“As Much As I Love The Novel…”: Why Robert Eggers Remade Nosferatu Instead Of Just Adapting Dracula

This article contains spoilers for Nosferatu. After a long journey that started with a teenage Robert Eggers directing and starring in a high school stage production of Nosferatu , the filmmaker opens up about why he decided to remake the classic silent film instead of adapting its source material. Based on Dracula, the epistolary 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, the original 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, or simply Nosferatu, follows Count Orlok, an ancient vampire who is obsessed with the wife of a real estate agent. Eggers is the latest director to remake the Nosferatu story, with Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok.

Speaking with Screen Rant, Eggers explained why he chose to remake F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu instead of adapting Stoker’s beloved novel. While Eggers adores the novel, he admitted that it’s too stuffed with the influence of the Victorian period it’s set in. He also says that he prefers Murnau’s creative decision to have the female protagonist become the hero by the time the credits roll. By focusing on the female protagonist, Eggers believed that there was a much more compelling story to be told, one he felt worked better for him than Stoker’s novel. Read his comments in full below:

I mean, as much as I love the novel, it is a little bit overstuffed with Victoriana. I think something about the Murnau adaptation is just a simple fairy tale. I actually think that simple fairy tale that is at the core of the Stoker novel is the thing that has made it so adaptable and so versatile and kept people so inspired over the past century.

Something that I really loved about the Murnau film is that it ends with the female protagonist being the heroine. I thought that it would be potentially more exciting if the whole film is told through her eyes, because it had the potential to be more emotionally and psychologically complex than an adventure story about a real estate agent. As much as it is a scary horror movie, and it is, there's even jump scares, it is a gothic romance, and it's a tale of love and a tale of obsession.

Through her eyes, I think we can really get into that mode more without it becoming the tragic anti-hero story of a lovelorn vampire, which I'm also less interested in.

What This Means For Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu

There Is A Reason Why Nosferatu Became Influential

There’s a lot of history between Stoker’s classic novel and Murnau’s silent film. The latter started as an unofficial adaptation of the former and eventually faced legal action that resulted in most copies of the film being destroyed. Thanks to several copies surviving, Nosferatu has evolved into an influential piece for the horror genre and film as a whole, and it even secured the number one spot in a 2024 ranking of Dracula adaptations by Screen Rant.

Eggers’ preference for Nosferatu over Dracula and his expected deep dive into research ultimately resulted in a narrative that ended up being more emotionally and psychologically complex than Stoker’s novel. Stripping away the socio-political observations of the Victorian era and doubling down on the dark fairytale residing in the bones of Stoker’s Dracula, Eggers’ Nosferatu was allowed to deliver a potentially definitive take on Nosferatu, even Dracula, to modern audiences early on with this decision.

Our Take On Robert Eggers Choosing Nosferatu Over Dracula

My favorite adaptation of the iconic vampire was Francis Ford Coppola’s extravagant take on the source material of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a lavish amalgamation of melodrama and gothic romance. Now, that adaptation is either tied for first or a close second. With Eggers’ version, vampires are terrifying again. While it’s nice to have such a variety of vampires, it’s even better to be reminded of the kind of horror they posed and to see what Stoker may have originally intended for the character, which has been lost throughout the years as Dracula’s been adapted over thirty times for film.

By focusing on Nosferatu’s unconquerable lust for Ellen and the ramifications he ends up bringing, Eggers tells an animalistic and violent love story that doesn't feel convoluted yet complex and delicate when it comes to his character’s emotions and psyche, which he extends to all characters. By stripping away a lot of the focus on Victoriana, Nosferatu feels more like a dark fairytale ridden with folklore that makes it equally scary and seductive. With the big change of lending Ellen the chance to be her own hero, like Murnau’s 1922 silent film, Eggers’ Nosferatu ends as something that is, while tragic, satisfyingly empowering.