If your conclusion from Robert Eggers Nosferatu was “Damn… Ellen is low key and a weirdo “, I need you to know that Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is far from the strangest character in a Dracula adaptation.
[Ed. note: Spoilers for Nosferatu (2024), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), and Dracula in general.]
I've seen divided reactions to Ellen's desire to fall in love with the vampiric Count Orlok. Some people think Nosferatu It was just the right amount of excitement. Others think it was also horny. And some, like me, thought it could have been hornier!
Maybe it's just because the whole time I was thinking about Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) in all its slutty, cheesy glory.
Starring Keanu Reeves in what is considered one of his worst roles (along with Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman), Bram Stoker's Dracula is blatantly cheesy and over the top, something I personally believe everyone Dracula adaptations should strive to achieve. Director Francis Ford Coppola highlighted the decadence and hedonism of the film, with magnificent scenery, exuberant costumes and a batch of characters going crazy.
Unlike Eggers Nosferatualmost all the characters Dracula (1992) is horny. There's Miss Lucy Westenra and her three potential suitors she can't choose between (one of them is a cowboy; not that it's important to the arousal meter, but I just need to emphasize that there's a cowboy in Dracula). She and Mina also have a deep, intimate, and homoerotic friendship. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) has a strange ghost orgy with Dracula's monstrous brides.
But the scene that I think best represents the difference between Nosferatu (2024) excitement and Bram Stoker's Dracula is the one in which Dracula (Oldman) visits Mina Harker (Ryder).
In this version of DraculaThe Count believes that Mina is the reincarnation of his beloved girlfriend Elisabeta. His fixation on her is not only because he is hungry for her blood, but because he wants to make her his immortal lover. It's a bit like Orlok and Ellen's psychic connection in Eggers' version, but what makes it even juicier is that Mina No Has some connection with Dracula. He just swoops in (all suave and charismatic and European) to woo her, and although Mina loves Jonathan, she's fascinated by this mysterious stranger and falls under his spell.
So when he comes to her room late at night to feast on her blood and turn her into a vampire, it's intense, tortured, and just delicious – and they don't even have sex. But they writhe on the bed as Mina moans in his arms. Dracula thinks better of it, he doesn't want to condemn the woman he loves to this unlife. But she begs him to make her hers and then looks him straight in the eyes as she lowers her head and licks blood from an open wound on his chest!
Compared to Mina and Dracula, the Orlok and Ellen scene in Eggers Nosferatu It's almost tame. Which is crazy, because Mina and Dracula don't even get along. But there is more mutual obsession, more fervor, more attention to the internal struggles of both characters. This is not a sacrifice Mina makes to save the world; It's a selfish decision that could possibly spell doom, but he makes it because he wants it so bad.
eggs Nosferatu is more in line with F.W. Murnau's original 1922 silent film (itself an informal adaptation of Dracula), where the ending is more elegiac and sad. In this case, the scene with Orlok is not supposed to be the culmination of his desires. Making him super horny would undermine the intensity.
Image: Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection
And I say this as someone who typically doesn't like modern adaptations that lean towards Dracula x Mina (justice to Jonathan Harker, his wife). The 1992 Dracula The scene was so erotic that it completely sold me.
The excitement in Dracula It is not a modern perversion. It's actually the correct way to adapt the original material. Vampires have historically represented taboo, especially when it comes to sexuality, and Stoker's original Dracula was not the exception. Different filmmakers will interpret different aspects of the story's themes. But Coppola nailed that specific vibe of mutually destructive titillation that appeals so specifically to me, and to anyone who might have wanted Eggers' version to more openly embrace the indulgent sexuality that is woven into the source material.
Bram Stoker's Dracula is available to rent on Amazon Video and YouTube. Nosferatu It's already in theaters.