It’s been a rough few years for vampire movies.
2022 gave us the hot mess that was Netflix's The Invitation, while 2023 brought The Last Voyage of the Demeter – a feature film spun out of what was no more than a chapter of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel – to our screens. The Blade franchise demonstrated that there’s still a commercial appetite for vampire films, but factor in flops such as Dracula 2000 (2000), Van Helsing (2004), Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Curse (2006), and Dracula: Untold (2014) – which have an average of 24.5% on Rotten Tomatoes – and the verdict seems to be that, though the viewing public want them, filmmakers just aren’t that good at getting them right.
So, when Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman, Hansel & Gretel) announced he would be adapting Nosferatu, critics and audience members alike rejoiced – and, despite the film only having been out a couple of weeks, that hype looks to be justified. Boasting an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has also become Eggers’ highest-grossing effort to date – bringing in $69.4 million domestically and a whopping $100 million internationally since it debuted on Christmas Day in the US.
Nosferatu (2024) is a remake of a film that premiered more than 102 years before it, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922). That film was an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (albeit with names and some plot details tweaked, and the setting moved from England to Germany), and ended up losing a court case against Stoker’s estate, with authorities ordering all copies to be destroyed.
Eggers’ effort won’t be the first time Nosferatu has been remade, though: auteur filmmaker Werner Herzog re-imagined it in 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre and, in 2000, Nosferatu appeared again in Shadow of the Vampire – a meta horror about the making of the original Nosferatu, in which tunnel-visioned director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) hires a real vampire to play the part of his titular antagonist.
The look and feel of Reggie Nalder's portrayal of Kurt Barlow in Tobe Hooper's mini-series Salem's Lot (1975) is unequivocal in its Nosferatu-based antecedents.
Interestingly, the films in the Nosferatu franchise – if you can call it that; they’re less sequels than a chain of re-envisioned reboots spanning a century – have an excellent record with critics. Using Rotten Tomatoes as a barometer, the 1922 film is rated 97%; the 1979 film scores 94%; Shadow of the Vampire sports a healthy 82% approval.
It begs the question – just why are these films so popular? Even now, in an age where vampire movies have failed to hit the mark with critics and audiences. Is it the European setting? The subversive, transgressive tone and subject matter? The power of IP?
Nope. It's down, in no small part, to the eponymous bloodsucker himself.
No matter the decade or era, there’s something about the ratlike Nosferatu – which eschews the debonair erudition of Count Dracula for something more feral and primitive – that feels more visceral and urgent than his Stoker-penned counterpart; more eerie, dangerous, and mysterious. (The marketers of the latest Nosferatu leaned into this, taking a leaf out of the book of Longlegs (2024) in withholding Skarsgard’s appearance as the vampire in trailers and promotional material.) Yes, no matter the year, Nosferatu has managed to capture his audience’s attentions like few other Hollywood antagonists have.
Which elicits a second, more unanswerable question…which actor did it best?
Below, I’ve attempted to wade into that blood-soaked quagmire: reviewing and ranking the five major performances as Nosferatu across five films and more than a century of time.
A task impossible, as I’ve said. But have a read…and let me know how badly I did in the comments section below!
5. Doug Jones, Nosferatu (2023)
There are no duds in this lot, but there did have to be a last place – and for me, that's Doug Jones's portrayal of Count Orlok in 2024's Nosferatu. Eminent contortionist and creature actor, Jones (of 2006's Pan's Labyrinth, 2015's Crimson Peak, and 2017's The Bye Bye Man) brings all his athleticism and uniqueness to the role, but is perhaps hamstrung by the overall low-budget feel of David Lee Fisher's 2023 film. Essentially a shot-for-shot remake – which was funded by Kickstarter campaign 10 years in the making and mired in development hell for over half a decade – the effort was released more than a century after the original film, yet sticks with overwhelming loyalty to the original 1922 effort: right down to the grainy aesthetics and muted colour palette of the first film. To his credit, Jones is game, and the makeup means he's a much fiercer and more evil-looking vampire than, say, Willem Dafoe's Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire. But amid such an unoriginal offering, it's hard for any individual performance – even that of the titular villain – to stand out.
4. Bill Skarsgard, Nosferatu (2024)
Obviously, he does an excellent job at channeling a more aggressive, uncouth iteration of the Count – and his grizzled, moustached visage feels the most realistic looking version of the vampire given the period (1838) and location the film is set in. (Plus the fact that after so long living in a draughty castle all day and drinking people's blood every night would take it out of you!)
That said, I think I prefer the cleaner, cleverer, more cunning versions of Nosferatu: billowing capes rather than bellowing apes. Skarsgard, for his part, is well up for it but his thick accent (and the guttural growl he seems to issue forth with every sentence) made whole swathes of his dialogue difficult to understand. I also think Eggers's decision not to properly reveal Nosferatu's face until well past the film's halfway point – and even then, it's shrouded in shadow and never fully visible – works against the portrayal a bit, as we're not able to connect with and understand the character more. (Yes, Nosferatu may be pure evil but he still has motivations, alright?!) I loved the film's dark, sultry tone and in that context Skarsgard's performance works. (Even if they did have to change the creature's iconic two-fang setup.) But this incarnation of Nosferatu – the most monstrous, inhuman, and creature-like we've seen so far – just didn't quite hit the mark for me. (And the boat-based jump scares reminded me too much of the slog that was The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) for comfort.) Ultimately, Skarsgard's Nosferatu is stylised and boldly, loudly sketched; but for me, when they lost those double, centrally-located fangs...something else got lost, too.
3. Klaus Kinski, Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Kinski’s Nosferatu glides around with a kind of opulent, operatic menace; a slick, sighing softness that radiates malice. This iteration of Nosferatu the Vampyre’s titular bloodsucker is as poetic and philosophic as it is predatory; all lascivious lips and longing, hungry looks. (In one scene early on, the creature affixes Harker with an unbroken stare for at least a minute as he eats, glaring at him with a palpable, insatiable thirst). Kinski – an esteemed actor known as much for the intensity of his performances on stage and film as for his volatile, mercurial personality off it – brings a more intelligent, organised sense of malevolence to the role; not to mention one of the more athletic takes on the titular vampire. While it doesn’t work for the film in the main, Nosferatu the Vampyre’s dubbing – an awkward strategy many films from the 70s and 80s employ, and which I explore in detail in my Demons (1985) review – only serves to heighten that unsettling, off-putting style Kinski brings to the role. While, if pushed, I would probably consider Nosferatu the Vampyre, after Fisher's effort, the second-weakest of the five big-screen Nosferatu adaptations (though it has its moments and is stacked with stunning visuals, Herzog’s film moves at a glacial pace; and some of the hammy acting and melodrama gives it the feeling of an amateur theatre production), Kinski’s performance elevates it into something truly, deeply terrifying. (There’s even a sense of droll humour to him; the way he brushes off Renfield with a bored groan and a dismissive hand gesture is nothing short of brilliant.)
Of course, the fact that I’ve placed it third on this list casts no aspersions on the performance or picture, but are rather an endorsement of the stiff, almost unplayable competition Kinski’s Count is up against. Which leads us to…
2. Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
The Nosferatu films have a complicated relationship with originality. As I mentioned before, the original was successfully sued for plagiarism, while the 1922, 1979, and 2024 all tell the same (pilfered) story – reinventing, redoing, and re-shooting the Nosferatu lore, rather than furthering or expanding it through sequels or prequels.
That can’t be said for E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire, though: a film that radiates originality, but more importantly is carried by its lead – who happens, along with Woody Harrelson, to be one of my favourite actors of all time – Willem Dafoe. Yes, there are similar lists that might dispute the notion that Dafoe is playing Nosferatu, instead playing a fictionalised version of the original actor Max Schreck (more on him in a second), but I think that's what makes this performance – and the wider film it's situated in – so unique.
Dafoe's Schreck/Orlok – who makes a bargain with a fanatical, fictionalised version of F. W. Murnau, who helmed the 1922 film – in turns child-like and comic: embracing the meta nature of the material with glee and gusto, while never losing that sinister, seething aspect all good Nosferatu performances must find a way to channel. Dafoe – who was nominated for an Oscar for the film – would, almost a quarter of a century later, go on to play Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Van Helsing's equivalent) in Eggers' remake, showcasing the versatility and adaptability on full show here in Shadow of the Vampire. A must-watch.
1. Max Shreck, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
It’s – inarguably, I’d argue – one of the horror genre’s greatest, most iconic shots. A hunched, shadowy figure – arms crooked, talon-like fingernails grasping – makes its way up a staircase. The apparition is none other than Max Schreck as the original Nosferatu: a performance so legendary, from an actor still (even today) shrouded in mystery, that it would inspire countless films to come – Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (1975), for instance, draws heavily on Nosferatu’s bald head and pair of sharp, centrally-located teeth for the aesthetic of his film’s vampiric antagonist, Kurt Barlow, while Shreck’s performance was the spark that lit the blue touch paper of Robert Eggers’ interest in the film that would eventually lead to his 2024 remake of it – and become regarded as one of the cornerstones of German expressionist cinema. (Not to mention provide the inspiration for E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), in which Willem Dafoe proffered up his own star turn playing none other than… a fictionalised, blood-sucking version of Mr Schreck himself.) Ultimately, Shreck’s spindly, cadaverous Nosferatu is more than a portrayal of the famous vampire – he is Nosferatu. (A claim made all the more veracious, perhaps, by legends stating that Schreck was an actual vampire; if that sounds laughable, watch it back at night and tell me his eyes aren’t glowing!) Be it shots of Schreck’s Count Orlok stalking the prows of the Wisborg-bound Empusa on his migration from Transylvania or looking up, briefly, as he crouches to feast at the throat of poor Ellen Hutter as she sleeps, the enigmatic actor gave us more than a performance: he gave us a hair-raising, spine-tingling icon of cinema that won’t long be forgotten.
Want more vampire content? Try my review of French period film The Vourdalak (2023)Â for a fresh, alternative take on the genre set in the forests of 18th-century Serbia.