes, and picture Count Dracula in your head. What does he look like? I’m willing to bet that he looks a lot like Bela Lugosi from Universal’s Dracula (1931) or at least a caricature of that version. You know the one: widow’s peak, black cape, fancy suit, etc. It’s what every pop culture version of the character looks like from Count Chocula to Count von Count from Sesame Street. But did you know his description in the novel is much different? Here is how he is described:
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.
And later:
His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.
The point I want to make here is that Dracula has a mustache, but you almost never see him depicted this way.
That mustache starts off white, but it becomes black (along with his hair) later in the novel as he consumes more and more blood. He also has pointy ears and sharp canines, but those are traits a little more common among contemporary depictions of vampires. He’s still human enough in appearance to blend in with normal people, but he’s unnatural enough to creep people out.
Count Dracula is also a monster. He is not a sympathetic character in the original novel. He is an evil vampire who is driven first and foremost by his hunger for human blood. Other than that, he seems to enjoy creating vampire brides for himself to command and control. He exudes incel energy.
Dracula also has numerous supernatural abilities. He has super strength and can crawl up walls like some deranged version of Spider-Man. He can control various animals and make them do his bidding like rats, wolves, and bats. He’s immune to conventional weapons like gunshots and stabbings (unless you pierce his heart). He can shapeshift into animals like bats and dogs, and he can turn himself into mist. He even has the ability to manipulate the weather by drumming up storms or ushering in fog. He’s a true renaissance man. It is never explicitly stated how he became a vampire or attained these abilities, but it is suggested that he may have had a pact with Satan.
Lastly, Count Dracula drinks the blood from his victims by biting them on the neck with his sharp canine teeth. It’s probably the one thing that virtually everyone knows about vampires, and it’s mostly due to this novel.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
The first major change Murnau makes to Count Dracula in his film is his name. He is no longer Count Dracula. He is now Count Orlok instead. Why the change? That is because Murnau did not have the rights to adapt Dracula. To get around this, he just changed the names of all of the characters involved (along with some tweaks to the story). Surely that would prevent him from being sued by Stoker’s estate! Spoiler alert: it did not.
Aside from the name change, what else (if anything) is different about this vampire? Let’s cut right to the chase: Count Orlok looks radically different from how Count Dracula is described in the novel. By that, I mean he looks like a disgusting rat man.
Played by Max Schreck (who is said to have done his own makeup for the film), Count Orlok is one of the most terrifying and memorable monsters ever to appear on screen. He is bald, has large pointed ears (like the novel!), two long upper incisors like a rodent, big bushy eyebrows, and long fingers with sharp pointed nails. It’s a look that has become so iconic that it has been utilized in various other vampire films and television shows like Salem’s Lot (1979), Are You Afraid of the Dark? (S2E2 “The Tale of the Midnight Madness”), What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Jakob’s Wife (2021), and many more. It’s probably the most famous look for a vampire outside of the Lugosi version.
As for supernatural powers and abilities, Orlok is a bit toned down from his counterpart in the novel. He never engages in any kind of shapeshifting or wall crawling. He is never attacked by conventional weapons at any point in the film, so it isn’t clear what his vulnerabilities are. He does seem to have control over rats, but it isn’t made explicit in the way it is in the novel. He does carry around his own coffin by himself and can seemingly lift objects without physically touching them, so he does seem to be exceptionally strong and possessing some telekinetic abilities.
While Dracula can seemingly only be killed by piercing his heart and decapitating him, Orlok is shown have a fatal reaction to sunlight. Dracula in the novel is weakened by sunlight, but it doesn’t kill him. Not great news for Orlok.
Orlok’s presence in modern society is also different from Dracula’s. While Dracula in the novel seemingly wishes to infiltrate society and lurk among humanity by hiding in plain sight, Orlok behaves more like a pestilence. He is death incarnate as he spreads the plague throughout Wisborg to help mask his own killings. This vampire does not seem to have the impulse control (or the physical appearance) to live within modern society. He will just continue consuming until all life within the city has been extinguished. It makes an even more unnatural and deadly villain than his counterpart in this regard.
Much like the novel, it is hinted at that Orlok also made a pact with a demon (Belial in this case) in order to be turned into a vampire. We also see that he has sent letters composed entirely of occult symbols to his familiar in Germany. This lends credence to the notion that black magic was involved in his transformation into an undead bloodsucker.
Lastly, Orlok drinks the blood of his victims by biting them on the neck. Unlike the novel, he uses those big rat teeth to do so instead of using his incisors.
Nosferatu the Vampire (1979)
The Herzog version of Dracula is an interesting one. For starters, his name is Count Dracula in this adaptation instead of Count Orlok. Stoker’s Dracula had fallen into the public domain by this time, so Herzog took advantage of this by using the names from the novel. From an appearance standpoint, Dracula (played by Klaus Kinski) looks almost identical to Schreck’s Orlok. He is once again a disgusting rat man.
He has the same bald head, pointy ears, long fingernails, and rodent-like upper incisors that the Schreck version had (though the big bushy eyebrows are gone).
In terms of personality and motivations, this Dracula is much more forlorn and sympathetic than any previous incarnation of Dracula. He’s almost more pitiable than threatening for much of the film as he searches for love while simultaneously ushering in the same death as Orlok from the Murnau film.
We don’t see many of Dracula’s supernatural abilities in this adaptation. We see that he doesn’t cast a reflection in a mirror, but that’s pretty much it. He is also weakened by sunlight, but it isn’t totally clear if it’s lethal or if it just weakens him enough to be incapacitated and easily staked.
Nosferatu (2024)
We’re back to referring to the vampire as Count Orlok in the Robert Eggers remake of Nosferatu. This particular version (played by Bill Skarsgard) is pretty radically different than both the Dracula from the novel as well as the antagonists of the previous two Nosferatu films. Orlok’s appearance has been kept completely out of the marketing for this film, so turn back now if you don’t want it spoiled.
Still there?
Okay. Here we go.
Count Orlok has a mustache in this film.
We did it! We finally got a Dracula (or Orlok) with appropriate facial hair. That’s about the only thing, however, that this version has in common with the Stoker novel from an appearance standpoint. This Orlok is basically a rotting corpse. He looks more like a zombie than he does what we think of as a vampire. He has decaying flesh (complete with maggots feasting away) that is rotting away to the point that bones are sometimes visible. Like Schreck and Kinski’s portrayals, Skarsgard’s Orlok is mostly bald. Unlike those other versions, this one does have one small patch of long stringy hair with the worst combover you’ve ever seen. This is one ugly vampire. The reason he looks this way is because Robert Eggers is a stickler for historical accuracy. While doing research for the film, he found that the depictions of vampires by people who believed in them from that time period and region typically described them as reanimated corpses that had crawled out of their graves. As for the mustache, Eggers has stated in numerous interviews that any Romanian aristocrat from the time period when Orlok would have lived would have had a mustache as a status symbol.
Skarsgard’s Orlok also speaks a reconstructed dead language called Dacian in the film. Orlok describes it as the language of his forefathers at one point. He also has a very deep voice. Skarsgard reportedly worked with an opera singer to be trained to lower his voice by a full octave. Pretty impressive dedication.
Orlok is also much more explicitly supernatural in this film. He is able to commune with Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) telepathically and can even seemingly possess her at times. He acontrols wolves and rats and has them do his bidding throughout the film. He is somehow able to dominate the minds of some characters in the film. He forces Thomas Hutter (played by Nicholas Hoult) to open a latched door at one point and makes Friedrich Harding (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to remain asleep as he invades his home). He also shows the ability to manipulate the weather, and he brings the plague with him much like in the previous two Nosferatu films.
There is speculation once more in this film that Orlok has made a pact with Satan to allow his corpse to live beyond the grave. It is also mentioned by multiple characters that Orlok was a sorcerer called a Solomonar in life (pulled from Romanian folklore). The film provides evidence for this through his use of occult symbols and a book belonging to his familiar referred to as the Codex for the Solomonari. He also has an occult sigil that he uses as a seal throughout the movie.
Skarsgard’s Orlok is also far from sympathetic. He accurately describes himself as nothing more than appetite in the film. He’s a predator in every sense of the word as he sets his sights on Depp’s Ellen Hutter from a young age with the intent to dominate her physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Unlike every previous iteration of the character, this Orlok drinks the blood of his victims by biting them on the chest. He doesn’t have the obviously pronounced canines or incisors that we’ve become used to, but he does have a mouthful of jagged teeth whenever he fully opens his mouth. The reason he feeds from the chest instead of the neck is once again due to Eggers being a stickler for historical accuracy. Folklore from that region and time period said that vampires fed from the chest. This is thought to have originated from misinterpretations of sleep paralysis where people would feel as though there was something pressing on their chests preventing them from moving as hallucinatory demons were in their midst. As someone who has suffered from sleep paralysis in the past, I can say that this makes a lot of sense! There’s also something deeply unsettling about watching Orlok loudly gulping down blood from a victim’s chest.
Key Plot Points
For this section, I’m going to run through the key plot points from Stoker’s novel and compare how closely the three Nosferatu films adhere to those story beats.
Dracula (1897)
Jonathan Harker (a real estate agent from London) travels to Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a house near London.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Thomas Hutter (a real estate agent from Wisborg) travels to Transylvania to help Count Orlok purchase a house near Wisborg.
Nosferatu the Vampire (1979)
Jonathan Harker (a real estate agent from Wismar) travels to Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a house near Wismar.
Nosferatu (2024)
Thomas Hutter (a real estate agent from Wisborg) travels to Transylvania to help Count Orlok purchase a house near Wisborg.
Dracula (1897)
When he first arrives, Harker is warned by the locals not to go to Dracula’s castle. He ignores these warnings and takes a carriage (driven by Dracula in disguise) to the castle.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
When he first arrives, Hutter is warned by the locals not to go to Orlok’s castle. He ignores these warnings and takes a carriage (driven by Orlok in disguise) to the castle.
Nosferatu the Vampire (1979)
When he first arrives, Harker is warned by the locals not to go to Dracula’s castle. He ignores these warnings and takes a carriage (update: we are not explicitly shown if Dracula is driving the carriage) to the castle.
Nosferatu (2024)
When he first arrives, Hutter is warned by the locals not to go to Orlok’s castle. He then witnesses the locals dig up and kill a vampire. He ignores their warnings and takes a carriage (moving without a driver) to the castle.
Dracula (1897)
Once there, Harker is taken prisoner by Dracula and his three vampire brides as Dracula travels to England.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Once there, Hutter is taken prisoner by Orlok. Orlok then travels to Germany.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Once there, Harker is taken prisoner by Dracula. Dracula then travels to Germany.
Nosferatu (2024)
Once there, Hutter is taken prisoner by Orlok and his three wolves. Orlok then travels to Germany.
Dracula (1897)
Dracula charters a Russian ship called the Demeter to take crates filled with the dirt (and himself) to England. He proceeds to feed on and kill the crew of the ship one by one until they arrive. Meanwhile, Jonathan escapes from Dracula’s castle and intends to get home and protect his beloved Mina whom Dracula had become fixated upon.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Orlok charters a Russian ship called the Demeter to take crates filled with the dirt (and himself) to Germany. He proceeds to feed on and kill the crew of the ship one by one until they arrive. Meanwhile, Thomas escapes from Orlok’s castle and intends to get home and protect his beloved Ellen whom Orlok had become fixated upon.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Dracula charters a Russian ship called the Demeter to take crates filled with the dirt (and himself) to Germany. He proceeds to feed on and kill the crew of the ship one by one until they arrive. Meanwhile, Jonathan escapes from Dracula’s castle and intends to get home and protect his beloved Lucy whom Dracula had become fixated upon.
Nosferatu (2024)
Orlok charters a Russian ship called the Demeter to take crates filled with the dirt (and himself) to Germany. He proceeds to feed on and kill the crew of the ship one by one until they arrive. Meanwhile, Thomas escapes from Orlok’s castle and intends to get home and protect his beloved Ellen whom Orlok had developed a telepathic relationship with years earlier.
Dracula (1897)
Upon his arrival, Dracula begins feeding on Mina’s friend Lucy. As Lucy falls ill with no obvious cause, an expert named Abraham Van Helsing is brought in to assist. He figures out that a vampire is responsible and begins putting a plan together to save Lucy. Jonathan also returns to London and is very ill.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Upon his arrival, Orlok begins feeding on the citizens of Wisborg and unleashes the plague on the city. As the population falls ill, an expert named Professor Bulwer is brought in to assist. He provides little to no help. Thomas also returns to Wisborg and is very ill.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Upon his arrival, Dracula begins feeding on the citizens of Wismar and unleashes the plague on the city. As the population falls ill, an expert named Abraham Van Helsing is brought in to assist. He figures out that a vampire is responsible, but he offers little help. Jonathan also returns to Wismar and is very ill.
Nosferatu (2024)
Upon his arrival, Orlok begins feeding on the citizens of Wisborg and unleashes the plague on the city. As Ellen suffers from her psychic link to Orlok, an expert named Albin Eberhart Von Franz is brought in to assist. He figures out that a vampire is responsible and begins trying to put together a plan to stop him. Thomas also returns to Wisborg and is very ill.
Dracula (1897)
Dracula kills Lucy and turns her into a vampire. Van Helsing, Arthur Holmwood (Lucy’s husband), John Seward (a medical doctor), and Quincey Morris (a cowboy) kill the vampiric Lucy. They then recruit Jonathan to help track down and kill Dracula, but he feeds on Mina while they are gone and infects her with his vampirism.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Ellen realizes she is the only one who can defeat Orlok after reading a book on vampires that Thomas had brought home and devises a plan to kill him. No one else is aware of this plan.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Lucy realizes she is the only one who can defeat Dracula after reading a book on vampires that Jonathan had brought home and devises a plan to kill him. No one else is aware of this plan. Meanwhile, Jonathan begins to turn into a vampire due to Dracula feeding on him while he was his prisoner.
Nosferatu (2024)
Orlok kills Ellen’s friend Anna and her two young daughters after telling Ellen he will kill all of her loved ones if she does not submit to him. Von Franz and Ellen devise a plan to kill Orlok based on information found in the Codex of the Solomonari that will almost certainly result in Ellen’s death. Von Franz comes up with a false plan to kill Orlok in order to distract Thomas from what Ellen must do.
Dracula (1897)
Van Helsing’s team of amateur vampire hunters chase Dracula as he flees back to Transylvania. Van Helsing and Mina kill Dracula’s brides at his castle. Meanwhile, the others catch up with Dracula. Quincey stabs him in the heart, and Jonathan decapitates him. This frees Mina from turning into a vampire, but Quincey dies from wounds sustained during the fight. The story ends with Jonathan and Mina naming their first son Quincey.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
Ellen lures Orlok into her bedroom to feed on her knowing that the Sun will soon rise. Orlok loses track of time while feeding on her, and he is killed once the sunlight enters the room. Ellen sadly dies as well from the blood loss as Thomas arrives too late.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Lucy lures Dracula into her bedroom to feed on her knowing that the Sun will soon rise. Dracula loses track of time while feeding on her, and he is incapacitated once the sunlight enters the room. Lucy sadly dies as from the blood loss as Van Helsing arrives and stakes Dracula in his weakened state. Jonathan completes his metamorphosis into a vampire and gets Van Helsing arrested for murder. The story ends with Jonathan riding away on horseback.
Nosferatu (2024)
Ellen lures Orlok into her bedroom by promising to give herself to him willingly knowing that he must return to the soil he was buried in before dawn. Orlok is unable to resist her, and he is killed once the dawn breaks (in one of the most magnificent looking deaths ever put to film). Ellen sadly dies as well from the blood loss as Thomas arrives too late.
Something I find interesting about all three Nosferatu films is that there are far fewer vampires (and cowboys) than there are in the source text. There are no brides, and the Lucy Westenra equivalent character is never turned. The only times we see another vampire in these films are the end of the Herzog film when Jonathan becomes a vampire and very early in the Eggers film when Thomas witnesses a vampire being exhumed and staked by the locals.
Of the three Nosferatu films, the Eggers film is the only one that gives the Van Helsing analog something to do. Part of that reason might be because the character is played by Willem Dafoe, and there’s no way you’re going to make Willem Dafoe a master of the occult and not let him have fun with it.
All three Nosferatu films place the Mina analog character at the forefront instead of the Jonathan analog. I think this is a smart move as she’s just a more interesting character. That is buoyed by all three actors (Greta Schröder, Isabelle Adjani, and Lily-Rose Depp) giving outstanding performances. It also helps that all three have some vaguely defined psychic abilities with the Depp version being the most pronounced.
All three also let the Count Dracula analog really shine brightly. They might be significantly different from the Stoker version, but all three are incredible portrayals. Max Schreck’s performance as Count Orlok in the Murnau film is one of the most iconic in horror movie history. The Kinski portrayal of Dracula in the Herzog film is one of the best of his career. Skarsgard is completely unrecognizable as Orlok in the Eggers film to the point that I would not have believed it was him had I not already known ahead of time.
Overall, I view all three Nosferatu films as some of the best Dracula adaptations ever made. I know there are plenty of folks who think the Dracula narrative is played out, but the success that Nosferatu has had already this year (over $100 million at the box office thus far) shows that there is still an appetite for it from mainstream audiences.