Nosferatu rises from the grave again in creepy horror movie

Nosferatu director Robert Eggers – a lifelong fan of FW Murnau’s 1922 horror film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror – and his team have transformed one of our favourite cinema freaks, Bill Skarsgård (Boy Kills World, The Crow), into the rat-toothed vampire Count Orlok/Nosferatu. He oozes from the shadows, reaching out his clawed, corpse-white hands to grasp at the object of his obsession, newlywed Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp, The Idol, Voyagers), the young bride of Orlok’s unlucky estate agent, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), who becomes his prisoner.

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But what does a REAL vampire look like?

Welcome, traveller. Take a seat at the fireside as Robert Eggers spins you a tale. “As recently as 20 years ago, in Southern Romania, a man believed to be a vampire was exhumed, and his corpse ritually mutilated,” he begins. “He was a difficult man and a heavy drinker. After he died, his family said he returned as a strigoi (vampire), attacking them in the night. His daughter-in-law particularly suffered from these nocturnal assaults and became ill. When his body was destroyed, as per the folkloric procedure, the vampiric visitations stopped. His reign of terror ended. His daughter-in-law was cured.”

Forget your noble Count Dracula and think back instead to a living corpse, scrabbling out of grave dirt to prey on the living. “The folk vampire is not a suave dinner-coat-wearing seducer, nor a sparkling, brooding hero. The folk vampire embodies disease, death, and sex in a base, brutal, and unforgiving way. This is the vampire I wanted to exhume for a modern audience,” Robert insists. “What is the dark trauma that even death cannot erase? A heartbreaking notion. This is at the essence of the belief in the vampire.”

Count Orlok’s GRWM

While designing the look of Count Orlok, special effects makeup artist David White (The Crow) and Robert thoroughly investigated the decay of flesh and bone using medical and historical research papers and books. David notes, “Robert shared illustrations and a mood board he had created. He even showed me his own early painting of the Count, which was very useful and gave me the vibe and tone.” 

David set off to create a handful of sculpts built around Bill Skarsgård’s face and body, which would become a multi-piece silicone prosthetic. “I sculpted over Bill’s face and head cast, keeping to a depth that wouldn’t lose Bill’s features but at the same time would be transformative,” explains David. “Rob would pick from the different sculpts and create brand-new ones. We made a hybrid with all his favourite things.” David took great care to consider how Bill Skarsgård moved his face, too. “The performance is a lot more intimate and delicate with prosthetics on. Robert knows that Bill’s eyes are so amazing; he can get a lot of information from them. I didn’t want the sculpt to overshadow Bill,” he explains.

For Orlok’s hands, with their signature long, eerie fingers, David first experimented with 12-inch (30cm) digits. “I made this animatronic version, which was really spooky, but it was just too much,” he admits. Eventually he found that adding thin balls that extended Bill’s fingers by just an inch, each with individual nails, was just enough to be creepy. “They look really lovely because he’s so expressive with these hands. And he worked on how to manipulate them in shadow as well,” says David. 

Along the way, Robert and David reimagined the vampire’s bite. “Robert didn’t want them to be the classic fang, vampire teeth. They’re gnarled and they’re slightly broken, and they’re not symmetrical, but they’re sharp and jagged,” says David.

The combined makeup effects required Bill Skarsgård to be in the makeup chair for three-and-a-half to four hours, with two to three people working on his head, and others joining in to work on his hands. 

Orlok ASMR

Nicholas Hoult as Thomas Hutter

“Robert wanted the voice to be as deep as humanly possible. And that has not been easy,” admits Bill Skarsgård, who worked with an opera singer to perfect his voice control. Co-star Nicholas Hoult adds, “The first time I heard the voice that he developed for this role, it was absolutely terrifying,” says. “It’s something that is so intimidating and fully realised and horrific that was incredible to see and terrifying to be around.” 

According to supervising sound editor Damian Volpe, who captured Bill’s performance using a hypersonic microphone, which records above the normal range of human hearing, Bill’s deep natural voice required no enhancement, except for the monstrous sounds, “like growls and grunts.” 

“I started with organic recordings of Bill, the ones we did with the hypersonic mic. I would layer in other things and stretch them and bend them to give it whatever quality I was looking for,” Damian says. And he got pretty creative with it. While on holiday in Ireland, Damian visited an abbey and took advantage of the space. “I dragged a big hunk of granite around on the floor just to see what kind of sounds I could make,” he reveals. 

Is that a tear of pride we see in Count Orlok’s eye?

Vampire encounters

“Bill has done a wonderful job of creating this character who is intimidating and scary and powerful, but also in a way quite appealing and seductive,” hints Nicholas Hoult. 

“I remember the first time that I walked on set and saw him in costume, I was so scared,” says Lily-Rose Depp. “I thought, ‘This is going to be perfect because then I won’t have to pretend like I’m scared of him in the scenes. If anything, I’ll have to work on feeling drawn to him, because I’m absolutely petrified right now … He doesn’t look like a movie monster; he looks like a real monster. He looks like a real demon. It’s so detailed.” She adds, “It’s funny to see somebody dressed up like this horrific, rotten, decrepit demon, and then, in between takes, he’s joking around, asking questions in this sweet way, and wanting to collaborate.”

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10 fun Nosferatu facts

Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen and Emma Corrin as Anna

1. Robert researched the occult and historical representations of vampires: “His office was filled with hundreds of books,” producer Chris Columbus remembers. “It was almost like walking into the office of a professor of vampirology. There were all these books on the occult, and the history of vampirism.”

2. Production designer Craig Lathrop travelled to Romania to research villages at historic outdoor museums because, “you could see the details and touch them instead of just looking at photographs.”

3. Romanian screenwriter Florin Lăzărescu translated dialogue into Dacian, a dead language, and researched Transylvanian daily life in the 1800s. “Little by little, I started to talk to the team about different objects: icons, crosses, and toys for Roma kids. I found things I didn’t know about my country, about my culture, before researching for this movie,” he says.

4. The art department went to town with hidden details. Emma Corrin, who plays Ellen’s best friend Anna, rummaged in a desk and saw “A letter from Ellen, and all the envelopes are addressed with my character’s name.” 

5. Nosferatu is set in 1838. Costume designer Linda Muir didn’t chicken out: “It is a very odd 10-year period: it’s post-Regency and pre-Victorian. For men, it is a period where it predates standardised tailoring, so you have examples of shifting seams,” she reveals.

6. But Orlok’s costume came from an even earlier time, the late 1500s. Robert sourced images of noblemen of the time, their hairstyles and facial hair, as well as imagery depicted throughout the centuries, including folk art. “Robert made Orlok look like an actual Transylvanian lord from the late 16th Century,” says Bill Skarsgård. 

7. Bill created some of his own backstory for Orlok to warlock. Robert reveals, “The depth with which he spoke to me about Orlok’s past and his inner world as a dead sorcerer was frightening.”

8. Makeup designer Traci Loader used little makeup on the rest of the cast, until their characters encountered madness, illness, and the supernatural. “The effects that we did with the sepsis was that the pallor of their skin would be more sallow, more yellow, and paler. We would sink in their cheeks slightly,” she reveals. 

9. Robert Eggers adds, “She’s very good at subtle horror effects, and thinking about how to create extra detail, like the psoriasis on Knock’s (Simon McBurney) head, and what his wrists would look like from the manacles. She loves the genre.”

10. “The way that Traci makes me look like I’m stepping into the underworld is just fascinating. She does all of these things to make me look like a demon, but it looks like it’s coming from within, and not like it’s painted on.” says Lily-Rose Depp.