Focus Features revealed the trailer for Robert Eggers’ much-anticipated gothic vampire horror Nosferatu, which hits theaters December 25.
Eggers, who also wrote and directed The Witch and The Lighthouse, said of Nosferatu, “Though it’s a remake, it’s probably my most personal project.”
During a post-screening Q&A with Oscar-winning Guillermo del Toro at the Directors’ Guild Theater in Los Angeles, Robert Eggers revealed what went into making the film, including trained rats, six hours of monster makeup and lead actress Lily-Rose Depp’s dedication to learning the physical moves of her character.
“I did it Hammer Horror style where they’re British, even though they’re in Germany,” Eggers said.
He detailed his early obsession with the original F. W. Murnau-directed 1922 silent Nosferatu, including directing it as a school play, in which Eggers starred as Count Orlok.
One of the most acclaimed silent films, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town.
In 1979, Werner Herzog directed Nosferatu the Vampire (aka Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night), a gothic horror film set in 19th-century Wismar Germany and Transylvania. Conceived as a stylistic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” he took the title, setting and titular character’s design from Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. The picture starred Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker, and French artist Roland Topor as Renfield.
| Nosferatu the Vampyre | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
Says Egger: “I’m obsessed with the past. I don’t exactly know why, but it seems to be the way I like to explore where we are and where we’re going is by going backwards. If I weren’t making films, I probably would be like an archeologist.”
When it came to creating the look for Count Orlok in this film, Eggers began by thinking, “‘What would a dead Transylvanian nobleman actually look like? What would his hairstyle be?’ Apparently, he has to have a mustache.”
Some aspects of Skarsgård’s performance as Orlok required six hours of makeup: “When Bill first saw the bust [of his character], he was like, ‘This guy didn’t look like me when he was alive.’ He was pretty intimidated. But as soon as he put it on, I saw the moment when he was inspired by the makeup and knew that he could do something with it.”
The Rodents
Nosferatu will be released December 25th.
