Happy Halloween! IGN can exclusively reveal five new character posters from director Robert Eggers’ forthcoming retelling of Nosferatu, The posters can be seen via the slideshow below.
The posters feature the characters played by Nicholas Hoult (as Thomas Hutter), Lily-Rose Depp (as Ellen Hutter), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Friedrich Harding), Emma Corrin (as Anna Harding), and Willem Dafoe (as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz).
Eggers’ Nosferatu is officially described as “a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.” Bill Skarsgård stars as the vampire, Count Orlok.
The film is, of course, a remake of the 1922 German Expressionist classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, directed by F.W. Murnau. Murnau’s film essentially ripped off Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula so Stoker’s heirs sued for copyright infringement. Nearly all copies of the film were destroyed as a result of a court ruling but it has nevertheless managed to survive to this day.
The making of Murnau’s Nosferatu served as the basis for the 2000 indie film Shadow of the Vampire, starring John Malkovich as director Murnau and Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck, the strange actor who plays Count Orlok (and who might just be an actual vampire).
The original Nosferatu’s Count Orlok is among our picks for the most influential monsters in movie history, while Murnau’s Nosferatu ranks 24th among IGN’s best horror films of all time. and lands at No. 3 on our list of the Top 25 vampire movies. (Shockingly, it was reported in 2015 that F.W. Murnau’s head had been stolen from his grave in Berlin!)
Eggers’ version also isn’t the first remake of Nosferatu. Werner Herzog’s 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre starred Klaus Kinski as the vampire.
Focus Features will release Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu in theaters nationwide on Christmas.
