‘Nosferatu’ Teaser Trailer Gives Us Our First Glimpse of the Vampiric Villain
Robert Eggers, best known for elevated horror films like The Witch and The Lighthouse, is dipping back into the gothic horror pool with Nosferatu, a remake of the 1922 silent film starring Max Schreck. Taking on the role of the vampiric Count Orlok this time is Bill Skarsgård, an actor who is no stranger to playing nefarious freaks. You may recall him as the sadistic Pennywise the Clown from It Chapter One and Two.
During an interview with Esquire last month, Skarsgård offered a few little morsels regarding his new version of Count Orlok, describing his take on the iconic vampire as “gross” and “very sexualized.” “Hopefully you’ll get a little bit attracted by it and disgusted by your attraction at the same time,” he told Esquire regarding his interpretation of the character. So far, the look of the titular creature of the night has been shrouded in mystery and kept completely under wraps, but Skarsgård also teased, “I do not think people are gonna recognize me in it.”
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According to the same interview, Skarsgård also worked with an opera singer to get his voice down to the lowest possible pitch and spent three to six hours per day in the makeup chair. “It was like conjuring pure evil,” he told Esquire regarding his transformation. “It took a while for me to shake off the demon that had been conjured inside of me.”
Now, the very first glimpse of footage is finally here for us to sink our teeth into, and while we don’t get a good look of Count Orlok in all his creepy glory just yet (there are very few obscured glimpses of him), the murky teaser trailer repeatedly warns that “HE IS COMING.”
As mentioned above, Nosferatu is a remake of the 1922 black-and-white silent classic directed by F.W. Murnau, which many recognize and an unofficial and unauthorized riff on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Set in a small town in Germany, the plot centers around a real estate agent named Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) and his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) who are stalked by the ghoulish Count Orlok. The film also reunites Eggers with Willem Dafoe, who played major roles in the director’s last few films including 2022’s viking epic The Northman. Per the official synopsis provided by Focus Features: “Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.”
Nosferatu is set to terrorize theaters on December 25.
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