A moment of tenderness between a man and his meal.
The 2024 remake of vampire classic Nosferatu (1922), also entitled Nosferatu (2024), has mistaken the terror and fright of realism as being a reasonable stand-in for the incomprehensible horror of the Divine. In both versions, which tell essentially the same story, the victims of the vampire, Count Orlok, are not terrible human beings in their own right. They have their entirely human flaws of temper, of ignoring the needy, and other unfortunate characteristics, but they are neither horrific nor amplified to intolerable magnitudes.
Thus, the twin afflictions of the Count’s depradations on the humans of Wisburg, Germany in the early 1800s, and the terrible plague that accompanies the Count, are not punishments for misdeeds, individual or collective. This is not a story concerning how karma punishes miscreants, or superior beings correcting human behavior with the biggest rod possible. No.
This is about the realm of the Divine impinging on the human world, driven by the near-incomprehensible needs of Count Orlok. In essence, humans scuttle away from the Divine as it eats its way through Wisburg.
And the movie-makers’ aesthetic choices alter the affects of the story on the audience. The portrayals of creatures and events in the 1922 version are bizarre, outré, almost incomprehensible. The 2024 version has horrific visions, but they lack the oomph that pushes the audience over the edge and into the pool of the unknowable, of sensing our bodies submerge in a pool of something soul-threatening. The blood spatters and dead bodies and plague of the 2024 version may be graphic and technically highly competent, but they lack that element of Divine mystery that has terrorized mankind over the centuries.
And the 1922 version of Nosferatu has that edge to its eddies of emotion.
I do not wish to disparage the 2024 version, but in the end that version is limited by the aesthetic choices of the movie-makers. The 1922 version has the limitations of a young artistic form, yet it almost feels as if the team of movie-makers, headed by Director F. W. Murnau, turned that to their advantage. The chaotic vortex of the Divine impacts human society, destroying all regardless of crime. Can you feel your skin burn from its relentless consumption?
That’s the real Nosferatu.
