Nosferatu is a 2024 Gothic Horror film that serves as a remake of the 1922 German silent film of the same name, which was itself based on Dracula. It is the fourth film written and directed by Robert Eggers, and stars Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Ineson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin and Simon McBurney. Chris Columbus is among its producers.

The film is about a young German woman (Depp) who is being haunted and pursued by a Transylvanian vampire (Skarsgård) that is obsessed with her as he brings havoc to her town.

The film's production was first announced in 2015, and it was initially slated to be Eggers' second film after his debut The Witch (released the same year). However, it was delayed and put on hold numerous times, with filming not taking place until 2023 (thus missing out on the original film's 100th anniversary). It was released theatrically on December 25th, 2024.

See also the 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre, and the 2000 Biography à Clef Shadow of the Vampire.

Previews: Teaser, Trailer

Nosferatu contains examples of:

• Accidental Murder: Thomas, mistakenly believing he has cornered Orlok, accidentally impales Knock — the hapless Vampire Vannabe — who has been hiding in Orlok's tomb.
• Actor Allusion: The first scene with von Franz ends with him jovially offering his guests some schnapps. In actor Willem Dafoe's turn as Max Schreck aka "Count Orlok" in Shadow of the Vampire, he gets moodily drunk on schnapps while discussing his "character" with fellow filmmakers.
• Adaptational Heroism: In Dracula, the titular Count has a small army of what the novel refers to as "Gypsies" and "Szgany" as his loyal mooks in his homeland, who fight the heroes in the novel's climax in an attempt to prevent them from killing Dracula. Here, the Romani are not Orlok's servants, but his enemies, engaging in the hunting of lesser vampires and attempting to warn Thomas away from going to Castle Orlok. Even their one explicitly illicit act (stealing Thomas' horse) can be interpreted as them trying to prevent him from falling into Orlok's clutches.
• Adaptational Name Change: Similar to how the original changed the names from Dracula because the novel wasn't in the public domain at the time, this remake changes a few of the characters' names:
  • In the 1922 original, the friends of Thomas who take care of Ellen while he is away were brother and sister respectively named Harding and Ruth. Here they are stated to be a couple respectively named Friedrich Harding and Anna Harding.
  • The professor was called Bulwer in the 1922 film, whereas here he is called Albin Eberhart von Franz.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the 1922 film, the man and woman that take care of Ellen while her husband is gone are brother and sister. Here they are husband and wife. This, most likely, is due to the effort to make the adaptation more faithful to Stoker's novel, where Lucy Westenra and Arthur Holmwood (upon whom Ruth and Harding are based) were engaged.
• Adaptation Expansion: The movie adds elements that neither the original 1922 nor the 1979 film had, namely:
  • Orlok has known Ellen since at least her early adolescence, and Ellen has some sort of latent spiritual powers.
  • The men banding together to hunt down Orlok's coffins of dirt and try to kill him themselves. This is a key element of the original Dracula novel, but didn't make it into the other Nosferatu films.
• Adapted Out: As in the original Nosferatu, Quincey Morris from the Dracula novel has no equivalent in this version. Same for Dracula's three brides.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: Subverted. While Dr. Sievers at first treats Ellen's case as psychosis and dismisses Knock as mentally ill, he soon recognizes something is rather odd and insists on consulting Professor von Franz over the case. While still skeptical about the latter's claims of a demonic possession, he later comes to accept it as the only possible explanation.
• All Witches Have Cats: Oddly alluded to — Ellen, whose sensitivity to the supernatural ultimately made her a beacon for Orlok, has a beloved pet cat, and von Franz, professor and alchemist, has (at least) two cats of his own; in fact, he's enough of a Kindhearted Cat Lover to give Ellen's cat a treat when he first visits her and picks the cat up to hold at the very end of the film. However, since Orlok is closely associated with rats, it makes sense considering that Ellen and von Franz are the ones who know the most about Orlok and ultimately the ones to bring him down.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • What is exactly Orlok? The nuns claims he's essentially an undead sorcerous nobleman, which seems supported by Orlok's using spells and clearly taking pride on being an aristocrat. At the same time, he now seems to belong to a breed of vampires (the title Nosferatu) which turns out to be well documented since medieval times, implying whatever he is, there are more like him. They might or might not predate him, as Black Speech he's shown talking is officially meant to ancient Dacian, which means Orlok has been around at the very least since the 7th century.
  • Orlok claims he's being drawn by Ellen's most inner desires, to the point of having been literally raised from the grave by her power, which implies he doesn't have much free will on the topic, but the viewer doesn't get to find out whether any of this is true. He also laments with apparent sincerity that he cannot love neither satiate his own urges any other way, and therefore this predatory bond is the only kind of relationship that could exist betwene them; again, whether this is true or just him trying to rationalize his abuse of her, or whether he actually believes it, be it true or not, is never clarified.
  • When Ellen finally offers herself to him, Orlok becomes emotional to the point of looking fearful and uncertain to even touch her face, and after he gets to kiss her and she starts stripping down, the camera pans on Orlok breathing heavily while looking focused, as in some kind of inner conflict. The scene leaves ambiguous what's in his head at that point, or even just whether he's trying to control himself or spirit himself up. Viewers have variously interpreted he's overwhelmed by the idea or reliving earthly pleasures, anguished at having to kill his long desired bride, afraid to face death, or a combination of some or all of these.
  • It's never established if Orlok and Ellen's "consummation" is a traditionally sexual one as well as vampiric. It is notable that they both strip before laying in bed together, and when the dawn comes Orlok is still mounting her in a very suggestive way. That doesn't mean that any genuine intercourse took place, nor may there be any real distinction between that and this particular feeding for them.
• And Starring: In a nod to his iconic status, Willem Dafoe receives this special billing during the end credits.
• Animal Motifs: Like the previous incarnations, Orlok is associated with rats. On the opposite end, his opponents Ellen and the vampire hunting von Franz are associated with cats - killers of rats.
• Answer Cut: With no word from Thomas, Friedrich anxiously wonders aloud about his whereabouts. The scene abruptly shifts to an Orthodox nun discovering Thomas, battered and unconscious, by the river's edge.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Orlok tends to use awkward syntax and archaic phrasing when he speaks, helping to cement the idea that he is from a time period far removed from the early 19th-century setting of the film.
• Apocalypse How: Orlok's plague brings a Class 0 to Wisborg. While apparently isolated to the city, it appears to spread and kill with supernatural speed, routinely killing victims within a day of infection. It takes all of two days for Wisborg to collapse into terror and despair, with hospitals overflowing, bodies burning in the streets, and street preachers raving that The End Is Nigh.
• Arc Symbol: Orlok's sigil, a menacing seven-pointed star, serves as a recurring motif throughout the film, symbolizing the dark forces at play and the inescapable nature of his power.
• Arc Words: "He is coming" and "Providence", the latter of which is mostly Knock's Catchphrase.
• Armor-Piercing Response: On the night when Orlok and Ellen actually meet in person for the first time, Orlok slowly approaches Ellen as he attempts to make the woman submit to him and remind her of how her longing for companionship as well as her psychic powers is what brought him into her life, but she refuses to do so. The two speak in calm tones for most of it but it's not until Orlok gets closer to Ellen where she says "I abhor you." in a calm tone, that was enough to make him lose it. Orlok throws her to the ground and angrily orders her to give in to him within three nights or all of her loved ones will die.
• Artistic License – Geography: When Herr Knock' describes the location of Castle Orlok to Thomas and shows it to him on the map, it doesn't make much geographical sense, as he tells Thomas that Orlok lives in a remote region of the Carpathians, "east of Bohemia". The problem with this is that Bohemia is the traditional name for the westernmost region of present day Czechia, so Knock would have to be referring to the Western Carpathians (mainly between present day Poland and Slovakia), while Transylvania is bounded by the Eastern and Southern Carpathians, around 500 kilometers to the southeast as the crow flies, in Romania.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: Orlok sometimes speaks in a Black Speech officially meant to be Dacian language, the tongue of the ancient Romanians. However, Romance vocabulary and syntaxis can be heard almost ubiquitously throughout the lines, to the point the language sounds at times more like corrupted Latin than anything else (indeed,viewers fluent in any form of Latin will find many of the lines quite intelligible for what their ominous delivery might imply). This is because in real life, Dacian language has been dead since the Roman period and is not very well documented, so the language spoken in the film is actually an educated reconstruction based on several forms of Romanian — that is, an Eastern Romance language descending from Latin. Linguist Florin Lazarescu, who acted as a consultant for the film and created this version of Dacian, had to resort to Rule of Cool out of necessity while trying to keep it as scientific as possible.
• Ascended Extra: In the original Nosferatu, the only characters with major plot significance are Orlok, Knock, Sievers and the Hutters. This film gives more prominence to some of the other characters, such as the Hardings. Sievers also has a slightly larger role. The most significant change is probably Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, who has a much larger and more proactive role than Professor Bulwer, his counterpart from the original. This is all Truer to the Text, as the equivalents of these characters from Dracula are all fairly prominent in the plot.
• Attack Animal: Orlok keeps wolves in his castle and uses them to attack interlopers and victims.
• Automaton Horses:
  • Thomas is able to make the journey between Transylvania and Wisborg, a distance of at least 1,250 kilometers (775 miles) no matter where on the German coast of 1838 the city is located, fast enough to beat Orlok's ship to port, on a single horse with no remounts. And yet, when he arrives, the one who is half dead is the rider, with the horse looking no worse for the wear.
  • For that matter, Thomas' journey to Transylvania also counts, as a trip of that length (even without trying to race a sailing ship), would be extraordinarily taxing on a single horse, and kill the animal unless one took an extremely slow pace.
• "Awkward Silence" Entrance: Upon entering the Romani inn, Thomas is met with an unsettling silence as the patrons' eyes follow his every move, amplifying his sense of isolation in this foreign country.
• Bait-and-Switch: Orlok has arrived in Wisborg and has made clear he is obsessed with Ellen. At night, Ellen joyously cries out 'he is here!' and runs out into the night rain to greet someone. Rather than Orlok, it is an exhausted Thomas and she is clearly overjoyed to see him return at long last.
• Banishing Ritual: The nuns that rescue Thomas do something of this sort after saving him.
• Batman Gambit: Von Franz realizes they cannot kill Orlok with iron or fire. The only way is for Ellen to sacrifice her life. But just to ensure authenticity, he leads his allies on a false hunt for the vampire, knowing that Hutter would never agree to sacrifice his wife. It might not be all misdirection, though, as von Franz staying to burn/consecrate the cursed earth in the coffin indicates that denying Orlok his safe resting spot is still useful.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: A young Ellen prayed for companionship, requesting "a guardian angel, a spirit of comfort... anything." She got Orlok, who is the exact opposite of those things.
• Bedlam House: Sievers's asylum is an aversion; though still pretty gloomy, he refuses to allow the patients to be held in the older rooms that are essentially dungeons and genuinely wants to help them. Whatever institution Ellen was kept at when she was younger apparently played this straight.
• Big "NO!": Ellen after Orlok says he will kill Thomas if she doesn't give herself to him.
• Bittersweet Ending: Many people have been killed by the plague, Herr Harding and his entire family are killed by Orlok, and Ellen has sacrificed her own life. But she ensures that Orlok is killed by the rising sun and his curse is gone forever even though Thomas is devastated by his true love's death.
• The Black Death: Orlok brings the bubonic plague to Wisborg along with himself.
• Black Speech: Orlok speaks in ancient Dacian (which sounds scary) to Ellen, who gains Inexplicable Language Fluency in it under his curse.
• Blood from Every Orifice: A horrifying vision Thomas has is of Ellen oozing blood out of her eyes and mouth. When Orlok finally dies, this starts happening to him, as well.
• Blood from the Mouth: Knock spits out blood after being impaled in his stomach by Thomas.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Inverted. Ellen is a melancholic woman that is haunted by Orlok and has psychic powers that make her feel alone in the world while her husband Thomas is a loving man looking to give her a life she deserves and tries to protect her from Orlok's power.
• Butt-Dialing Mordor: Ellen unwittingly drew Orlok's attention while praying for companionship as a teenager.
• Cassandra Truth: As part of the Deliberate Values Dissonance of the film, Ellen is continuously talked over and ignored by the men around her whenever she tries to tell them her own feelings about her dreams, sleepwalking, and seizures. She has two notable arguments with her host Friedrich and her husband Thomas, as they both dismiss her concerns as being due to hysteria, delicate nerves, or flights of fancy; she even accuses Friedrich of disliking her because of her being assertive enough to state her views and opinions in the first place. In both scenes, she has to shout at them that they're not listening to her when they should be.
• Casting a Shadow: As the film begins, Ellen dreams of inviting Orlok into her room to feed on her has him entering, visible only through his shadow cast on the fluttering curtains in the wind...only for the drapes to fall down, revealing that Orlok is completely invisible. Likewise, the shadow of Orlok's hand stretches across Wisborg as he asserts power over it via his plague. As in the original film, Orlok's entry into Ellen's room at the climax is heralded by a lot of sinister shadows on the wall, and he also uses his shadow to open doors and squeeze people's hearts throughout the movie.
• Casting Gag:
  • Willem Dafoe played Max Schreck, the actor who originated the role of Count Orlok, in Shadow of the Vampire. In that movie, Dafoe's Schreck is actually a real vampire hired by the director F.W. Murnau for authenticity. Eggers originally wanted Dafoe to play Count Orlok himself in this movie—in a way, reprising the role—but in the end cast him as the human Professor Franz who helps defeat Orlok with his knowledge of the occult. 
  • This is the second movie released in two years that Nicholas Hoult has been cast as one of the protagonists in a movie loosely based on the story of Dracula, the first being Renfield in 2023. Though in this film, he plays the Jonathan Harker analogue, while his boss is The Renfield.
• Cat Scare: An especially devious example. Anna puts the children to bed and enters back out into the pitch-black foyer as the music gradually fades away, only herself vaguely illuminated by the candle she holds. The camera slowly pans over to the right side...to reveal an empty staircase. By this point, the viewer is completely tensed up, since they can entirely sense a "misdirection-style" Jump Scare is coming (and may also know that a similiar staircase featured in one of the most memorable scenes of the 1922 Nosferatu) as the camera slowly pans to the left and lingers for a moment on the darkness behind Anna...only for Ellen to walk up behind her in the dark and scare the dickens out of her.
• Chained to a Bed: Friedrich ties Ellen to the bed to stop her from sleepwalking, which horrifies von Franz and leads him to immediately demand for her release.
• Color Wash: Scenes with indoor fires almost always have an orange-gold tint to them much like in Eggers' The Northman, and many nighttime scenes are tinted dark blue, echoing the tinting used in the 1922 film.
• Cruel Mercy: It's implied that Orlok spared Friedrich during his attack on the Harding household so that he could suffer the emotional pain of losing his family.
• Cue the Sun: At the film's climax, dawn breaks and the sun rises, signaling the end of Orlok's dark reign of terror over the city.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Herr Knock made one with Orlok before the beginning of the movie, ensuring Thomas would go to Transylvania so Orlok could claim Ellen as his own in exchange for vampiristic powers of his own. Orlok ultimately refuses to hold up his end of the deal, and it's implied that Knock realizes he was never going to be made a vampire.
  • Thomas unknowingly makes one with Orlok. Thomas, unable to read the language of the contract he's signing, believes it is about Orlok buying a manor in Wisborg while in reality he sells his wife Ellen for a bag full of gold.
• Death and the Maiden: Orlok and Ellen's "relationship" has an aesthetic resemblance to the idea; Ellen being the pure nubile woman, while Orlok is the undead monster lusting after her, Orlok being compared to The Grim Reaper multiple times throughout the film. Even the final shot of his corpse over hers resembles a painting with this motif.
• Death of a Child: Orlok feeds on Friedrich's and Anna's beloved daughters, and by doing the same to Anna he also kills her unborn child.
• Declaration of Protection: Following an emotionally charged moment of intimacy, Thomas vows to Ellen that he will protect her from Orlok. Little does he know, Ellen and von Franz have other plans, ensuring his promise will remain unfulfilled.
• Defiled Forever: Ellen considers herself tainted and cursed as a result of Orlok's predation upon her, calling herself "unclean" for it. Thomas refuses to consider her as such.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Sievers drugs Ellen with ether without her consent and suggests tying her to the bed without any hesitation to showcase the casual sexism of medicine towards "hysteria." And Sievers is one of the kinder doctors around.
  • To prove that Ellen is deep in her trance, von Franz sticks a needle through Ellen's forearm while Siever and the Hardings watch on. The latter do so in horror while the former merely cleans the wound when asked.
  • Friedrich treats Ellen almost like a child he's been asked to babysit rather than an adult houseguest. He finds the idea she would call on Thomas's office to ask about her own husband's whereabouts alone absurd and forbids her to do so. While this may be at least partly out of concern for her demonstrably poor health or condescension over her "melancholia" issues (as married women did generally have somewhat more freedom), his argument with Ellen when he kicks her and Thomas out of his house shows that he expects not only respect but deference from her, at least within his own home but possibly in general.
  • At Anna and the children's joint burial, Friedrich immediately begins to blame Ellen for his woes. Then Thomas steps in and easily convinces him of the truth by showing the other man the punctures on his chest, whereas Ellen was unsuccessful for the majority of her screentime.
• Demonic Possession: There are a couple scenes where Orlok seems to be speaking through Ellen's mouth, which in particular leads to some uncomfortable ambiguities when Ellen demands sex from Thomas.
• Despair Event Horizon: The human cast teeters on this throughout the film as they realize what Orlok is and the extent of his dark power. Ellen and Thomas manage to rally. Harding doesn't, as Orlok attacks his wife and then kills their children in front of her before finishing her off personally... and it's partially Harding's fault for not listening to Ellen and Thomas' warnings to flee Wisborg. The plague can't have helped either.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Very downplayed, but the Hardings have a Christmas tree in their house and Anna tells Ellen to stop her talk of demons and devilry, as the holiday is almost upon them. The film also released widely on December 25th.
• Dies Wide Open: In the end, Orlok has drunk too much of Ellen's blood. She dies staring at her husband as he arrives in their bedroom, and he shuts her eyes.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Ellen's curse and the depictions of vampirism are rife with the subtext of rape, and Orlok's feeding on Thomas is framed in a similar way. This later becomes maintext in the film. Nosferatu's sense of ownership of Ellen is reminiscent of Domestic Abuse situations in which abusers believe that they have full control over their victim because they had given consent at a previous time.
• Dramatic Irony: The Romani band that Thomas spends an evening with spell out what kind of evil Orlok is repeatedly while begging him not to go. Unfortunately, he cannot understand a word they are saying. We only understand through the subtitles.
• Dramatic Wind: Curtains billow dramatically in front of open windows, particularly when Ellen is under Orlok's nightly spells or when he is attacking the children in their bedroom.
• Drool Deluge: Knock, in the throes of violent madness, and Ellen, during a particularly bad fit, both foam at the mouth.
• Eldritch Location: As Thomas journeys closer to Orlok's castle, and particularly while he's within its grounds, time and space seem to follow dream logic more than they do the film's reality.
• The End Is Nigh: As Wisborg is collapsing into chaos because of the plague, a street preacher can be heard in one scene shouting passages from the Book of Revelation at passersby.
• Escort Distraction: Thomas, unwittingly, joins von Franz on a supposed quest to vanquish Orlok, a ruse orchestrated by von Franz and Ellen to keep him at bay while Ellen makes the ultimate sacrifice.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: As Ellen states to his face, Orlok is incapable of feeling love. Orlok does not even disagree, only replying that he is pure hunger. This arguably did Orlok in as he did not foresee Ellen willingly sacrificing herself to protect Thomas and everyone else from him by pretending to be seduced and luring him into a situation where he would be killed by the rising sun.
• Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: Friedrich falls into this as time wears on, as the stresses of worrying over his family combined with Ellen's fraught medical state, having two doctors constantly in his house at his expense (one of whom is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer par excellence), and still trying to run his shipping business, means that he is running on days with next to no sleep. This leaves him curt, short-tempered, and completely unwilling to truck with the idea that demons and vampires could actually be behind the tragedy unfolding in his home and Wisborg in general. It could also have contributed to his death by plague, as one of the lesser known side effects of exhaustion and sleep deprivation is a suppressed immune system.
• Face Death with Dignity: Ellen keeps Orlok trapped in her embrace and even seems to comfort him (possibly sincerely, possibly in an ironic reversal of the "romance" he's subjected her to for years) as he dies in agony while fully unafraid and accepting of her own fate.
• Failed a Spot Check: On the doomed ship from Transylvania, one of the sailors decides that the problem is the "cargo" and head to kill Orlok. The audience sees, unknown to him, something withered moving just out of sight. Sure enough, Orlok ambushes and kills him quickly.
• Family Extermination: Orlok murders the entire Harding family, first by killing Anna, and by extension her unborn child, as well as her two young children in their home. Friedrich is magically put to sleep during the attack and spared immediate death, but only so that he can die of plague the next day in the full knowledge of his failure.
• Fan Disservice: Whatever scenes of sexuality and nudity are present in this film are cast in a decidedly Psychosexual Horror light, and are more horrific and unpleasant to watch than titillating. There's also the fact that the only times Orlok is shown in full light are when he's naked, his corpselike features on full display. To say nothing of the fact that his creepy, predatory subtext with Ellen and Thomas is largely just text this time.
• Folk Horror: Particularly present in the Transylvanian scenes, with the Romani vampire hunters digging up and staking a suspected vampire, a scene that plays out like the exhumation of Arnold Paole. A lot of this movie's rules of vampirism are based in authentic Eastern European folklore.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: The town bells ring in the background when Thomas returns home to find Ellen and Orlok dead in the bedroom.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Harding children's first scene has them beg their father to take care of the monster in their room, with Friedrich saying that he'll stay up with them until they fall asleep. Another scene has them reciting the "Now I lay me down to sleep" prayer, which most viewers will know includes a contingency for "If I should die before I wake". Later on in the film, Orlok puts Friedrich into a magically-induced sleep, leaving him indisposed as the vampire goes for the Harding children.
  • While in Transylvania, Thomas sees a band of Romani using a virgin to ritualistically lead them to the grave of a vampire. This foreshadows that Orlok, the more powerful vampire, will likewise be destroyed by a pure-hearted woman, even if Ellen is not actually a virgin.
  • Ellen is mentioned to have more blood than is normal, and has been bloodletted as part of her treatment. This trait must be part of why she is able to feed Orlok long enough that he stays out of his coffin past dawn, killing him.
• Full-Frontal Assault: When Thomas attempts to destroy Orlok in his coffin, a naked Orlok stands up and attacks him. His genitals are as rotten as the rest of his body.
• Funeral Cut: As Orlok slowly approaches a terrified Anna after brutally killing both her children, the screen cuts to black right before we can see her suffer the same fate. Fade into the next scene which is their funeral.
• Gasoline Dousing: Von Franz and Dr. Sievers drench the corpses in the Harding crypt with gasoline before igniting them. They repeat the grim spectacle act with Knock, his body engulfed in flames after a brutal impaling.
• Geometric Magic: Knock is depicted deep in an occult ritual, seated within a circle adorned with intricate runes and illuminated by flickering candles.
• Ghost Ship: The ship that transports Orlok from Transylvania to Wisborg arrives with only plague rats, as Orlok has long since killed the crew and dumped the remaining bodies overboard.
• Godiva Hair: The Romani woman on horseback during their vampire-staking ritual is completely naked, with her breasts partially covered by her long hair.
• Good Shepherd: The nuns who find the delirious Thomas are very good to him: nursing him back to health, feeding, and clothing him. And more importantly, they try to fight Orlok's influence through prayer. They even beg him to stay until he's fully healed.
• Gothic Horror: As is its forebearers, Nosferatu is positively drenched in the genre's trapping; including a dark and moody atmosphere, intensely gothic imagery, a Haunted Castle, Religious Horror, and a horrifying undead antagonist hellbent on drowning the world in darkness.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: The Haunted Heroine Ellen has straight dark hair, while her close friend Anna, who is much happier and more comfortable in her life, has blonde curls.
• Happily Married: The Hardings have a loving and warm marriage. Like the Hutters, Friedrich and Anna can't get enough of each other, even breaking 19th Century decorum by being affectionate in public. They have two young daughters already and a son on the way as proof. Part of Friedrich's dislike of Ellen is that he sees her presence in the house, and her medical issues, as interfering with what would otherwise have been "alone time" between him and his wife. Thomas and Ellen Hutter likewise have deep affection, respect, and passion for one another that persists even through the hell they both go through. Part of the reason Ellen sacrifices herself is to save Thomas, who is devastated to lose her.
• Haunted Castle: As per the norm, Orlok's fortress is a crumbling ruin deep within the Carpathian Mountains, complete with a festering vampire lord, shadows that move on their own, statues that seem to watch Thomas, a population of man-eating wolves, and geography that doesn't make sense.
• Heartfelt Apology: Von Franz can only rest his hand on Thomas's shoulder and genuinely ask for his forgiveness for his part in Ellen's death. For all his wild nature, he truly respects Ellen for her final sacrifice and hates that there was no other choice.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Realizing only she can save Wisborg, Ellen lures Orlok to her on the last of the three nights he'd given her to surrender to him. Devouring Ellen distracts Orlok long enough for him to miss the rise of the sun, which destroys him forever.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • The Romani band that Thomas happens upon during his trek to Orlok's castle. He witnesses them stake a vampire, though he writes the entire thing off as a surreal dream, and they have all left by the time he wakes up the next morning. They presumably moved on to the next vampire that needed staking, though they keep well clear of Orlok's castle.
  • From his own words, von Franz is implied to have faced countless other creatures and forces of evil in his controversial career as an occutist and mystic, although he admits to have not faced a vampire like Orlok before.
• Hollywood Darkness: To get the film's eerie moonlit look for the night scenes, the crew filmed the scenes during the day time and in post production ran it through a computer to remove the red and yellow color spectra.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The second half of the film is set a few days before Christmas. The Hardings' foyer has a Christmas tree on a mantle. It doesn't stop Orlok from wreaking blood-drenched havoc across Wisborg nor the Hardings' household.
• Human Mail: Formerly human, that is. Orlok ships himself by boat in a crate to Wisborg to finally claim Ellen physically.
• I Love the Dead: Due to a combination of his grief over the deaths of his wife and children, his physical and mental exhaustion, the plague he's been infected with and his growing despair at having to deal with such a powerful supernatural force, Friedrich breaks into the family crypt and, after monologuing over his love for her, removes his wife's body from her grave and kisses her. The next time we see Friedrich, it's when his body is discovered by Thomas, Siever and von Franz, having died from the plague; he's still in the family crypt, and, while they're both still mostly clothed, he's lying in a compromising position with his wife's body, implying he had sex with her dead body before he died.
• Implied Rape: Ellen reveals how she was abused by Orlok without using the word.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Friedrich coughs out a mouthful of blood as he's grieving over Anna's coffin, indicating that he's about to die of plague.
• Insatiable Newlyweds: Thomas and Ellen strongly indicate they really enjoy having sex with one another. Thomas has a hard time pulling away from Ellen when she asks him to linger instead of going to work and they get incredibly hot and heavy in the Hardings' parlor when alone with insinuation they may have even sneaked in a go right there.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence:
  • Ellen asks Thomas to take her rough and violently after she reveals her former "relationship" with Orlok. What follows is less loving sex and more Ellen wanting Thomas to stake out a claim to her over Orlok.
  • Orlok's various assaults on Ellen and Thomas take on an uncomfortably sexual tone, such as with Ellen and Thomas breathing heavily as if they are orgasming.
• Irony:
  • Ellen's seizures are said to come from an "excess of blood" when the main antagonist of the film kills via exsanguination. Her doctor even says that he's been using bloodletting to treat her.
  • The audience is introduced to Clara and Louise screaming and complaining about a monster being in their bedroom whilst being taken there to sleep. Their father, Friedrich, agrees to accompany them there to fight the "monsters" until they're asleep. Near the climax the two girls are tormented and murdered by a monster... while Friedrich was asleep and oblivious to the girls' screams, no thanks to said monster enchanting Friedrich into a deep sleep.
• Jump Scare:
  • The prologue closes on one, with a far more emaciated Orlok grabbing Ellen by the throat before triggering what's implied to be has her first seizure.
  • Thomas' first attempt to do Orlok in has him wildly swinging an axe towards the vampire before he suddenly springs awake and catches it with a Scare Chord.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Knock's fate, after being staked by Thomas, who believed to be attacking Orlock. His dying speech and possible attempt at atonement are brutally interrupted by Von Franz, who finishes him for good while chewing the scenery.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Knock's been dangling a promotion in front of Thomas for quite some time, only to repeatedly dither and delay on actually promoting him, even as Thomas works himself to the bone, making it all the more satisfying when Orlok violently denies Knock's request to be made a vampire himself and later gets killed by Thomas.
• Lighter and Softer: Than Nosferatu the Vampyre, its remake predecessor, as there are more moments of warmth peppered throughout it, and its ending isn't nearly as dark. It also qualifies for Eggers' cinematic output up to that point (though this adaptation was originally meant to be his second film), as despite having a death toll comparable to The Northman's, it concludes with most of the protagonists surviving; which is particularly notable for the male ones due to the director's usual proclivities towards such.
• Logo Joke: The film gives Focus Features a Retraux title card reminiscent of 1920s studio logos. This is also used in the second trailer.
  • It also gave the Universal logo its very first logo from 1912, when they were known as the "Universal Film Manufacturing Company".
• Loophole Abuse: Orlok can only claim Ellen if she offers herself to him of her own free will, meaning he can't just drug or hypnotize her into being his. But that doesn't mean he can't coerce her by killing everyone around her until she submits.
• Love Interest vs. Lust Interest: Love vs. Lust is a recurring theme of the movie: While the love between Thomas and Ellen is portrayed as pure while Orlok desires to claim Ellen as his "bride" only for sexual reasons. Ellen accidentally brought Orlok into her life via her burgeoning sexual desire, while it is stated that her meeting and falling in love with Thomas helped her overcome the darkness and melancholy she had been afflicted with.
• Lying by Omission: Orlok claims to Ellen that Thomas sold her for gold. He did pay Thomas for the contract and Thomas did sign, but Orlok doesn't mention it was in a language Thomas couldn't read, and Orlok was not forthcoming about its true contents (he told Thomas to sign "as my solicitor" and called the gold his commission, so the disoriented Thomas assumed it was part of their real estate deal).
• Magical Romani: Downplayed, but the Romani in Transylvania are very aware of the presence of vampires and are some of the few characters in the movie to really know how to deal with them.
• Magical Star Symbols: A heptagram, or seven-pointed star, is a recurring motif associated with Orlok as a sign of his sorcerous powers.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Toward the end of the film, Ellen and Thomas have aggressive, rough sex on a couch in their room.
• Menstrual Menace: It seems to be the effect of Orlok's psychic harassment rather than its cause, but we're informed that during Ellen's hysterical fits she menstruates copiously. This dovetails with the motif of characters bleeding from other less-normal orifices (like their eyes) as well as the theme of Ellen's ordeal visually evoking (and being mistaken for) archetypal feminine hysteria.
• Meta Twist: When Thomas encounters a large band of Romani at an inn near Castle Orlok, and later that night sees them taking a naked virgin on a horse into the woods, viewers familiar with Dracula will assume they are based on the "Gypsies" or "Szgany" who were his loyal mooks in the novel and that they are taking the girl to be sacrificed to Orlok, only to be surprised by the fact that they are vampire hunters and the girl is part of the ritual to find and destroy a lesser vampire. ^note  This is based in real local folklore: both the rider and horse must be virgins, and it was believed their purity would enable them to detect the vampire's grave.
• Ms. Exposition: Two of the nuns that rescue Thomas and nurse him back to health explain to him exactly who and what Orlok is.
• Must Be Invited: It's implied Orlok required permission to travel to Wisborg, and he also requires Ellen's consent before taking her utterly.
• Mythology Gag: Several, paying homage to both F.W. Murnau's 1922 classic and Werner Herzog's 1979 remake:
  • While the 2024 Orlok's stupendous mustache and fur-lined cloak are unique to him ^note  though they do give him a closer resemblance to Dracula from the original novel, his silhouette and shadow are identical to his 1922 incarnation's.
  • Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz shares his first name with Albin Grau, the producer, production designer, and occultist who worked with Murnau on the 1922 film. Like von Franz, Grau was also extremely interested in the occult.
  • The scene where Orlok directly confronts Ellen with his ultimatum ("Be with me, or your husband will suffer") is an Homage to when Count Dracula did the same to Lucy Harker in the 1979 version.
  • Ellen's cat (who she says "has no owner or master") is named Greta after Ellen's original actor, Greta Schröder.
  • Just like Eggers' first film, the climax consists of the female lead signing away her life to a lustful demonic entity (only this time, it's his undoing instead of his victory).
  • Orlok's entrance into the Hutter home, with his shadow crossing across the walls, mirrors the iconic shot from the original film of Orlok ascending the stairs.
  • The penultimate shot homages the iconic moment of Orlok dissolving in the sun as von Franz beholds the morning light streaming through the window, squinting and recoiling a little at its brightness.
  • Orlok manhandling Knock in disgust is reminiscent of a scene from the 1979 version.
  • Ellen asking Thomas why he killed the flowers is a throwback to the 1922 version.
  • The movie posters of the cast bring to mind the infamous scene from the 1922 when we first see Orlok and his eyes are just pinpricks in the dark.
• No Communities Were Harmed: The city of Wisborg, Germany, doesn't exist in real life. However, its name and Brick Gothic architecture resemble Wismar, a northern German port city on the Baltic coast that served as a shooting location for the original 1922 film.
• Of Corset Hurts: Sievers initially wants Ellen to sleep in a corset, under the rationale that it will improve her posture and prevent the "congestion of the blood" that causes her fits. Ellen herself is in no state to complain, but we get a grim shot of Sievers and the Hardings wrestling to yank her corset-lacings tighter as she seizes. ^note In keeping with the year (1838), Ellen is wearing a corset of the type not usually associated with this trope — corded rather than steel-boned, (relatively) softly-structured, with a busk pocket in the front and fan-lacing in the back. Under normal circumstances, she's able to adjust her lacings for herself and then tie them in front.
• Oh, Crap!: Orlok has enough time to realize that he's been tricked, but he's already helpless in the face of his own Horror Hunger and Ellen tempting him back to her bosom.
• Only I Can Kill Him: The only way to defeat the Nosferatu is for the maiden fair to give herself to him so he'll be trapped and helpless at the break of dawn. Only Ellen can do it as she is the one Orlok hungers for. Foreshadowed by the Romani vampire hunters at the beginning of the movie.
• Only the Pure of Heart: Only a maiden of pure heart can stop Nosferatu. Via self-sacrifice to distract Orlok from the sun.
• Our Liches Are Different: Eggers' interpretation of Orlok returns the vampire to his origins as an undead sorcerer who commands the elements and can manipulate the minds of his victims.
• Our Vampires Are Different: It is noted in-universe by von Franz that there are actually many different kinds/strains of vampires in their world and thus even though he identified that Ellen had been afflicted by one, he still needed to do further research to identify the best course of action in dealing with it. This forced him and Dr. Sievers to ransack Knock's office for clues to how to defeat Orlok.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Orlok cleverly appeals to this trope when Thomas asks him about the Roma's habit of exhuming corpses and staking them, saying he's eager to relocate to Germany, where there's little knowledge of/belief in such superstitions — making them more vulnerable to his sinister designs.
• The Patient Has Left the Building: Despite his frail state, Thomas, driven by a burning desire to return home, prematurely departs the nunnery on horseback.
• Pillow Pistol: After the harrowing events around his house, Friedrich is seen sleeping with a pistol clutched tightly in his hand.
• Politically Incorrect Hero:
  • Thomas, as well as the innkeeper who warns him against going to Orlok's castle, speak and act very derisively about the Romani people who show the most knowledge of how to avoid being preyed upon by the vampire.
  • While Sievers is shown to be an academically minded and progressive doctor for his day, his methods of treatment involve drugging Ellen without her consent, to say nothing of his belief in outdated medicine.
• The Power of Love: What ultimately does Orlok in in a roundabout way, as Ellen's love of Thomas gave her the courage and resolve to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to ensure the vampire count won't harm him or any more of her loved ones, pretending to be seduced and allowing him to feed on her, too distracted to notice the sun rising until it was too late.
• The Precarious Ledge: In a desperate bid to escape Orlok, Thomas clambers out a window onto a narrow ledge, only to lose his footing and plummet into the icy river below.
• Psychosexual Horror: The film leans into the horror-eroticism that was only subtext in the 1922 film. Nudity abounds (though rarely titillating) and Ellen has Thomas take her roughly as an act of defiance against Orlok. Orlok's violent savaging of his victims and draining of their blood is almost explicitly compared to rape through heavy subtext and the way the scenes are shot. When Ellen lures Orlok to his death, it is filmed as a wedding consummation with both stripping and laying together in bed.
• The Queen's Latin: None of the German characters have German accents and instead speak with completely normal English accents, which is unusual for the filmography of Robert Eggers. The only characters with meticulously accurate accents in the film are the Transylvanian and Romanian characters, such as Orlok himself. The more working-class German characters, such as the hospital porters, also speak with Cockney accents, while Ralph Ineson speaks in a much more RP accent than his usual Yorkshire one, to convey his character's upper middle class status.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Orlok has been raping Ellen both physically and mentally since childhood and it's portrayed as one of the vilest acts he performs.
• Read the Fine Print: Poor Thomas signs Orlok's contract as his solicitor to complete a deed of sale for a manor in Wisborg. As this contract was drawn up in Orlok's ancestral language, Thomas didn't realize he was also signing divorce papers and promising Ellen to the Count.
• Retargeted Lust: It is strongly implied Ellen still feels an unholy lust toward Orlok that is forced as a result of his psychic abuse of her. She focuses it by having sex with Thomas, largely so she can force Orlok to watch and make him understand she's Thomas's and not his.
• Roguish Romani: Played with. The Roma people in the Transylvania village initially accost Thomas, dancing around him and laughing at him, seeming to enjoy his confusion, but they also warn him to turn back and turn out to be the only people in the area equipped to deal with the vampire problem (and even steal Thomas's horse to try to prevent him from making the journey). Ultimately, despite their hostility, they're significantly more positively depicted as a group than is typical in works derived from Dracula, not least because they are decidedly not on Orlok's payroll (as opposed to the original novel, where they function as Dracula's personal army).
• Room Full of Crazy: Von Franz's inspection of Knock's former cell at the Bedlam House reveals walls covered in frantic carvings of runes, showcasing the madness that has consumed Knock.
• Savage Wolves: Count Orlok has wolves follow him and even sics them on Thomas to tear him apart.
• Scare Chord: After Thomas wrenches open Orlok's coffin, the camera only briefly shows the vampire's face before cutting to Thomas's shocked reaction, with a massive string/brass strike as punctuation.
• Scarpia Ultimatum: Ellen's choice is to surrender her body and soul to Orlok or he will kill Thomas and everyone in Wisborg.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Thomas won't be dissuaded from going to Castle Orlok, the Roma and the innkeepers pull up stakes and flee, completely abandoning the inn (and taking Thomas's horse along, not that it stops him from getting there in the long run).
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: Ellen and Thomas cannot be swayed from one another and love for him ensures she will not fall prey to Orlok again. In fact, love for him is so strong she seduces Orlok to destroy him in order to save Thomas while making Orlok think he seduced her instead.
• Sex for Solace: Ellen and Thomas's one onscreen sex scene is rather rough and harsh, with Ellen dealing with her feelings about Orlok and needing both comfort and to refocus herself. It's also implied when she asks Thomas to kiss her heart that she is aiming fully to spite Orlok and show him she's Thomas's instead of his.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: Used when Orlok kills Anna's children. Be glad of it.
• Shout-Out: A couple of surprising ones:
  • Thomas at one point sees the figurehead of a fireplace in Orlok's Transylvanian castle turn to look at him, as in Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.
  • The shadow of Orlok's hand supernaturally overrunning Wisborg is a definite nod to the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia. That scene was inspired, in turn, by the opening of F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926).
  • Orlok visiting Ellen as a child is an echo of a similar dream visit by Carmilla to her future victim.
  • One scene at the edge of a cliff is probably a homage to the painting "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog."
  • Orlok visiting Ellen in her chamber and using her husband as leverage for her to submit to him is taken from Nosferatu the Vampyre were Dracula does the same with Lucy. Orlok's death is also more reminiscent of Dracula's death in the 1979-version than the 1922-version - Like Dracula, Orlok is blinded by the sunlight and then rendered a lifeless corpse rather than turning to smoke.
  • The shots and editing techniques used to portray way Orlok's psychic communication with Ellen are directly inspired by the 1931 version of Svengali. More broadly Orlok's attempts to mentally dominate Ellen are also heavily inspired by the film.
• Sick Captive Scam: Knock tips over the chair he's constrained to and begs his guard for help while frothing at the mouth. Once said guard gets close enough, however, Knock takes the opportunity to sink his teeth into the other man and rip a large chunk of flesh from his neck, ostensibly as a larger sacrifice for Orlok.
• Snow Means Death: The main conflict starts around winter where it is snowing. Pallbearers carry several coffins through a town and the dead bodies of many plague victims lie in the streets. Also the haunting image of the two tiny coffins of the Harding girls being carried across the cemetery as snow falls softly around them.
• So Happy Together: The Hardings are very happy together, and are even expecting a son. The wife and children are then picked off over the course of a single night by Orlok, leaving Friedrich to survive just long enough to fall into despair and then die of plague.
• Swarm of Rats: Hundreds upon hundreds of rats roam the streets of Wisborg after Orlok's arrival, carrying the plague with them.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Thomas and Friedrich. They are both good-looking men with dark-brown hair who stand at tall statures.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Ellen resisting Orlok makes him decide to target Anna and her family with a promise he'll also go after Thomas should she still resist. The threat to Thomas adds undertones of a Scarpia Ultimatum.
• Tears of Blood: Blood runs from Orlok's eyes as he dies in the sunlight. Various horrifying imagery and visions experienced by the characters also have them seeing themselves or others they know crying tears of blood (and having blood coming out of all their orfices).
• Thanatos Gambit: The plot of Ellen to kill Orlok is to encourage him to drink his fill of her blood so that he stays out long enough for the sun to shine on him, killing them both.
• That Was Not a Dream: In the Romani village, Thomas bears witness to a chilling vampire-slaying ritual. The scene shifts to him awakening in his bed, initially suggesting it was a dream — until the camera zooms out to reveal his dirty boots, confirming the bizarre experience was all too real.
• The Three Faces of Adam: The three central male characters aside from Orlok, the Big Bad. Thomas is The Hunter; though intelligent and promising, he signs the contract and goes to Transylvania because he wants to get a position and support Ellen, despite her own unhappiness with the arrangement. Friedrich is The Lord. With two daughters, a pregnant wife, and a vast fortune, he doesn't want anything to change and resents Ellen's disruption. Von Franz is the Prophet; he has accrued a vast array of knowledge about vampires and dedicates himself to trying to save Ellen and Thomas from Orlok.
• Time Skip: A title card after the prologue reads "Years later", separating Orlok's first attack on Ellen from her Happily Married life.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Thomas, Sievers, and von Franz carry torches and pitchforks to unearth and destroy Orlok. While they don't get the vampire, von Franz does stake and burn Knock. The burning also removes Orlok's resting place in the cursed earth of his coffin, but it is unclear if this actually helps as a backup plan to keep Orlok up until dawn or not.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Downplayed, but the first promotional image of Willem Dafoe as von Franz is from his penultimate scene in the film, in which he jubilantly torches Orlok's casket, secure in the knowledge that Ellen has already enacted her plan to kill the vampire.
• Translation Convention: The film is set predominantly in Germany and signs throughout Wisborg are written in German, but the characters are heard speaking English.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Despite leaving Transylvania at very different times, taking wildly different routes (going around Europe by sea vs. cutting across it by land), and using different means of transportation (sailing ship vs. horseback), both Thomas and Orlok arrive at Wisborg within hours of each other. Justified as the latter casts a spell while on the ship that is meant to hasten his journey.
• Tricked into Signing: The contract drawn up by Orlok for Thomas to sign is not only a deed to the Wisborg property, but pledges Ellen to the Count. Not only is Thomas partly under Orlok's influence when he signs, but the contract is written in an unrecognizable language that the Count claims is the language of his ancestors (a detail he conveniently leaves out when he tells Ellen about the contract).
• Überwald: The surroundings of Orlok's castle in Transylvania. Eastern Europe? Check. Dark forests? Check. Locals (Romani and Orthodox nuns) who are afraid of the Count and see him (rightfully so) as evil incarnate? Check.
• Unlimited Wardrobe:
  • The only costume Anna ever re-wears is her nightgown. Otherwise, she has a different, extremely fashionable dress every time there's a new scene, to show how rich her family is.
  • Explicitly averted with the poorer Ellen, who not only re-wears multiple dresses but also, as the eagle-eyed viewer can see, has a dress with removable sleeves, which means she can convert it into a short-sleeved dress at need rather than having to buy a whole separate outfit.
• Vagueness Is Coming: When Ellen tells Thomas of his dream in the beginning, he is visibly worried, but thanks to the vagueness of the dream he dismisses her warnings - which turn out to be true. Also, both Ellen and Knock constantly repeat "He is coming!" without specifying for the others they're talking about Orlok.
• Vampire Bites Suck: Orlok rips into his prey very painfully while noisily gulping at their blood, and also seems to prefer to target the sternum and drink directly from the heart instead of the neck. Disturbingly, the deep, rapid breathing of Thomas and Ellen during and just after being bitten almost sounds orgasmic, leaving the viewer to wonder if they're being affected by a particularly twisted version of Kiss of the Vampire.
• Vampire Hunter: Implied. The Romani group that Thomas encounters near Orlok's castle are shown hunting down, and staking a lesser vampire in its grave, with further implications that they've done this before. For his own, Orlok seems aware of, and doesn't appreciate their presence, even though the Romani never make any moves against him.
• Vampire Invitation: A variation, as Orlok claims Ellen has to submit to him rather than him forcing himself on her. It's never explained if it's a variation on the vampire invitation rule or an expression of narcissism.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: Implied. A villager is shown rubbing garlic upon the windows of the inn, presumably to keep Orlok away. As he never tries entering the village during the film, and nobody else ever attempts it in Germany, we don't see if this would've worked or not.
• Vampire Variety Pack: Von Franz claims that over the course of his research, he discovered that not all vampires have the same weaknesses, implying that there are multiple different kinds of vampire in this movie's universe.
• Villain Ball: Orlok feasts upon Thomas during his stay, but doesn't confine him to a part of the castle where he can't escape, apparently trusting his fear of the wolves and the inhospitable environment to outweigh his fear of being eaten. Thomas eventually finds a window to leap from. Orlok does not pursue him.
• Virgin Sacrifice: Weaponized by the Romani villagers, as they have a young maiden stripped naked and paraded through the graveyard on a white horse, beseeching the horse to go to evil. While some viewers may believe that she may be being sent to Orlok as tribute, she's actually used to find a minor vampire so that the other villagers can kill him. (This is based in real local folklore: both the rider and horse must be virgins, and it was believed their purity would enable them to detect the vampire's grave.)
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: In the scene where Orlok's plague starts to spread on the ship carrying his coffin, we are treated to a man vomiting profusely after he contracts the disease.
• Weather Manipulation: Orlok summons a storm to hasten his ship's voyage to Wisborg.
• Wedding/Death Juxtaposition: As Ellen prepares to welcome Orlok, she dons a flowing white nightgown, a veil, and a crown of flowers, clearly intending to convince him that she is ready to offer herself as his long-intended bride.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The story's two main locations are fictional and the film is rather vague about where exactly they are meant to be situated:
  • The only thing we know about Wisborg is that it's a seaport in Germany, which in 1838 wasn't even one country but a whole mess of little ones, so it could be anywhere in North or Baltic Seas. Due to the name it is generally assumed to be a stand-in for the real world city of Wismar on the Baltic Sea, but nothing onscreen confirms it.
  • Castle Orlok is somewhere in Transylvania, but when the specifics of its location are discussed onscreen, they make it impossible to pinpoint it, because they refer to a region outside of Transylvania altogether, by some 500 kilometers.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Orlok is a decayed shambling corpse who moves very stiffly at the best of times. His breathing is loud and rattling, enough to even overwhelm the background music and his own statements are full of antipathy to himself to further underline how unnatural and horrible Orlok's unlife is. He even refers to himself as only an appetite, implying he sees himself as less than human. He is also implied to be disgusted by Herr Knock's desire to be a vampire.
• Worst Aid: Siever is sympathetic but still believes in some medical practices that are now recognized as outdated. He asserts that wearing a corset to bed is a healthy way to stimulate circulation. He also believes that Ellen is suffering from an "excess of blood," referring to the outdated practice of bloodletting. On the plus side, he's against housing mental patients in his hospital's prison cells, which is pretty progressive for his time.
• Wretched Hive: Wisborg initially thrives, but after the Count's arrival, it rapidly descends into a plague-infested Wretched Hive. Hospitals and streets overflow with the dead, and the living are gripped by despair and terror, as if the End Times have truly begun.
• You Dirty Rat!: Rats are always associated with Orlok and The Black Death in this movie.