Phantasmal Gallery
Phantasmal Gallery
Nosferatu Review, a Mild Feminist Approach,
AKA The Horror of Being Modern Ellen
Faye Spanaki​
Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
Disclaimer 1: I had a conversation with one of my friends recently. I told her I’m writing this essay/article on Nosferatu 2024. She asked what I thought of it. Instead of answering, I asked her the same question. She said she loved it, she is a big fan of F.W. Murnau, she’s read countless books and research on his life, seen the original film multiple times and went on to explain to me her experience with watching Nosferatu 2024, which she called a love letter to Murnau. After hearing her thoughts on it I was hesitant to disclose my own disappointment in it. Nevertheless I shared my thoughts. I was never a fan of Murnau, Nosferatu as a horror staple has always been on my radar, however I only watched the original to be able to have some context for the modern version. Suprisingly, I reserve a lot more affection for the original than the one in cinemas last year. My hang ups and reservations for the modern version are solely about how certain scenes compare to the original, and the narrative surrounding the character of Ellen. If you were looking for an article that is about the historical relevance, or about the heritage that Nosferatu 2024 reflects on its original director, then I’m sorry, I’ve not written that yet. This review is not meant to criticise the talent, or the heart behind Nosferatu. It is simply a montage of my own thoughts while watching it. Disclaimer 2: I genuinely had fun watching the movie. That is because I wasn’t thinking about it too hard during my first viewing.
Nosferatu 2024 begins with Ellen crying and ends with Ellen dying. In more detail, modern Nosferatu begins with Ellen (Lilly-Rose Depp) weeping even before she appears on screen. The world is encompassed in absence, until she is brought forth, out of the darkness, in prayer ‘Come to me, a guardian angel, a spirit of comfort, spirit of any celestial sphere. Anything. Hear my call.’ she begs as she cries. Nosferatu (Bill Skarsgard) answers her call. The creature says, something along the lines of, ‘you pulled me out of the eternal darkness’ mirroring the scene we just experienced. The creature also says ‘You’re not from the world of the living’ and just in case you didn’t catch it the first time, ‘you’re not from the human world’. They make a pact. Ellen swears herself to Nosferatu, starts having an orgasm (?), and then gets choked by the creature as she experiences a seizure. The scene is complete with Ellen on the floor shaking uncontrollably as the camera is submerged in the ground. This is the opening scene.
Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
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The Horror of Nature, or Lack Thereof
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In the original movie, the world is painted in the colours of Hutter’s (original Thomas) and possibly Ellen’s psyche, at least in the first acts. Even though it is a film in black and white, the world feels vibrantly colourful, the hues soft, the tone light, carefree. We watch as Ellen starts on her embroidery and Hutter goes to the garden to pick up flowers for her. In this version (at least at the start), life is surrounded by nature. Witsborg brimming with nature and wildlife is at threat by the presence of the shadow of the plague. Death invades through windows and soil, through sea and rot, highlighting the presence of life that was taken for granted. there is one person that doesn't shy away, and that is Ellen. Ellen’s introduction to us is her playing with the cat out in the balcony framed by flowers. Ellen’s and Hutter’s world is filled with smiles and laughter, until he hands her a bouquet and she solemnly asks ‘Why did you kill them?’. The scene with the bouquet in the modern version plays about the same. After Ellen confronts Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) about the cutting of the flowers, she describes a nightmare she had, about how she married death, and even though everyone died, she was so happy. Naturally there are differences in these sequences. In the 2024 version Thomas’ brings her flowers to soften the blow of the announcement that he is leaving, whereas in the original Hutter brings her flowers on a whim. Inboth cases Ellen is the only one who understands that flowers cannot survive long after being cut, in both cases Thomas fails to understand her.
However, Ellen of the past is shown to be content even momentarily. She is surrounded by nature, she is blooming with life. It becomes even more tragic then when she promptly loses both her husband and her connection to nature. What then of modern Ellen? Modern Ellen sprouted from darkness, and her carefree nature in the first scene on their bed is charged by the nightmare we just witnessed, her being choked on the ground in her undergarments.
Still from Nosferatu (1922) F. W. Murnau.
I guess my issue with the overall lack of the vibrancy of nature as experienced by modern Ellen can be encompassed in one scene. The scene at the beach. The ladies are shown passing by hills of sand, heavy crosses impaled on them, a boat on the grey horizon. Ellen discusses with her friend, Anna, about her feelings of alienation and her experience of losing control of her body. Ellen is getting passionate as she tries to put into words the situation she is finding herself in, a terrible yet freeing predicament. Anna asks Ellen whether these feelings of being controlled yet simultaneously free are Ellen’s experience of God, and then Ellen responds with ‘Look at the sky, look at the sea, does it never call to you?’. And this is where my problem lies. Because both the sky and the sea are muddy grey. I suppose the take away here is that Ellen, unbeknownst to herself is feeling beckoned by Nosferatu, she is falling headfirst for his call, or even sensing the premonition of Orlok arriving by way of boat. Still, personally I find that to be an inadequate explanation as to why Ellen is looking at the muddiest, most uninspiring horizon, and waxing poetic about destiny. (Is this the heavy hand of the director telling us that there is no hope for Ellen? That the only destiny she can fulfil is disappearing in that grey colour of nothing? That what she is mistaking for power, passion and destiny is actually her rapidly approaching demise?)
This scene struck me, because, had Nosferatu 2024 followed the original, had there been any colour, any light, any actual lively nature, this scene, in my opinion, would carry double the weight it does now. Had Ellen looked at the horizon and had we been able to clearly see colour, the passion, the call she describes, we would empathise. ‘Look at the sky, look at the sea, does it never call to you?’ maybe we would understand had the sky and the sea been present in that shot, and not a less horrifying version of the Upside Down from Stranger Things. Her spiel about purpose and ‘Look at the sea’ rings to the viewer as the ramblings of a woman with half her mind, a woman we cannot begin to understand, because girl what are you on? The sky and the sea look miserable af, you’re on too much Prozac Ellen. (She also says all that while facing away from said sea and sky.) Maybe the intended message here is that she can imagine life beyond these shores, beyond this society? Maybe she is having a vision only she can see, but then when she turns around and says to Anna ‘I’m not mad Anna’, it doesn’t ring completely and utterly true, because you kind of are girl. This is not giving sane. And what are we to make of this heroine?What leads her to look at the colourless, lifeless sea and sky and ask whether they call to us? No seriously, what are we to make of this?
iIt's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-present).
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The Horror of the Naked Virgin Girl on a Horse
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Thomas goes on an adventure chapter! In this review I have greatly limited the time I spent on Thomas’ character solely because if I don’t, this will end up being 20 pages. However, I really wanted to talk about the naked virgin girl on a horse. Can we talk about the naked virgin girl on horse? Please Mac? I’m dying to talk about the naked virgin girl on horse. *insert Charlie Day meme here* Thomas goes to Transylvania, makes a stop at an unnamed village. At night he observes the following scene: ‘Bless the young virgin’ says presumably one of the Romani people, while a naked woman rides a horse, men and old women around her carrying torches. ‘May it guide our stallion to the unclean spirit’. The naked virgin girl on the horse leads them to the grave of a vampire, then the man in charge proceeds to kill the vampire. It is of course natural to question how female vs male bodies are perceived through the lens of the director. The first naked person we see is the character Knock, an old man who practices mysticism naked on the floor surrounded by candles, laughing maniacally while praying in tongues and writing in his own blood. Is it imperative we see that imagery? No, but it certainly adds to the horror (or comedy, depending on where you stand). The character of Knock was introduced to us as a businessman yet the director quickly tears off that facade by showing him taking part in mystic practices. When we view his body it is in a context of comically horrific.
What then of this naked virgin girl on horse? What is the purpose of this scene?There is always room for nakedness in horror, especially gothic horror, it is a free country, freedom in art, free the nipple, etc etc. Nudity in art should always be preserved and celebrated point black. I am merely questioning what effect is this meant to have in the narrative? It shocks Thomas, because it is an unusual thing to witness. But where is the horror? Is the horror meant to be what is perceived as a foreign ritual? Foreigners are scary, loud, and carry around torches and young girls naked on horseback? Does the horror come upon the closeness of the vampire’s tomb and this naked girl on a horse? Is the horror the idea that a naked virgin girl on horse must be chaffing horribly? What is the point of the naked virgin girl on horse being objectively attractive, young, hairless and thin? Is the horror in the room with us? Is the horror the jumpscare of the vampire spitting blood when he is stabbed in his grave? Are we meant to be horrified purely by empathising with Thomas who looks unnerved and terrified?
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I am tying myself in knots I suppose with this line of questioning. I researched (by that I mean I googled) whether this is a cultural phenomenon, whether there is somewhere a magical practise of naked virgins on horses that is used for something. In the case of Nosferatu it is used as a detector for vampires, like a gps. The results of my search can be split in two categories, the first one is results pertaining to a person named Lady Godiva and the second category is porn. Of course it’s porn. Also, Lady Godiva had less results than porn, surprising to no one. I am not going to go into detail about the tale of naked Lady Godiva on a horse, or the porn I happened upon – nobody look up virgin naked girl on horse unless you want to figure out the staggering number of porn involving horses. I really did not expect the virgin naked girl on horse to take as much space as it has, but it is my mental breakdown and I choose the music.
The thing is, I understand doing things for the aesthetic, I understand wanting pretty hairless naked girls on films, I get it, it’s patriarchy and objectification, we get it. What troubles me is that this movie is set in a context of dark feminine desire, of cursed phantasies that come to life and harm reality and the epicentre of it all is still a woman who suffers continuously until she dies. And what maddens me about this is we could have salvaged at least the trope of beautiful naked virgin. We could have sparked such an interesting conversation by having that girl get off the horse and impale the vampire. Phallic object being held by a woman, entering the body of an infected undead organism that threatens her and her community’s existence (Spelling it out for the people at the back, essentially penetrate patriarchy and old traditional thinking.) Maybe we could allow her to not just be a dormant gps tracker for vampires (after all its the horse that leads them to the tomb, the girlis just there), but also an active participant in this ritual? Maybe, that way we could enforce the mythology behind the nature of vampires in the movie. Set the creatures up to only be able to be slain by virgins, horses be damned. It is even in the original film, Ellen reads a book on Nosferatu and there are the lines ‘Deliverance is possible by no other means but that an innocent maiden maketh the vampire heed not the first crowing of the cock, this done by the sacrifice of her own bloode’ It would have been much more entertaining to have this girl, who has maybe already painted the stake with her blood, (upholding the rule that it must be given willingly) stab the vampire. I quickly realised Robert Eggers is not interested in making changes unless it’s maybe more suffering for Ellen.
Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
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The Horror of Seizures and Evil
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The seizures are as the professor (Willem Dafoe) explains ‘a curse’, but what is their actual function in the narrative? When the professor visits her looking for answers, Ellen explains her childhood trauma, vaguely and briefly touching upon what sounds like potential abuse or neglect by her father who was scared of her ‘gift’. Ellen reminisces how he once found her laying on the ground unclothed - we do not know what she was doing or what happened - and how mortified she was when he started yelling ‘SIN’. This scene of her character opening up is then followed by her in a trance state, being examined and probed by the professor while she is dressed in a see through dressing gown. There is close up shot of his hands touching her unconscious body, followed by him stabbing her with a long needle, to prove to the others in the room that she is non responsive. She is then directed to speak and breathing heavily she talks about ‘him’ coming in a way that -again- I can only describe as ‘getting aroused’. Then her body gets possessed, falling into the nth seizure screaming ‘help me’.
What is the meaning of the seizures happening to Ellen when she is exhibiting arousal, violent or otherwise, and being tied to the ungodly creature that is Nosferatu? When Anna (Emma Corrin) asks, why Ellen is cursed, the professor says ‘Demonic spirits more easily obsess those whose lower animal functions dominate’. The implication being that Ellen indeed would probably not get ‘cursed’ or ‘possessed’ or end up in a state of helplessness, had she not been as in tune as she is with her own bodily functions. Gentlemen, it appears we have cracked the code once again, it is of course the woman’s fault for having bodily desires and functions. She is having seizures and is haunted by a demon because she is an animal. Another script written successfully!
'Does evil come from within us or from beyond?’...
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...asks Ellen. Well dear protagonist, according to our most recent calculations, evil is not inherent, but it is your fault! It comes from cosmic forces and astral planes and having a constitution that resembles being an electric outlet for Belzeebub. Nosferatu is a foreign force beyond our control, but is attracted to Ellen because she is demon food. And that is a wrap-up on our moral conundrum, Ellen is dead from the very beginning. What then of the meet-cute between Ellen and Orlok? The count says to her, ‘it is you, it is in your nature’ and ‘I am an apettite nothing more’. This changes things. Does that make Orlok a reflection of Ellen’s appetite, and not a foreign independent actor? Is Orlok Ellen’s crude want made flesh? To see Witsborg be swallowed by the plague? To see good society die and know it was done by her hand? She craves destruction so much she is effectively self-destructing?
Your honour, my client is wondering whether evil comes from Transylvannia or her vag?
Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
In the characteristic ‘possession’ scene Ellen confides in Thomas about Nosferatu, ‘He is my shame’, ‘he is my melancholy’. After breaking down mentally and confessing with much remorse that she is the one who unleashed Nosferatu in Witsborg, the mood suddenly changes. Ellen turns to Thomas and accuses him you weren’t thinking of me, you stopped writing, what where you doing in that castle? Did you fuck my inner desire demon Thomas? Well, not in those exact words, she rather says ‘he told me how you fell into his arms as a swooning lilly of a woman’. Then she erupts into a shaking rant, tears her dress apart, and looks completely possessed as her eyes roll back and her tongue is darting out and about in a weird fashion. A fascinating possession scene, which is then weirdly followed by her crawling on all fours to her husband, mouthing on his crotch, and telling him ‘ you could never please me as he could’. The phrase ‘I was but a child’ starts ringing in my head from when Ellen defends herself over what Nosferatu had done to her, and my question here is, is this Nosferatu, Ellen, or both?
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The story is changing from I was looking for comfort, to you are unable to measure against my inner desire demon made flesh. Is she a cursed helpless victim or an animal that spreads the seeds of chaos unconsciously? She then begs ‘yes please take me’ as Thomas unceremoniously, without preparation, foreplay or even hesitation plunges - there is no other word to describe this- into Ellen forcefully. ‘Let him see our love’ she says, and seems to be enjoying it, until a vision of her puking and crying blood has Thomas jump away from her, while she laughs hysterically and writhes on the couch. Ellen then quickly dissolves into tears, and tells him to not touch her because she is unclean. According to the professor, ‘in order to defeat evil we need to find it within ourselves and crucify it’. (I cannot even begin to understand how this line colours the decision to have Ellen lie in bed
with Nosferatu and dying with him. Pick up the phone Robert Eggers, I just wanna talk.) Meaning, even though she appears to not be in control, to be continuously suffering, Ellen still has ‘evil’ within her.
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We are told Ellen suffers from melancholia or hysteria or a curse, no one holds a definite answer and this alienates her from her father, her husband, her friend. She is incapable of communicating with them about what exactly it is that is ‘wrong’ with her. The directorial choices make it so she is overlapping with the image of Orlok, at times appearing as one. Whether or not she is the mirror image of the demon everyone fears, she is still not free. We are told she is powerful by the professor, we are told she is mad by Anna’s husband, yet all we see of her is a writhing body and a failure to truly communicate with anyone around her as she is abused and probed, and even chloroformed at some point. Who is this horror for? I could have read the news Robert.
Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
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The Horror of Salvation,
But Being The One to Bring The Plague In the First Place,
But Embodying Salvation,
But Damning Everyone To Begin With-
THE HORROR OF-
what are we trying to say again?
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Ellen says ‘I need no salvation, my entire life I’ve done no ill but heed my nature’ or ‘hid my nature’ there were no subtitles to the movie I have no idea which one it is, English not being my first language and all. So in the case that Ellen heed her nature all her life, she was only paying attention to herself and what she needs. This is coloured as wrong by the promise that she needs no salvation. So she believes she cannot be saved because of how aware of her own self she is, coincidentally, the movie kills her in the end, ergo she does indeed have to die because she is too intimate with her own desires (literally fucks her desire demon). As we see in the course of the movie her desires include wanting to ‘have an angel’, someone to take care of her, someone to understand her after her mother died. Other selfish desires: wanting for her husband to not go to a business trip because she has a very bad feeling, and later wanting to save said husband and her best friend from the clutches of definite death. She also wants her husband to fuck her nastily. Incredibly selfish desires Ellen, both me and Robert decided you are hot but you should die. In fact everyone agrees your death should be by letting your demon’s rotting corpse comprised only of holes and moustache, fuck you like a lover and suck your entire life out through your breast area.
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Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
It would make more sense of course if Ellen said ‘I need no salvation, my entire life I’ve done no ill but hid my nature’. She hid her ‘talent’, she hid her abilities and what she had experienced as a child, her trauma and loose ends. Did she also hide her desires? Was it a secret desire her dreaming of everyone dying? Is it desire that brings her head to head with Nosferatu? In one scene she is begging her husband to not leave, then the next minute she is accusing him of being the epicentre of their misfortune and calling him a whore (Forced fem Thomas when?) Of course that last part -not my interjection about forced-fem Thomas- is paired up with her behaving as if possessed, but could this be a mere interpretation on Thomas’ side? Are we seeing Ellen through Thomas’ eyes? Or are we seeing her experiencing the full force of her own desires and how she perceives them? Does Ellen want to top Thomas?( Yes.) But is that really Ellen’s desire or did Thomas have sex with his wife’s body which is possessed by the night demon? We do not know. Either way the magic of interpretation is still lost when the ending is so definite. She dies in bed with her grotesque lover, thrown over them cut flowers, which she hated. The only survivors are three men. One is her husband, the other her doctor (Ralph Ineson). The last one is the professor, who even though he studies the arcane, even though he respects the occult, his only punishment for seeking it out is that he is excommunicated. Yet he gets to survive.
The professor laments that Ellen could have been a great priestess yet ‘In this strange and modern world, your purpose is of greater worth. You are our salvation’. Can she be everyone’s salvation if she doomed them in the first place? The secretive feminine creature that no one understands, the pervasive feminine power that brings miasma to our world is embraced only in death. She suffers all her life and then she dies saving everyone from herself. I don’t know what we think we did here boys, but it ain’t in the feminist agenda, I’ll tell you that much. The only way to exist in this nightmare as a woman is to be a mindless mother and wife (Anna), then die thinking your bestie has infected you with her ideas of freedom and darkness, or you are your own and everyone else’s villain (Ellen). I will be honest, I would much rather see that other version of Ellen the professor talked about. The priestess of Isis monster-lover Ellen, lives in my head rent-free.
Still from Nosferatu (2024) Robert Eggers.
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Conclusions
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There are other things I wished I’d talk about, the pervasive queerness of Nosferatu 2024, the lack of solidarity amongst the residents of Witsborg as was exhibited in the original movie, what it means for Nosferatu coming out in a post-covid world and not having anything solid to say about how in times of societal unrest we look for easy scapegoats. It is even weirder to me how the movie treats its own protagonist as a scapegoat. Nonetheless, I will continue being a fan of Robert Eggers, I just wish I knew who this horror was intended for. I will conclude this on a light note, seeing all the promotional material for Nosferatu 2024 I thought it would be a movie for monsterlovers. One thing that I noticed making the rounds on Tik Tok was the Nosferatu’s nether regions. I was prepared to be horrified and intrigued, to be pulled in by this inner desire demon’s deathly charm. And yet, the way I felt about Nosferatu’s neither region mirrors the way I felt about the movie as awhole. I thought to myself ‘is that it?’. This might be a risky statement for me to make, alas I am not here to mince words, either show me monster dick or no dick at all. There is nothing remotely shocking or interesting about that scene, If you go to the trouble of transforming the actor’s body in horrific ways, why in our good lord’s name are you leaving his dick out? For shame.
Article by Faye Spanaki
March 2025
For More On This Writer
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