#orlok x ellen

[darklinaforever]

I'll be honest, I had absolutely no idea that the 2024 Nosferatu movie would possibly go for an Ellen & Orlok thing. And I had concluded that if they did go that way (in the sense that for me a relationship between these two could only be in the form of twisted eroticism rather than a true romance to the Dracmina from 1992), well I wouldn't really care, even though I will always appreciate a twisted villain-heroine dynamic, you know, and part of me may have longed, I admit, as the trailers came out one after others, for that kind of twisted relationship between the vampire and the lady, without really taking an active interest in it. But, following the number of haters that I already see forming to be so against this idea of ​​a semblance of relationship between Orlok & Ellen, even if only in the simple sense of a twisted eroticism with the exploration of possibly dark sides in the young woman, well you know what ? It simply makes me want to ship them together first degree just to piss off these people. So I officially announce that I am on board the Orlok & Ellen ship ! Who is with me ?! (Also, I am waiting for analyses in parallel with haladriel / Saurondriel in the coming months...)

[deus-sema]

The idea of m/f ships where, in the most basic terms, a male villain is paired with a female hero has captured the imagination of many and will continue to do so despite all the pearl clutching and opposition to it on the grounds of it being problematic and what not. A simple reason is that this trope, if it can be termed as one, is considered by many to be thoroughly addictive and entertaining.

What it needs, in order to be done right, is one specific ingredient: The female character must be as fleshed out and nuanced as possible. She must possess individuality and her personality must standout, regardless of what role she has to play. She must have aspirations and motivations, be it small or big. She must keep evolving with the plot instead of remaining static. Her thoughts, actions and reactions must be coherent to the plot and her characterization. Her presence must be acknowledged at all costs. Likeable or not, her existence must not be overlooked, much less forgotten.

The finest 'problematic' ships, from my experience, are those in which the audience and/or readers feel compelled to understand and be invested in both parties, albeit in different degrees.

[see-arcane]

I'm kinda suspecting that the psychic dream vision stuff in Carmilla, was (one of) the influences on what Bobby Eggers' is doing with (for better or worse) Ellen and Orlok's relationship, along with what was already in the original Nosferatu and of course Coppola's Mina/Fuckula thing.

Eggers' for his part has almost certainly read the novella, along with whatever other 19th century vampire literature and older folklore he could get his hands on. Dude is a nerd like that.

I wouldn’t be surprised. If nothing else, Eggers is one for scrupulous historical accuracy in period pieces and folkloric background

[aniseya]

jumping on ellen x orlok before it has stans AND haters alike.. (bc let’s face it eggers seems to be going for macabre sexuality and desire while the obsession is still there and i love the phantom of the opera/wuthering heights implications)

[xxgothchatonxx]

So, my main hope for Ellen Hutter in next year's Nosferatu remake is...

please don't put her in a romance with Orlok. Please. Look, I love a monster romance as much as the next gal but we've had more than enough of Drac x Mina. I know she isn't Mina but she's the Nosferatu equivalent of Mina. The synopsis we've seen so far calls this remake a "gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake" soooo fingers crossed Robert Eggers (who I love, btw, so I do have faith in him) does it right. Not the Coppola (I know he wasn't the first to do it but his version certainly popularized it) faux-Ricean shit.

Also if Lily-Rose's version of Ellen gets to kick Orlok's ass (bonus if she's kicking ass alongside Nic Hoult as Thomas-Not-Jonathan - he did the Drac ass-kicking quite well the first time around!) that'd be awesome too.

[darklinaforever]

Lily Rose Depp, explaining that what served as her bible for the filming of the movie and her character is a story she read with a love story / sexual awakening between a human and a demon... Yes. There will definitely be something between Orlok & Ellen in this movie in terms of eroticism. Haladriel / Saurondriel fandom we will be well fed !

[darklinaforever]

Hi! Can you pls share where you read where Lily Rose Depp said her bible for the filming Nosferatu was a human/demon story? I am so curious

I haven't read it. I saw it in one of the French interviews she gave. Here :

She explains (from about 4 minutes 30 to about 5 minutes 20) that each actor received several reference lists for their characters. Lily Rose Depp received among her reference list beyond films a text to read about a young girl who would have a love story / a sexual awakening with a demon, so a very relevant text for her. It is a text that helped her a lot, inspired her a lot, which served her as a bible during filming. Her words, not mine.

[deus-sema]

"But I'd never been so happy...."

[see-arcane]

As a fan of the book Dracula and Dracula-adjacent media, I am very used to disappointment. I can still clap when the media is impressive while pretending the characters do not have the names they have. After enough trailers and interviews, I see Nosferatu 2024 is now sadly in that category, RIP to Thomas and Ellen Hutter, the un-Harkers set to get the Francis Ford Coppola treatment ala Robert Eggers. But if directors can play dolls and make the Mina/Ellen character do bloodstained kissy kissy with Dracula/Orlok, I can do this:

ACTUALLY SUBVERSIVE IDEAS I’D BE COOL WITH IN NOSFERATU (2024) FROM LEAST TO MOST COOL

Idea I’d Be Least Cool With, But Seems Eggers-shaped:

Ellen goes full Thomasin x Black Phillip, giving into the darkness~ ooh she loves her some Orlok, talk cadaverous to me babey~ And they make out bloody style and devour the puritanical human society because Eggers will pull a del Toro and make 99.99% of the human characters assholes not worth saving from the Horrors. Maybe Thomas and un-Van Helsing are left standing, maybe not. But it’s basically the Eggers MO of Monsters/Myths > Humans, however innocent or evil, extra dark ominous ending.

Idea I’d Be Somewhat Cooler With:

Ellen is 2 goth 4 U Thomas. But she’s also not oblivious to how Orlok is going to drink everyone. Which is bad. So she’ll 1) embrace her own dark inner lust and monstrosity~ while also 2) pulling a Bride of Frankenstein climax (We belong dead.) to see to it that she and Orlok are destroyed by sunrise. Not a ‘She was too pure for this sinful Earth!’ ending, but a ‘She was too gothique and eager to monsterfuck to hang around with you prudes. But fiiine she’ll destroy herself and her beloved Orlok to save you all or whatever. :/’ Which is slightly better than the scenario of un-Van Helsing and/or Thomas executing her and Orlok. So. Sure. Vampiric murder suicide, dying with her True Orlok Love (Orlove) uwu

Idea I’d Actually Be Pretty Cool With:

Eggers says he’s focusing on the sex/death drive and love story of Nosferatu (many asterisks here). If he has the guts for it, he’ll turn it on its expected heel and do the unthinkable—put a magnifying glass on Orlok getting very weird with Thomas. Who he drinks from first. And leaves imprisoned rather than outright killing him.

“But how do you explain him coming at Ellen’s invitation? What about the whole locket scene??”

Well, that’s where the bittersweet bit happens. Heavy on the bitter. Because if Eggers wants to really put his heel down on the horror part of vampirism and Dracula’s original MO, this would be the perfect point to do a bait and switch with Ellen herself. She wants Orlok? Wants him to ravish and drink her and make her one of his undead so they can be vampires together forever and ever?

“You want me. My touch, my gift. This I know. But the question remains,” cue that sharp little rat grin, “why would I ever want you?” Remember; the only one that explicitly craved what Dracula had to offer in the novel and in Nosferatu was the Renfield character. The one who saw the Count as a means to their end, who pined for him and what he could give. Bar the more sexual/amorous elements with Eggers-Ellen, she’s going after the same thing. This, when Classic Dracula is very much about preying on those who are terrified of and/or loathe him—he’s a conqueror, not a suitor. If you want it, he doesn’t want you. So it’s very possible that Ellen’s unwittingly set herself up for not only disappointment, but a potentially violent end.

“Sounds fucked up. But again, where’s the ‘love story’ bit? What’s up with him taking the locket?”

The locket that Thomas had. Of his wife, who he loves. Who he risked death and worse to crawl his way home to. Who, if he’s anything more like the novel Jonathan Harker he was based on, would become aware of Ellen’s condition/Orlokian preference and simply be heartbroken, yet still unable to turn against her. Ever.

Thomas Hutter’s heart belongs to Ellen, breaking or not. Thomas is also the one who Orlok clings to like his own shadow for the entire stay in the castle. The locket is taken not because it’s an image of Ellen <3, but because it’s an image of the competition/distraction for Orlok’s pet real estate agent who he is Very Normal about. And this is all supposing he doesn't just outright destroy the locket in a petty rage, per the vile thing-mirror scene.

The climax comes with Orlok about to off Ellen, only for Thomas to arrive and offer a trade. Him for her. Orlok takes the deal, latching happily onto Thomas and setting himself up for the sunrise trap. It would make sense. It would boot the old Reinforced Hetero rule of ‘he has to be drinking a pure maiden for it to work!!’ It would be genuinely subversive and tragic as a gothic love triangle, perhaps capped with un-Van Helsing arriving too late and finding Ellen grieving over the corpse of Thomas, Orlok having gone to burning dust as he fed.

Which could lean toward a special knife twist ending in itself:

Ellen mourns not just what was lost, but what she threw away, not realizing what she had in Thomas until he died for her. Tragique. ...Unless.

Ellen refuses to let un-Van Helsing ‘desecrate’ Thomas’ corpse with stake and saw. In fact, she kills him outright when he tries. Cut to the next evening, where Ellen sits patient and unblinking at Thomas’ bedside. The sun goes down. Cue some implying beat in which we realize that Ellen’s clocked that she’s been misinterpreting her prophetic dreams all this time. An epiphany that comes to fruition as we see her smile at some sudden change off-screen while facing Thomas’ cadaver on the bed.

The Embodiment of Death she was pining for was never Orlok, but Thomas. Rather, Thomas fully metamorphosed into Nosferatu.

“Come to me,” she whispers. “Hear my call…”

Thomas hears. A claw-tipped hand raises up to hers. The wedding ring on it gleams.

The End. (?)

It won’t happen. I know it won’t happen. But goddamn would I love to be proven wrong.

[see-arcane]

1922 Nosferatu: Ellen has pure heart, she has a loving and supporting husband, she does all the research to find a way to kill vampire, sacrifices herself to save her town and husband and then after vampire is defeated she dies in the arms of her husband

2024 Nosferatu: Ellen isn’t pure, she has dark forbidden desires or some shit, she’s into Orlok now because reasons, her husband insults her at one point basically saying that she’s crazy, she splits the planning how to defeat vampire with Van Helsing-knockoff now for whatever reasons, losing at least half of her original agency and dies caressing corpse of the vampire.

Man, we totally regressed as society

I don’t see it as a societal thing so much as a ‘distorting characters until they’re unrecognizable’ thing. It’s the same frustration I hit with a lot of the better-done but still wildly disconnected from/disrespectful to Dracula media.

‘I could have really enjoyed this if you weren’t trying to convince me these OCs are actually the characters from Dracula.’

Eggers is doing the same thing here. Like Mina before her, Ellen gets her canon agency stripped away, gets her genuine romance with Thomas spoiled, and then gets turned into the villain’s body pillow with only scraps of her original heroism left behind

It’s just how things are done, apparently. Take the most progressive horror stories of late 1890s and early 1900s and, for extra edgy This is How It’d REALLY Happen!!1! points, completely gut the best qualities of the characters and also double down on the rotten stereotypes of the time (with Girl x Vampire Man free space)

[see-arcane]

The situation with Eggers proves that it's not some magic solution for creatives to read books and watch movies, then they'll automatically get it, as many people on tumblr think. Eggers literally said how much he loves Murnau's film and watched it many times- then he goes and does almost everything against the very essence of Murnau film like rewriting Ellen to fit into his fanfic with Orlok, shitting on Thomas in a mean way, [1/]

"Yeah, I'm a huge fan of this story! It's just that I think it would be so much better if I hollowed it out like a sad little avocado skin and replaced all its parts with my personal Girl One x Vampire Man (and the guy who loves his wife is ditched like the milksop loser he is lol) fanfic!" --Francis, Eggers, every other dude to get their hands on a Dracula, apparently