Even though Robert Eggers' upcoming horror film Nosferatu is a remake of the 1922 German Expressionist film of the same name, the director says he wanted to completely change that century-old ending. But star Bill Skarsgård convinced him otherwise.
“I sent him an Orlok backstory that I wrote. So we did it together to achieve what he was going for. Because I'm so tired of sad, heroic vampires, I thought, 'He's a demon. He's so evil,'” he tells her. Eggers to SFX magazine in the new issue, which features the Doctor Who Christmas special 'Joy to the World' on the cover and hits newsstands on December 3.
The director wanted to go against the whole romantic and overly emotional vampire trait that we see in most movies with fangs, including many Dracula adaptations. The Count Orlok star has other ideas. “Bill said, 'Yeah, but there have to be times where you have some kind of vulnerability,'” Eggers adds.
And it looks like the IT star was right when the director explains that keeping a hint of Orlok's humanity works in the film's favor. “It's very subtle, and it doesn't come up often, but it's enough. I think the ending of the movie is much more effective than it would have been without Bill's keen sensitivity to it, while still depicting this big, scary vampire.” and masculine.”
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The upcoming vampire horror film is a remake of the 1992 film Nosferatu, centered on a young couple's encounter with a deadly bloodsucker, which in turn is based on Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. According to its synopsis , it seems that the new film from the director of The Witch will follow the same premise, as he says: “Nosferatu is a gothic story of obsession between a tormented young woman and the terrifying vampire in love with her, causing an unspeakable horror in its wake.”
As many Dracula fans will know, the ending sees the count slaughtered by his adversaries in a battle of good versus evil, and in 1922's Nosferatu, the vampire is killed by sunlight. But from the looks of things, it seems Eggers has something much more sinister up his sleeve. Who knows, maybe Orlok will emerge victorious this time.
Along with Skarsgård, the film stars Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe.
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