#nosferatu 2024 meta

[distort-opia]

It's interesting to me that both times Thomas sees a vision of a demonic Ellen, she's blank and wide eyed, chin stained red and crying blood. The first time, it makes sense she'd have blood spilling out of her mouth. Orlok called upon Ellen ("Dream of me. Only of me"), and she's in a trance, sleepwalking outside and mirroring Orlok's own movements-- appearing to straddle Thomas as Orlok prepares to feed on him:

Ellen is there as Orlok drinks Thomas' blood. When we're shown her falling down, it's implied she was levitating just as Thomas and Orlok were levitating. So, whenever Ellen is in a trance, she and Orlok are one (as the actual possession moment that Von Franz witnessess implies too, when Ellen's words are essentially Orlok's words). And so, in a twisted way, this scene is a threesome (a la Hannibal/Will/Alana in Hannibal NBC, for people with similar tastes). I mean, if Thomas moaning and naked Ellen showing up above him wasn't enough of a clue to the sexual nature of the interaction, Orlok naked and grotesquely grinding on top of him as he drinks his blood is the nail in the coffin (heh).

But the second time Thomas sees a vision of demonic Ellen, it's while the two of them are having actual-and-not-implied sex. Clearly Ellen is under Orlok's influence before it, knowing exactly what buttons to push... but even though she says "He told me how foolish you were. How fearful. How like a child. How you fell into his arms as a swooning lily of a woman," none of these things were actually said by Orlok. We know because we saw them talk, and the only information Orlok passed on to Ellen directly was how Thomas "sold Ellen for gold". It's another way through which it's reinforced that Ellen was there as Orlok fed upon Thomas, seeing his behavior. By showing disdain for it, she's prodding Thomas' biggest insecurity, and what cowes him most about Orlok: a presence so intensely and overpoweringly masculine. So when Ellen delivers the last blow by insulting Thomas' sexual prowess and downright comparing him to Orlok, he takes her roughly and she calls on Orlok to see them do it (much like Orlok called upon Ellen to see how he was feeding on Thomas). But in the middle of it when he recoils, Thomas doesn't get a flash of Orlok. He sees Ellen, blood pouring out of her mouth and crying blood.

I can't help but see a parallel with this:

Ellen is clearly in a trance when Orlok is dying, expelling all of the blood he drank from Ellen out of his eyes and his mouth... She is one with him as it happens. So is the vision Thomas sees both times a sort of premonition of Ellen and Orlok's death? Orlok's dying moment superimposed onto Ellen, blood streaming out of her eyes, mouth open in a silent scream? Even the blood on demonic Ellen's chest, in that first vision, is similar to the stain of blood she has in the final scene where she sacrifices herself.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but it's yet another subtle way in which Ellen, Thomas and Orlok are intertwined, and it's been on my mind the past couple of days. Sex and death, death and sex... There's many other parallels for their dynamic: the way Ellen and Orlok's final scene contrasts with the very first one between Ellen and Thomas (Thomas being asked to stay and give Ellen what she wants but still leaving, Orlok being asked to stay and give Ellen what she wants and staying), but also the scene in which Orlok feeds on Thomas too (Thomas being forced to lay on the bed while Orlok drinks his blood, Ellen willingly laying on the bed and allowing Orlok to drink her blood). So I like to think Thomas saw those glimpses of demonic Ellen in that specific form because she and Orlok were dying as Thomas held her hand-- a truly powerful psychic, broadcasting her shared destiny with Orlok to the one person they'd both loved and hated, cared for and terrified in turn.

[the-crooked-library]

Nuance, Narratives, and Nosferatu

As of today, Robert Eggers' Nosferatu (2024) has only been in theatres for 4 full days; and, coincidentally, that is about as long as I am able to let my thoughts marinate before they demand to be communicated. Before going into any further detail, let it be known that this film was made by freaks for freaks; it exists for the goths, the gays, the monsterfuckers, the historians, and for all those who delight in moral and thematic complexity.

With that being said - spoilers under the cut!

There are two principal narratives running through the flesh of Nosferatu, both of them rooted heavily in the cultural and literary origins of the story. It is a nightmare; it is also an erotic fantasy. It is horrifying, and it is also achingly romantic. From what I've seen so far, the vast majority of discourse that has already emerged around the film is caused by people misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring the relationship between these different lines of analysis; so please trust me when I say, from the bottom of my heart, that this duality is the very lifeblood of the movie.

The reason for that is, quite simply, that Nosferatu is a gothic horror film, set in 1830s German Confederation; and its plot relies on the same (sometimes contradictory) complexities often displayed in Victorian gothic fiction.

From the beginning of the movie, we are given to understand that Ellen Hutter met Count Orlok - the eponymous nosferatu - psychically, when she was very young. They spoke, she pledged herself to him, and was horrified to realize what she had done when he revealed his true visage to her in their first visual (and sexual) encounter.

Here, under the lilacs, the paths diverge.

The first reading of the film is perhaps the more straightforward. A young girl is essentially catfished and groomed by a much older, dangerous man. When they meet for the first time, she is a teenager; the lilacs that bloom where it happens become a trigger. He is the source of her madness and "melancholy" (depression), she has nightmares about him regularly enough that her husband is aware of them, and it is implied that she has been institutionalized in the past. Thomas Hutter is the physical representation of her one desperate hope for a normal life - but as the story progresses, she finds herself being denied even that. Orlok's psychic connection with her verges on demonic possession; in chilling, The Exorcist-inspired sequences, she writhes and mutters, prophesying a city-wide reign of death and terror. In pursuit of his claim on Ellen, Orlok terrorizes her husband, murders her friends - and, eventually, she gives her life to take him with her to the grave, saving the city from the plague he caused.

That is the horror element of Nosferatu; it deals with an exploration of childhood trauma, of PTSD, of difficulties maintaining a social life after the fact. It is easy to understand even from a modern viewpoint, and it pushes the film to its conclusion with a bleak, heart-wrenching punch.

The horror is not the only element of Nosferatu.

To contextualize the alternate - though just as correct - reading of the film, it is essential to understand that Ellen’s society was extremely sexually repressed, especially in regards to female and queer sexuality.

Both were severely medicalized, demonized, and restricted; and as such, when these topics do make an appearance in contemporary fiction, they are often inextricable from disgust and fear.

Dedicated as always to historical accuracy, Eggers maintains the same setting-based narrative coding.

In anticipation of morality arguments vis à vis monstrosity, depiction, and modern purity culture, let me clarify: this is something that works within his chosen genre. Horror, and especially gothic horror, invites a deeper analysis in regard to morality and motivation, and in this case, Eggers' homage to the origins of that genre grounds the narrative in its time and location, as well as fleshing it out much further than a purely modern cultural lens would permit. In this context, the details of Ellen's connection with Orlok become paramount to the understanding of the film.

As bits and pieces of their background become revealed, the audience realizes that her psychic gift did not begin with him - and neither did her melancholy, or her isolation. She was born with her abilities, and throughout her childhood, she was a bit of a tomboy by her contemporary standards, running wild in the woods near her father's property; however, once she foretold her mother's death, and once she was too old to get away with eccentricities, her father became frightened of her abnormality. She was isolated, confined indoors, and that is when her melancholy had begun. Painfully lonely and aching for some form of companionship, she called out into the ether; and Orlok responded.

Over the course of their story, he becomes the physical manifestation of everything Ellen perceives as dark and sinful about herself.

He is psychic, he is vicious, possessive, and blatantly sexual; her sensual affection with Anna parallels the evident and physical attraction he displays towards Thomas; and the social power he so easily commands is the same that she lacks, being a woman in a rigidly patriarchal society.

In the end, the severely questionable age gap, the murders, the coercion, the betrayal - all of that comes down to respect. Throughout the film, that is the one thing that Ellen is consistently denied. She is young when she meets Orlok, yes; but she is aggressively infantilized by her surrounding society even when she is a grown, adult, married woman.

It starts from the beginning of the film, when the Hutters visit the Harding family. During those scenes, the men are shown talking business - while the women play with children in the parlour; and the same social framing persists into the body of the film. When Ellen is suffering from what appears to be some form of mental illness, she is referred to as a child by multiple different characters; and when the condition progresses, she is swiftly diagnosed with hysteria and drugged - thus being forcibly removed from the discussion of her own illness. The general reactions to that illness - which is, in fact, a display of her psychic abilities - range from annoyance to fear to curiosity; it is seen either as a disability or a curse, rather than anything entirely innate to who she is. Her fears are dismissed. Harding tells her to learn some deference. Even closer to the finale, when Von Franz admits that she could have been a great priestess in another age, he does so with pity rather than anything else; in their industrial era, he cannot help but see her only as a tragic sacrifice - horrible, but necessary to save the city from a plague. Brought in to heal her, he instead guides her to her death.

All these aspects of Ellen's circumstances find a direct opposite in her relationship with Orlok. Unlike all other characters in the film, he only ever sees her as his equal, which is made even more evident when his interactions with Thomas and Herr Knock are brought into consideration. With both men, Orlok insists on being addressed by his lordly title, "as his blood demands it"; and yet, Ellen never calls him by any title at all, be it "My Lord" or even a simple "Herr." She argues with him freely, and there is a familiarity between them that he is demonstrated to never tolerate from anyone else. Similarly, while he disguises the covenant he makes with Thomas, the terms of his covenant with Ellen are laid out clearly, in full. He does not hide from her; she already knows the worst of him, the same way he knows that she is intelligent, that she is powerful, and that she is not meant to be demure and deferring. Again and again, Orlok insists that Ellen is not meant for humanity - and the true horror, the horror she cannot bring herself to face, is that he is right.

In a sense, he is a mirror held up in front of her own face. Ellen is painfully aware that she does not fit in, and that she never has. The "normal" society, epitomized by the Hardings (wealthy husband, pretty blonde wife, 2.5 kids), has no place for her - and actively dislikes her.

The film makes this ostracism impossible for the viewer to ignore. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that the other human characters - even those that do sincerely care for Ellen - never truly know her. Anna loves her, but wishes she would not talk of dreadful things - and lashes out as a result of that discomfort, scolding her. Sievers finds himself bewildered by her; Knock sees her as an object to trade; Von Franz pities her, Harding hates her, and Thomas cannot truly satisfy her, even after being touched by the supernatural himself.

Seeing a flash of a monstrous face while they are together, he flings her away. To him, his experience with Orlok is merely traumatic, and he wishes for nothing more than to leave it behind. However, to her, it is something she cannot help but crave; and she continues to wear her lilac perfume.*

All that to say - Count Orlok is, simultaneously, everything Ellen wants and everything she is terrified of being.

That specific dichotomy reaches its climax during their mutual finale. As it is to be expected from a vampire wedding night, they rejoin in a sequence of sex, blood, and renewed vows - and what is particularly notable is that (unlike Murnau) Eggers makes it clear that this Orlok never intended to kill his Ellen, despite his inability to resist her blood. Though he drinks from her through the night, he stops at cock-crow; and she guides his head back down herself, distracting him long enough for the sun to rise. It is a duet of accident and intention. He drains her; and she holds him as the sun drains him. They cling together as they end - on a bed that serves their wedding and their death.

It is romantic. it is unquestionably romantic. However, that does not mean that the horror isn't also present; Ellen's consent, under these circumstances, is highly debatable, and Orlok is cruel, amoral, and murderously possessive. At the same time, the characters are also acting out folkloric archetypes, with precious little adjustment to that framework - which further removes them from a modern understanding of morality. He is Death, a Koschei the Deathless, a monster; she is the Maiden, a Vasilisa, a damsel. I hesitate to liken them to the Beauty and the Beast, largely because in the original premise of that story, the Beauty falls in love with the kindness that the Beast consistently displays; and it is essential to stress that Orlok has none. He does care for Ellen, in his own way, but he admits to being incapable of love as she defines it in human terms;** and, curiously, that seems to be her primary concern when it comes to the idea of accepting his proposal - rather than all the blood and carnage.

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that there are multiple ways of following a story, and multiple different stories in a film as nuanced as Nosferatu. Yes, it is about grooming and trauma. Yes, it is about finding love outside of the cage that is "polite society." I'm sure that it is many other things besides, with as many meanings as there are people in the theatres; after all, I am only one person, and the film grossed something over $40M in its first three days. The point is, really, that this is a story in which a rotting vampire is woken from centuries of deathlike slumber by a lonely voice asking him to be her friend; and whatever these two strange and aching souls do with that can go down any myriad of paths. The film trusts the viewer to interpret the narrative they choose.

* LILAC PERFUME - in fact, it is such a consistent favourite of Ellen's that Orlok smells it on her hair in the locket she sends with Thomas to the castle. Thomas never really learns the reason she likes that scent - even though he knows that preference well enough that he gifts her lilacs in the beginning of the film.

** ORLOK'S OBSESSION - this is a side note, but: the vampire wedding sequence reminds me strongly of the third season of NBC's Hannibal. I suppose that was to be expected, considering that Hannibal is also a Dracula offshoot, much like Orlok himself. When Ellen snaps at Orlok that he cannot love, he responds that "no; but only with you, I can be truly sated." Similarly - "Is Hannibal in love with me?" asks Will; and Bedelia responds - "Could he feel a daily stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you?" I'd say if you liked that series, you should try and see the film. It works with a familiar blend of aesthetic horror.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024 (Pt3: I Was Seen)

"Now look, with your Vampire Eyes."

--Lestat de Lioncourt, Interview with the Vampire (1994)

[ceccolia]

⚠️Warning⚠️ spoilers for Nosferatu (2024) and The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

Underdeveloped meta/thinking out loud:

There’s something so interesting to me in holding up The Devil’s Minion chapter and Nosferatu (2024) side-by-side. Both portray a kind of attraction to death, where a very young and naive person actively seeks it out, as represented by a vampire. And as our protagonists wrestle with “l'appel du vide”, they deal with madness and visions, repressed desire and sexual deviancy, and their own desire to live against the pull of the vampire. If you believe The Devil’s Minion chapter is an allegory for HIV/AIDS, then death comes as an epidemic in both. And in the end, both succumb to it as well.

One of the main differences is, of course, that Armand and Orlok are very difference kinds of vampires. Armand appears young and beautiful. He hides the reality of what he is. He obsesses over the modern age, walks among mortals, attends shows, and runs the Night Island. He does his killing in darkness and hides the body disposal from Daniel.

Orlok makes no such pretense. He is old and rotting. He still wears the decomposing clothes of his era. His death doesn’t wait in silence, it is putrid and obvious. Ellen knows what she is confronting.

And of course, how they die is very different as well. Ellen chooses to die at the hands of Orlok, with no resurrection in sight. Daniel drinks himself to near death, which forces Armand to turn him.

I’m still chewing on how these differences, especially the endings, affect my interpretations, but damn is it fascinating to compare and contrast.

[the-crooked-library]

Nosferatu (2024) is unquestionably a multifaceted work, but what I personally consider to be the unifying idea behind its facets is that, for Ellen, Orlok represents validation.

Her fears are dismissed and called childish?.. He's a nightmarish manifestation of them.

She is consistently disrespected by everyone around her?.. He considers her his only equal. She never uses his title, it's permitted.

She is told to fix herself, misunderstood, and always isolated?.. He knows all the darkest parts of her and is delighted by them. He wants her just as she is, so much that he will lie, kill, and cross the ocean to find her.

The scene in their death/wedding bed is a direct parallel to the scene of her waking in that bed at the beginning of the film. She complains to Thomas that the "honeymoon is yet too short" and tries to pull him down with a kiss - however, he is worried about being late for work, and so he extricates himself and leaves. Cut forward to her sharing the same bed with Orlok, similarly early in the morning; he is startled by cock-crow and begins to rise, but she guides his head back down - and, even though he knows that he will die, he stays. He is her sexual and emotional desire, realized.

Given that there is a plethora of emotions Ellen is forced to suppress on daily basis, there is no singular correct interpretation of her relationship with Orlok. To erase any one of them is to render it shallower than it actually is; but there is no doubt as to why their attachment is mutual. To each, the other is something they’ve never had before.

[the-crooked-library]

Creative Lineage - Dracula, Orlok, and the others

Here's the thing: the relationship between Nosferatu and Dracula is incredibly interesting - especially considering that Nosferatu (1922) was based on Dracula the book (1897), and most subsequent visual adaptations of Dracula for some reason used aspects of that film as inspiration, instead of adapting the original novel directly. As a result, there have always been endless comparisons between the two; but, in light of our most recent Nosferatu (2024), I must expand on what I personally think is their most significant (in regards to both plot development and analysis) difference.

TL;DR: it's characters. The main source of divergences between Dracula and Nosferatu is that these stories consist of vastly dissimilar characters, stuck in relatively similar situations.

I could go into heavy detail, and I will - under the cut, for the sake of all our dashboards.

At first glance, the stories of Dracula and Nosferatu are almost identical. The beginning sections follow the same essential plot beats - a young, newlywed solicitor travels to a creepy castle in Eastern Europe to assist a reclusive Count in his immigration to the West. This Count is, in fact, a vampire (otherwise known as a nosferatu), and terrorizes the young man for weeks, before departing and leaving him imprisoned; the solicitor escapes, is rescued from the wilderness by a nunnery, and returns home - where the Count has already begun his murderous process of settling in.

Here, in my opinion, is where the similarities end.

The key to understanding Nosferatu is remembering that Orlok is not Dracula; Thomas is not Jonathan; Ellen is not Mina, and so forth; and despite the mutual inspirations that affect each film adaptation of either story, the characters never react to the plot as a viewer would expect, if their precursory experience has been limited to only one or the other version.

Naturally, there are reasons for the continued addition of Nosferatu elements to Dracula adaptations. The most prominent of them is that, quite simply, audiences enjoy a fated, dangerous, inadvisable monster romance. By and large, we are titillated by the taboo; and - without adapting Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872), or adding a vampiric element to an adaptation of Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1910), or expanding on the queer elements of Jonathan Harker's sojourn in Transylvania - the easiest piece of classic media to sample for this sort of theme is Nosferatu (1922).

The 1922 film was, in a sense, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (at least, enough to get the creators sued by his estate). In its efforts to circumvent copyright laws, it plays fast and loose with Stoker's lore and characters, renaming the Harkers, the Count, and everyone else - and, crucially, adding an element of erotic fixation that the vampire develops upon seeing a portrait of his solicitor's young wife. While still overseas, he builds a psychic connection with the melancholy and sensitive Ellen; it is both horrifying and sensual, and ultimately what she uses to destroy him - sacrificing her own blood and life to keep him out of his coffin until cock-crow. Ellen dies, but the sunlight annihilates Count Orlok, and the ending is a bittersweet new dawn.

This fixated, possessive, murderous eroticism (first displayed in its currently recognizable form by Carmilla) has become a cornerstone of the vampire genre. Elements of it are recognizable even in relatively modern media like Interview with the Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, as well as numerous Dracula adaptations (of which the 1992 Coppola film might be the most well-known); it is even present in other, indirect offshoots like NBC's Hannibal TV series. It is, therefore, essential to note that these overtones did not exist in the same way in Dracula the novel; and the reason for that is, specifically, a difference in character.

Count Dracula, while dangerous, vampiric, and psychic, does not possess that same singular fascination with any given character in Stoker's book (save perhaps for Jonathan Harker, temporarily). He does drain Lucy night after night, and his method of killing, like with all vampires of his type, is allegorically sexual; but it isn't personal. She keeps receiving blood transfusions - effectively, refills!.. Other than her blood, he has little interest in her. He has companionship enough already - after all, he lives with three female vampires, who may be courtesans or wives, but are colloquially referred to as Vampire Brides; and, additionally, he maintains ongoing communication with some of the people and animals that live on his land. As such, when he does bite Jonathan's wife Mina, it is a practical decision - made in order to establish a potential spy in a group of people who appear to be intent on hunting him down.

Similarly, Mina herself - despite the usual characterization of her film portrayals, which are in many ways epitomized by Coppola's 1992 version - was not originally a vulnerable maiden. She is confident and educated, she has worked for a living as an educator prior to her marriage, and she knows how to use a typewriter as well as shorthand. She has no emotional connection to Dracula whatsoever beyond pure incandescent hatred; and, frankly, forcing her into any sort of romance with him is deeply inaccurate to her character - because Mina Harker is endlessly in love with her husband Jonathan.

They may be on the lower end of middle-class, but relatively stable and planning a life together - not only as husband and wife, but as solicitor and secretary, as well. It's as close to a power couple as a novel from the 1890s will approach.

This is not the case for Ellen Hutter, largely because her social circumstances are far more precarious.

Unlike Mina, she has been forcibly isolated for the majority of her life. In that, she is yet another in the line of tragic madwomen of the gothic genre - mostly due to her eccentricities and her psychic gift, which (as the Eggers version specifies) manifested early in her childhood and became socially inexcusable during her teenage years, much like any real-world form of neurodivergence. It is implied that she has been institutionalized at some point as a result; and even prior to that, her father kept her confined indoors and away from other people in efforts to control her.

This isolation is what originally leads to her connection with Orlok - who was woken from his centuries-long deathlike sleep when he heard her reaching out into the ether, begging for a friend. Then, later in her life, the same circumstances unfortunately have a direct effect on her relationship with her husband Thomas, too; while she is attached to him, she cannot ignore that she is also utterly dependent on him as her ticket to a stable life, as well as out from under her father's thumb. Again, unlike Mina, she has no marketable skills or opportunities outside of this marriage; and while Thomas never shames her for her past, he still pressures her to ignore and repress it. The manifestations of her psychic ability concern, then unsettle, then frighten him - and, ultimately, there is a transactional aspect to their union. Thomas expects himself to move ahead in the world, like his friend Friedrich; and Ellen is expected to eventually become normal. She is expected to become a happy, pretty wife and mother like Anna Harding - because, while Thomas cares for her and fully intends to provide for her, he refuses to actually understand her.

Furthermore, it must be noted that leaving her father's estate for her husband's house did not entirely save Ellen from her isolation. Unlike Mina, she has no real friends of her own. Her only friend in the 2024 film is Anna, her husband's best friend's wife; and in the 1922 original, even that tentative affection is unclear. As such, Orlok remains the only character that truly knows and accepts her as she is - which inevitably complicates their dynamic.

While Orlok is, by his own admission, incapable of a human love, he is overwhelmingly and exclusively obsessed with Ellen. Unlike Dracula, who even in death keeps the company of his women and his people, Orlok exists in utter solitude. Prior to his death, he was also heavily avoided due to his being in "covenant with the devil." The 2024 film especially makes it clear that Ellen's call, which woke him from his slumber, is exceptional; their connection is intensely personal, and it is as close to love as he can ever feel.

This aspect of the vampire's characterization fundamentally alters the context of his behaviour throughout the film. While Dracula moved to England in search of new hunting grounds and little else, Orlok goes to Germany specifically to find Ellen. By marrying Thomas Hutter, she broke the covenant she made with Orlok in her youth; thus, knowing that his claim has been infringed upon, the Count makes contact with Hutter's real estate law firm, summons him to the Carpathians, crosses the sea, and arrives to Wisborg as a physical manifestation of every dark urge and ability she has been attempting to repress. He torments her husband, tricks him into signing a marriage annulment, plagues the city, and murders the Hardings - all of it for her. She is his unique and all-consuming motivation. Again and again, he insists upon their covenant, reminding her that she has never truly belonged to the human world, and he is not incorrect in his assessment. Ellen's surrounding society infantilizes and binds her, often literally. She has nothing to lose by leaving it, except for her own sense of morality; and that is why Orlok, who represents her own abnormality, remains a beautiful, nightmarish temptation.

The other characters diverge from Stoker's just as much.

Thomas Hutter has little in common with Jonathan Harker beyond his choice in career and his time at a vampire's castle. Despite his careful attachment to his wife, he does not actually take her opinions into consideration when he plans their life - he prioritizes his social and financial advancements, which are of no interest to her, and which he sees as his duties to her and to himself; and, when she exhibits any of her unusual or melancholic traits, he does his best to try and move past them as quickly as possible. He does not experience the same attraction to the horror that she does; he cannot bring himself to understand it; and both in 1922 and in 2024, he is also largely oblivious to her eccentricities, gifting her flowers despite the fact that she does not like to see them picked and dying in a vase. That is a far cry from Jonathan - who knows his wife's love of train schedules, who is practicing shorthand with her, and who is willing to join her in cursed, godforsaken undeath when faced with the possibility of her turning. Ultimately, Thomas exists too firmly within the same societal constraints that Ellen abhors, and their relationship has none of the foundation that is unshakably shared by Jonathan and Mina.

At the same time, while the Anna is a parallel to Lucy, and her husband is a corresponding Arthur, the Hardings (once again) have no particular commonality with them. Their characterization remains undeveloped in the original 1922 film - and while Eggers does grant them some definition, it is still in no way similar to Stoker's.

Stoker's Lucy is a charming, cheerful, flirty, and a little coquettish young girl; she exists on the cusp of womanhood and marriage, and her pre-vampire arc revolves around her choice between three almost-equally delightful suitors. She adores and idolizes Mina, she is childishly excited about her future; and in these things, she is very different from Anna, who is already married, a mother of two with one on the way - and who does care for Ellen, but in a motherly, rather than girlish, fashion.

Her husband, too, is quite different from Arthur Holmwood.

In 2024, Friedrich Harding is - above all else - the film's personification of the trap that is patriarchy. He is the epitome of what a man is expected to be: a successful business owner with a pretty blonde wife and 2.5 kids (I thought Anna's pregnancy was very much on the nose. Quite literally, 2.5 kids!). He is generous, he cares for his family, and he is firmly Rational. On the surface, Harding appears to be an ideal made flesh; and as the film progresses, it becomes evident that this ideal is designed to crumble.

Much of Harding's rationality is heavily hypocritical. While he claims to be making all his decisions based on pure logic, Ellen's - an outsider's - perspective exposes the truth behind his motivations. He ignores her warnings because he does not like her and considers her impudent; he kicks his own sick best friend out of his house with only his similarly sick wife to care for him, because he is annoyed and unsettled by their references to the supernatural; he refuses to listen to Von Franz and ignores the danger his family is in, because he is frightened of losing them to something he cannot comprehend, rather than a mundane, potentially treatable illness. All of these decisions are emotional, rooted in his misogyny and closed-mindedness - and so, Harding loses his daughters, his wife, his unborn son, as well as the unflappable, rational facade he had been so carefully maintaining. He ends the film a wreckage of himself, having committed necrophilia with the corpse of his wife because he was emotionally, irrationally unable to let go of her even in death; he dies of the plague that came to Wisborg through his own ship yard, holding her in his arms. Even under the guise of benevolence, his patriarchal worldview undermines and fails him entirely. It is a terrible thrill to watch him fall apart, and the ruin that is left in his place is one of the most obvious illustrations of the story's principal themes.

The other characterizations follow a similar sort of pattern. Sievers, unlike Seward, has no romantic rivalry with Harding; and beyond a professional connection, they are not really friends. Von Franz is far less knowledgeable about vampires than Van Helsing - for the majority of the film, he is stumbling in the dark with the rest of the cast, only finding a way of destroying Orlok in Herr Knock's codex. Knock, too, is far less noble than Renfield - even though he is just as insane as his counterpart, he sees Ellen as an object to be traded for money and power, rather than a kind soul that he would die to protect.

(Quincey Morris, unfortunately, does not exist in Nosferatu. Murnau hadn't found a place for a cowboy in his production; consequently, Eggers could not, either.)

The point is, really, that while Dracula and Nosferatu share a common premise, a comparison between them cannot be made without acknowledging the glaring differences between their characters. For instance, even though Orlok's relationship with Ellen is toxic in the usual vampiric way - part sex, part horror, part possession, part liberation - Thomas is by no means a perfect partner for her, either, because he is not Jonathan Harker, and Ellen is not Mina. Similarly, Von Franz, Sievers, and Harding are not a brave vampire hunting team - they are all blind, each in their own specific way (Von Franz, lacking straightforward knowledge; Sievers, trusting Von Franz without question; Harding, unable to think outside of societal rules). Expecting them to react to their situation the same way as the cast of Dracula is an exercise in futility.

As such, if you do get the chance to see the film again, or if it merely plays in the darkness of your skull when you close your eyes - instead of fixating on the few surface-level similarities between two different vampires and the people they haunt, allow the story of Nosferatu to seduce you on its own terms. Whether it is 1922 or 2024, we, as viewers, deserve its living blood - rather than the shadow of its predecessor.

[the-crooked-library]

Human vs Vampire Violence in Nosferatu

I've talked about this in the tags of another post already but i can't stop thinking about this so here it goes:

The majority of Ellen's suffering is due to mundane and socially acceptable forms of violence (e.g. medical) and that is not an accident. The script intends this. It is the primary underlying theme of Nosferatu (2024), it is the undercurrent to all her motivations, and the film wants the viewers to be aware of this, at least on some level.

Over the course of the story, Ellen Hutter is forcibly isolated by her father, dismissed and infantilized by her husband, drugged and tied to her bed by a doctor and her husband's friends, pierced through the arm by another doctor just to demonstrate that her soul "isn't there," insulted and kicked out from the Hardings' house (while still having psychic fits nightly), left to care for her sick husband alone without any support, never listened to - and all these things are excused!..

There's always some sort of justification, and it's usually either misogynistic or medical or both.

Her father isolated her because her psychic abilities frightened him, because she was too abnormal, and he thought that she wasn't fit to be around other people. Thomas dismissed her nightmares and ignored her emotional needs because he thought her anxieties were childish, that she prioritized the wrong things in life (love over financial advancement), and that she was incapable of good judgement; it's also the reason he is unaware that she doesn't like cut flowers, or that Harding hates her (even though she is very well aware of that, she evidently didn't feel like she could tell her husband). Similarly, Dr. Sievers believed that he had to do what he did, because Ellen was mad and had to be controlled. Harding, naturally, let him do it, and then did worse, and justified it all with “logic” and family values.

The point is that every single character harms Ellen on some level, despite what they might consider best intentions; and I think that a significant drive behind some of the more vitriolic online responses to this film is that many people are uncomfortable with that aspect of the story. Nosferatu demands that the viewer confront a fundamental truth of human imperfection - that someone who looks soft and Normal is, in fact, capable of causing pain regardless; and that invites a deeper sort of self-reflection. Perhaps, even accountability.

Our recently-resurgent purity culture shares this discomfort with Ellen's societal setting. For Thomas, for Sievers, for Harding, for us, it is much easier to blame harm and sin on a Monster From Somewhere Else, and pretend that a witch-hunt would entirely eradicate the problem.

However, the film demonstrates the inherent falseness behind this assumption. Even if Ellen had not followed Orlok into death, she would not have suddenly become happy with her human life - because his destruction would not have changed how she is perceived. She would have continued to endure far more insidious, systemic, violent abuse as a disabled, arguably queer wife and woman.

This is why the sensuality of her death/wedding is so crucial to the presentation of the film.

in Orlok, she embraces her own perceived "darkness," the aspects of her that her society believes are harmful and grotesque - her lack of deference to her husband (he terrorizes Thomas), her queerness (he drains Anna and destroys Harding's family), her psychic disability (he kisses Ellen's heart and drinks from her, reverent and tender). it is a scene steeped in both terror and ecstasy. She is joining Orlok in sin and in death - a twisted version of his proposed eternity; and in doing so, she is ascended.

It is incredibly poignant that, when her power over him is actually shown, it is far more emotional and commonplace than could be expected. There are no torches or stakes, no physical explicit battle; Ellen's unique, magnificent, holy power is merely the ability to ask for "more!.. More!" - and be granted that wish without question. Here, in a monster's embrace, she is valued more than a promotion, or propriety, or even Orlok's own life.

All that to say - Ellen's personal journey through the film does not culminate in a straightforward battle of "victim vs abuser." Despite what a cursory overview might imply, the Final Struggle is a minor aspect; instead, the overwhelming majority of her story revolves around a build-up to a Final Choice. Similar to I Saw The TV Glow, or NBC's Hannibal, or a multitude of other narratives, it explores the balance between the horror of transformation and the horror of staying the same. A monster might grant the first one if you ask, and it will feel like dying - but society's already forced you into the second.

All there is left to do is make damn sure it kills you.

[the-crooked-library]

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ellen’s sex scene with Thomas is weird, unsexy, frantic, fully clothed and disturbing, while Ellen’s sex scene with Orlok, literal corpse, is slow, detailed, sensual, and they are both naked. The juxtaposition.

exaaactlyyyy!! it's about the INTIMACY

regardless of how desperate both Ellen and Thomas may be to conform to their socially acceptable marriage (they're both distinctly queercoded, Ellen wants passion, Thomas cannot give it, both of them see each other as a duty), they still do not and cannot understand each other. Ellen, who comes from a wealthy but abusive home, cannot imagine prioritizing material success over love and connection; Thomas, who self-deprecatingly refers to himself as a "pauper," cannot imagine ostracizing himself so completely from the society that very easily jeopardizes the livelihood of anyone non-conforming. There is a distinct lack of intimacy between them, only partially breached by anger and confrontation; which is, indeed, illustrated by their fully clothed, aggressive scene. It is more of an argument than sex.

Ellen's death-wedding with Orlok is entirely different - as you said, slow, sensual, reverent; it centers their closeness above all. They cling to one another, both overcome with emotion (self-professed inability to love be damned), perfect living skin against rotting flesh; the visual implication here is that there is, quite literally, nothing between them. They know each other entirely, the flaws, the beauty, and that understanding is more important than their own life or death.

One is a sex scene that is actually a fight, the other is a lovemaking disguised as murder, and I am obsessed

[the-crooked-library]

You made such excellent points- in OG book vampirism is imposed on Mina by outside force and Mina actually can be cured from it if they kill Dracula. But if not Jonathan is ready to become vampire himself. Ellen meanwhile was born like that - with her psychic paranormal abilities. Orlok didn’t make her like that, that’s her forever part. But Thomas essentially wants her to be normal, while she never was in the traditional sense and can’t be normal and in his hunt for Orlok seems to believe that killing him would not only save but cure-fix Ellen too. It won’t. I mean Thomas is the one, who proceeds to have sex with Ellen when she’s not even feeling perfectly coherent, not entirely self, because he wants to show his masculinity or idk. Imagine if after Dracula’s attack on Mina and Mina telling about it Jonathan would immediately proceed to have aggressive sex with her instead of just comforting her, because he needs to reestablish his husband’s rights or something? Like that’s not. But that’s the part of why book Jonathan and 2024 remake Thomas are different characters.

Thank you - I'm glad you've enjoyed them, and they do actually connect to the scene you're mentioning here!

There is a lot to say about this particular sequence, mainly because it forces two characters to deal with each other and face the reality of their marriage, while both are emotionally stripped to the bone and unstable. The result is an incredibly revealing scene. It digs into the Hutters' insecurities, fears, hurts - and even though they largely fail to communicate within their fictional framework, the viewer gets a veritable feast of information regarding them both.

Throughout this scene, Ellen is evidently in a psychic trance; as demonstrated by Von Franz and his needle, during these "fits" she is at least partially astral projecting; her soul is not entirely housed in her body and she often appears to be sleepwalking (which might be a reference both to the original 1922 Nosferatu and Eggers' earlier project The Witch). In this state, she is also not in control of the baser, more physical, less rational passions and desires; she is unbound, stripped of her usual repression - and what lies beneath is a lifetime of neglect, loneliness, and disrespect, as well as all the pain and rage she consequently feels. This is not a surprise for the viewer, who has already witnessed her suffering, her lack of autonomy, and her argument with Harding; but it is absolutely a surprise for Thomas.

Thomas cannot fathom why Ellen would be angry with him; in his mind, he has done everything right - provided for her, prioritized their financial advancement, came back to try and save her from the monster he knows is after her. However, what he fails to understand that he has also cut their honeymoon short, that he left her right after that to travel to another country, that she never cared about wealth beyond being able to afford a somewhat stable existence; what Ellen wants, above all else, is to be known, understood, and respected - and Thomas has failed to give her that. He discourages her from talking about her dreams, he does not understand her priorities in life, and he cannot help but patronize her, even when he is attempting to express his affections. Her visceral anger is a shock to him, it catches him entirely off-guard, and then she drops a final bomb - "you could never please me the way he does."

What Ellen means here is that Orlok, a monster, is the only one who has ever understood her - because she is herself a monster. What she is trying to do is bait Thomas into exposing what she believes he truly thinks of her, now that he has seen what she becomes, liberated by the nightfall.* This is obviously a toxic thing to do, but Ellen is not a healthy or balanced individual, and this is a gothic story, so yes, she baits him (rather blatantly, in my opinion; but I've seen people confused about it, so who knows. Admittedly, I have a rather specific sort of practical background, as far as relationships go). Point is, what she expects from him is a rejection; and what she craves, desperately, is his acceptance.

What Thomas hears, however, is that another man has infringed upon what is legally his - and that his masculinity is in question, rather than Ellen's humanity; which lands a critical hit against his already damaged, patriarchal, 19th-century-misogynistic ego.

To fully understand his reaction, we must really dig into his overall narrative context. From the very beginning of the film, and throughout the story, Thomas Hutter's struggles revolve around his continuous emasculation. He is a low-level part-time employee at a real estate firm that is run exclusively by older, well-established men. He is played for a fool by foreigners who steal his horse (they were just trying to save his life, seriously, they didn't think he'd hike the fucking Carpathians on foot in the winter, but that's not how he perceives that situation). He is trapped in Orlok's castle - and, given the sexual allegories of vampirism, arguably assaulted. I'm not going to go into the full background of queerphobic stereotypes and opinions; still, suffice to say that not only would that experience have been traumatic (understandably so), but also that the act of submitting to penetration (here, biting) by another man has been historically seen as inherently emasculating and degrading. In the context of Nosferatu (or Dracula, or Interview with the Vampire, and others), this scenario is, on a largely Doylist level, a bodice-ripper fantasy; however, that doesn't make it any easier for Thomas to accept. To submit to another (even a richer, older, infinitely more powerful) man is a problem - but to enjoy that position is unforgivable.

All that to say - by the time Thomas returns to Wisborg, his sense of self-worth is in shambles. The narrative has assigned him the role of a Damsel in Distress, which he fits perfectly and obviously resents. Thus, when he hears yet another insult from his wife - who may be higher-born, but still his wife, and thus below him - he reacts accordingly, with fury.

Again, in anticipation of discourse wank - this is not a good thing; his reasons are clear, I understand them, I do not excuse him. What Thomas does at this point is attempt to aggressively reassert his claim and right to Ellen as her husband. He's rough, but uninventive; he also doesn't worship her the way Orlok did; and, ultimately, even as he tries to demonstrate his continued interest and desire for her, he ends up proving her anxieties. When faced with a hallucination - a fraction of her psychic gift - he flings her away. Crucially, he cannot "show" Orlok their love.

After that, he does try to reassure her, be gentle with her, declare his love - but, really, he might as well mark that off as another failure. She has seen how terrified he looked, and she will not believe a word he says.

The whole scene is a distillation of their dynamic. It's one disconnect after another, strung together by his inability to listen, her lack of trust, and their shared resentment. Thomas and Ellen's relationship is hindered at every turn by the misogyny, queerphobia, and repression that are built into the cage that is their society. The film is an exploration of that cage. Its bars are the driving force behind the plot.

* NIGHTFALL - the diurnal, or gas-lit (it's on the nose. it's SO on the nose) scenes are a visual shorthand for the "normal" accepted society. It is Rational (hence the scientific "gaseous" light), it is godly (sunlight), it is the domain of the Hardings and Sievers of the story. The moonlight and firelight provide a similar distinction to the scenes that delve into the Emotional and the demonic, removing the subjects from the usual societal restrictions; those light sources are generally considered to be magical, primal, raw. It's fascinating, seriously - if you ever watch this film again, try to pay attention to the lighting!

[the-crooked-library]

You are so right with your takes about Nosferatu that someone who looks soft and speak nicely is, in fact, capable of causing pain regardless. Add Von Franz to it. On the surface he’s silly funny grandpa who talks to Ellen nicely and is attentive to her and understands her. And in what it culminates? In that he’d gladly use her as a sacrifice to solve their vampire problem! He has no problems to use her in such a way, he has no problem with sacrificing another human being, he’s not even particularly heartbroken when she dies -he just arranges the flowers on bed ritualisticly and takes her cat being very happy and proud with himself ! He also has that maniacal episode when he laughs like a lunatic in the manor and burns everything down, laughing while he knows Ellen is feeding herself to vampire. Because he actually failed her too, because he didn’t even try to find or use other methods to kill Orlok like staking him or dragging his body during daytime to daylight and just burn it. All his nice eccentric talk and his interest in her occult powers, all it was just a fancy to him for research purposes, and ultimately just so he could use her as a tool against vampire. So we have Sievers who ties her up and drugs her against her will, Harding who supports that and hates her and Von Franz who talks soft on the surface and under surface is quick and ready to essentially kill her if this killing would help against vampire. Plus Thomas who doesn’t fully understand her, is afraid of her powers and would try to have sex with her because of his fragile masculinity despite Ellen being in not right state mind at that time. It seems Ellen indeed had no chances in the land of living with such normal people around her.

exactly - and Von Franz especially is an interesting character in that sense, since (as you said) he does present himself as a largely benign, eccentric, funny old man. The way he treats Ellen is not perceived as an outright attack, as it is with Harding or Sievers - or a betrayal, which is the connotation of Anna's snapping at her, or Thomas' horror at her psychic fit. Ellen is, by and large, complacent with the way he speaks of her and to her; and that is because he represents the Moral aspect of society, of which she believes herself to be in violation.

Von Franz is seemingly kind, he prioritizes always the "greater good," he pities Ellen's lot in life - and he is curious, delving into the occult with all the excitement of a tourist; and while he is blundering and (unlike Stoker's Van Helsing) severely lacking information on vampires specifically, that is still the closest thing to acceptance that Ellen's ever received from a human. As such, she does not actively resent him as much as the others; but their relationship is still characterized by a distinct sense of obligation. Even if he is hesitant to broach the topic, she offers herself as a sacrifice; and that is, in a structural sense, a direct narrative follow-up to his professed worldview.

Their dynamic rests on Ellen's diagnosis. Von Franz believes her to be cursed - which is not only incorrect, but also the sort of statement that, contextually, bears a significant moral and religious weight. While the social influence and popularity of Christianity has in some ways diminished over the last two centuries, it is still so ingrained within the cultural setting of Nosferatu that it practically goes unsaid. However, what I think is important here is that, in various Christian-influenced folkloric traditions, a curse is often something that must be earned; while some curses happen as a result of sheer bad luck, others are just as often presented as manifestations of God's wrath at oneself or at one's ancestors - who, through some grievous sins, have doomed their entire bloodline to its effects (if you go looking for contemporary fiction featuring the subject, may I recommend Gogol's Terrible Revenge (1831)?.. His context is Slavic and Eastern-European, not German, but it's still a fascinating read). The point being, since she was 1) born with her powers 2) summoned Orlok herself 3) broke their vows by marrying Thomas, therefore being the reason he came to Wisborg, Ellen believes that she is uniquely at fault for her own - and everyone else's - suffering.

With that, sacrificing herself appears to be the next logical step; after all, she is already doomed. To her, it is atonement; it is an excuse to indulge a side of herself she has repressed all her life, guilt-free, for one last night; but you are correct in saying that Von Franz sees her primarily as a tool. Ellen's value, to him, is mutable - defined by circumstances (priestess or sacrifice), rather than inherent; and his easy willingness to sacrifice her, despite his tendency to ignore her complexity in favour of bland, palatable, angelic innocence, speaks volumes. Whether she is perceived with sympathy or vitriol, Ellen is still dehumanized. It may be seen as an allegory for the madonna/whore complex, disability porn/demonization, respectability politics perfect minority shit; I mean, take your pick. There's layers. The point is, within the eyes of society, she is expendable - no matter how you spin it.

That said, Von Franz is himself a heavily symbolic character. As the physical representation of Ellen's understanding of socially acceptable Morality, it is only expected that he would sacrifice her, and she is not only unsurprised by that outcome, but also justifies it - she believes that she deserves to die. His manic glee at the destruction of Herr Knock, who may or may not have been in the process of turning, is also something she (and thus the viewer) would expect; after all, the European understanding of morality in the 1830s (and in our modern day, let's be honest) was heavily Christian - and when Good triumphs over Evil, what else would it look like?.. How does a wrathful, vengeful God manifest?.. Would He laugh as He did the smiting?.. In either case, He does not offer much in terms of comfort to the sinners, and Ellen obviously believes herself to be one. She is struggling with overwhelming guilt, turning to one character after another for anything she could interpret as forgiveness; but Von Franz cannot reassure her that Evil does not come from within (the Father does not grant her absolution). Even as she reaches out to the most caring, sympathetic members of her surrounding society, she discovers that they cannot provide her the relief she desperately wants. As you say, she has no place with them. She does not belong with them or with God. She is not meant for humanity.

Rejected by the Light, Ellen is left facing a reverent, hungry Darkness that wants her more than anything in the world; and, curiously enough, Von Franz fulfills his Fatherly aspect in this regard, as well. Specifically, he plays the role of her father at a wedding.

He gives her away.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024 (Pt2: Femme Fatale: Seduce the Seducer)

A femme fatale (French 'deadly/lethal/fatal woman'), sometimes called a vamp, is a stock character of a mysterious, beautiful, and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, deadly traps.... Her ability to enchant, entice and hypnotize her victim with a spell was in the earliest stories seen as verging on supernatural; hence, the femme fatale today is still often described as having a power akin to an enchantress, seductress, witch, having power over men. A femme fatale tries to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm, or sexual allure.... In some cases, she uses lies or coercion rather than charm. She may also make use of some subduing weapon such as sleeping gas [or poison], a modern analog of magical powers in older tales. She may also be (or imply that she is) a victim, caught in a situation from which she cannot escape. In early 20th-century American films, a femme fatale character was referred to as a vamp, a reference to The Vampire, Philip Burne-Jones's 1897 painting, and Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Vampire", in the year Dracula was published. -- Femme Fatale, Wikipedia

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024

We all know & love AMC!IWTV's canon that the Unholy Family saw Nosferatu in 1922, and busted a gut rotflol over Hollywood's vampire.

But if Louis saw Nosferatu 2024, in the wake of Lestat in NOLA, and esp. Armand in Paris/SanFran/Dubai & Claudia's death, I reckon he'd be triggered on several levels. Ofc, one doesn't need to see Nos24 thru Louis' eyes/POV to recognize all the themes about the predatory nature of vampiric seduction, let alone the devastating ways vampires affect/abuse/take advantage/wreak havoc on human vulnerabilities like religious mania depression, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. But let's go for it!

The Closeted (Isolation, Repression, & Mental Illness)

In IWTV, Louis was a closeted gay man who had to grow up always hiding who he really was, for fear of punishment by his uber-Catholic family as well as society at large. Homosexuality was not only considered a mental illness, subject to extreme forms "treatment" including solitary confinement in a sanatorium (mental asylum--the same place his mentally ill brother Paul had already been sent that made him "worse than before"); but also a crime punishable by incarceration or even death.

I've long said that "Rashid"/Armand's treatment of Louis esp. in Dubai was more like a nurse than a servant--the kind of nurse that hates their job (being "stuck on suicide watch") & whose bedside manner effing SUCKS, having no patience for the mentally ill & no capacity to properly take care of them; just making things worse.

In Nosferatu, Ellen was always "touched" as a child, having the 2nd sight that allowed her to always know ahead of time what her Xmas gifts were, and know the date her mom would die. Her mean father thought she was a freak and had her closeted away & isolated from society, the family embarrassment. Even after she got married, Thomas' BFF Friedrich barely tolerated Ellen, and when her seizures started he had her tied & doped & corseted up--all the worst ways of caring for her that likely did more harm than good. Ellen even called him out on it, knowing Friedrich tied her up cuz he hated having to deal with her in the first place "I tire of discussing her; can we please talk about something else; the entire household centers around her fairy whims!," and got sick of her being in his house anymore.

Book & Hearth's video analysis of Ellen's mental illness in Nosferatu says this:

So, Louis/Ellen are both people stigmatized by Victorian society for things that were never their fault (homosexuality, mental illness, etc), either socially closeted/isolated (Louis) or spatially closeted/isolated (Ellen).

(Lestat kept whining in 1x3 & 2x7 about how the worst thing a vampire can feel is loneliness--as if that's not awful for humans to feel, too. 🙄 Esp. since vamps are immortal, they've got all the time in the world for someone to eventually show up & fall in love with them; unlike humans, who grow old & decrepit & die in no time flat.)

We see the extreme lengths Louis & Ellen would go to, to alleviate their loneliness & desperation for companionship, and their desire to feel seen & close to someone--even if that someone was the Devil himself: a vampire.

"Come to me" - Loustat & Orllen

Both IWTV & Nosferatu use Come to Me. It's a motif as old as Dracula itself, so it's par for the course, really.

"Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" --Lucy Westenra, Dracula

But both shows play around with it in interesting ways.

In IWTV, Lestat repeatedly chants C2M/Viens a moi to lure Louis to him. In 1x1 Louis actually runs away, fleeing to the church & prayed to God to help/kill him; only for the Devil/Lestat to show up & "give you death" by making him a vampire. But in 1x6, Lestat uses the song "Come to Me" to "get a rise out of" Louis, who swims the Mississippi to take his estranged husband back. But during the Trial, Lestat lied on Lou and accused him of saying C2M to "accost" Les instead--the human seducing the vampire. Meanwhile, Lou still has Les's master recording of C2M in 2022, which he plays for Daniel in Dubai--again proving that Les was lying on Lou & weaponized C2M against him.

Nosferatu24 plays the human-calling/seducing-the-vampire straight, where Ellen literally summoned Orlock. Lonely, she'd prayed to God for a companion, "a spirit of comfort," but accidentally roused the Nosferatu from his sleep as she kept repeating "Come to me."

Ellen accidentally called Orlock, and Lestat hunted Louis down--but both characters are still guilt-ridden by their open-armed acceptance of their vampire lovers, once they eventually realize that the person they thought would be their comfort/safety had only taken advantage of their loneliness, desperation & ignorance about their situation and the type of creature these vamps really were.

Louis' relationship with Armand doesn't 1:1 fit, since they never use C2M per se, but Armand DOES approach Louis similarly to Les, as the charismatic vampire who stalked Lou before finally confronting him, luring him & Claudia into the Theatre to recruit/convert them to his crazy AF coven/cult; and then using a series of lies, manipulations & brainwashes to take advantage of Louis' trauma post-Banishment to keep Lou as his (un)willing companion for 77yrs after killing his daughters.

The Death of 2 Daughters

Orlock's murder of Friedrich's 2 daughters is a chilling scene. The Nosferatu puts a spell on Friedrich while he's sleeping, his hand casting a spectral shadow over Friedrich's face to keep him pinned in his bed and trapped in his nightmares. Meanwhile, his 2 daughters & wife are screaming for him to help them, but Friedrich can't move or wake up, impotently clutching the gun in his hand as his wife & kids are slaughtered bu Orlock, just down the hall from him.

Orlock has both the little girls in his clutches, and throws them down like sacks of potatoes once he's done draining them, as their mother Anna helplessly watches, screaming, before he kills her, too.

This is painfully similar to how Armand instructed the coven to fog the minds of Claudia, Madz & Louis whenever they tried defending themselves, on top of their ankles being slashed so they couldn't move, escape, or fight back--esp. not once Lou was dragged away kicking & screaming to be buried alive, ensuring that he'd be helpless to do anything to save his 2 daughters from being murdered. The last thing he ever heard Claudia say was her screaming his name.

(Since this is 2024, Louis wouldn't yet be privy to the details Lestat reveals in S3 (2026). But if Lestat's also watching Nos24, he knows even more about Claudia's final moments than Lou does--that feeling of helplessness is only amplified by the fact that she's HIS literal Blood Child--he'd've felt her die the same way Louis felt Madz die. Drained after using his Mind Gift to save Louis with Banishment, Lestat's too weak to save Claudia as she burns. The last thing Claudia ever saw was her father just standing there, uselessly watching Armand & the coven burn her to death.)

Sexual Inhibitions, Awakenings, Stigmas, Salvation

Louis is often mocked/derided in the fandom as a d**kmatized Pick Me who only thinks with his loins to stay with toxic AF Lestat's "considerable considerables;" after years of closeted sexual repression.

"Do you remember the best you ever had? So imagine that flowing inside your veins again. Now multiply it by miles, to the rings of Saturn and back...." "He had a way about him, those first years, Lestat. Preternaturally charming, occasionally thoughtful. He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover, and my maker--all of those things at once. He had taken what he called un petit coup, the Little Drink. Not enough to kill me, but just enough to keep him fit. It takes an enormous amount of restraint for us, the Little Drink. For a human, experiencing it for the first time, it was…unsettling. And not for the physical toll on my body, which was significant, but for the feelings of intimacy it awoke within me."

Lestat's seduction of Louis was a sexual revelation/awakening, but it also spooked TF outta Louis. He fled Lestat's house in a gay panic, "vowing never to return." I also discussed how Lestat's C2M in 1x1 was dubcon/noncon, and mirrored Lestat in Paul's head, making both him AND Louis feel unclean.

She sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out. “Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day.” -- Mina Harker, Dracula

(Lou was bored to dangit death with Armand in SanFran (the gay mecca where he'd been enjoying his 2nd wind/try at a gay sexual awakening), mocking Armand for having been forced into ascetic celibacy by the Children of Satan, who made him forget he had a working peen (Lou was obvs mad that Armand wasn't using said peen with Lou--the Bed Death Truthers were right all along, LOL).)

Meanwhile, Ellen was outright called a "sinner" by her father when he found her lying naked after a (Orlock-induced) fit/orgasm.

Orlock stayed with Ellen for years, an incubus visiting her in her dreams & having sex with her (the best she'd ever had, as she later throws in Thomas' face, "you could never please me like he could"); but also throwing her into fits/seizures--"at first it was sweet...and then it turned to torture!"

In the end, LDPDL & Ellen use their sexual prowess to distract their vampire husbands long enough for their Murder Plots to be accomplished--a la Mina Harker in Dracula.

Louis is literally instructed by Claudia to seduce Lestat, keeping him distracted with sex while Claudia plans how to poison & kill him. Louis is afraid to fall back into the "well with no bottom" and "lose myself in him," and Claudia promises to be his salvation--pulling him out in time to strike the killing blow to Lestat.

Ellen is another femme fatale who welcomes Orlock into their marriage bed, where she forcefully holds him close as he notices the sun rising; keeping him distracted with sex long enough for the sunlight to cook him to death as she hemorrhages under him. Her suicide is her salvation/martyrdom, as she frees herself (and the whole town) from Orlock's clutches.

(Again, Armand doesn't have as neat of a 1:1 fit, since Louis doesn't distract him with sex to defeat him. But Louis still plays up his seemingly helpless submission to get Armand to allow the interview to continue, as if Daniel isn't threat, and as if Louis doesn't suspect Armand of foul play--at least not until the end of 2x5 ofc. But Armand constantly wrests control back, and by the end of the interview in 2x8 he ALMOST wins. Louis doesn't defeat Armand or save himself at all here--DANIEL defeats Armand & saves Louis instead, showing the leagues of difference between the threat Armand posed vs Lestat. )