Much has already been teased about Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok in terms of appearance in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, a new take on the classic 1922 vampire film from F.W. Murnau. But there’s a lot more to Count Orlok than his shocking look; the film’s central villain also has a unique bite that’s accompanied by a gag-inducing sound.
Set to release in theaters on Christmas Day, the R-rated Nosferatu “is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.”
Skarsgård previously teased that he “worked with an opera singer to bring his voice down to its lowest possible pitch” and “spent three to six hours every day in makeup and prosthetics.” But transforming the actor so fully went beyond altering his voice and appearance. Writer/Director Robert Eggers drew from folkloric origins when creating his vision of Count Orlok, which didn’t just reflect in the character’s design but in the way his vampire would feed.
We won’t spoil the details, but let’s just say that this version of Count Orlok eschews convention when it comes to movie vampires and the way they feed on their victims.
“Very often, folk vampires didn’t drink blood,” Eggers tells Bloody Disgusting. “They would sometimes suffocate people. They would sometimes return to their widows and fornicate with their widows until they died from being oversexed. But these early folk vampires, if they did drink blood, they would often drink it from the chest.”
Eggers continues, “For this film that is both a scary horror movie but also a tale of obsession, a love triangle, a Gothic romance, there’s something poetic about drinking heart blood. I also think it comes from Old Hag syndrome; sleep paralysis where you’re having a waking dream, and you feel the pressure on your chest. So that’s where it comes from.”
When Count Orlok does feed in Nosferatu, the sound is intense and nauseating. So much so that even Eggers was surprised. “The sound, honestly, I didn’t expect the sound to be quite so intense,” the filmmaker reveals. “But Damian Volpe, the sound designer, played it for me. It was even crazier in the first version, but I thought, ‘There’s actually something to this.’ The slurping is so visceral; we dialed it down a little bit from the first draft, but it’s pretty cool.“
The sound design only enhances Eggers’ unique take on the character and material. I wrote in my 5-star review, “It’s a grotesque twist on a love triangle, one that Eggers fearlessly pushes into revolting territory thanks to his eponymous vampire. There’s nothing romantic at all about the walking corpse with an insatiable appetite for blood, though lust may be a different story.”
Focus Features will release Nosferatu in theaters for Christmas on December 25, 2024.
Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter in director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
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