Our ideas about vampires have evolved significantly since F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror debuted on the silver screen, but the first teaser trailer for Robert Eggers’ remake makes it seem like it’s going to be a moody, haunting return to the undead basics.
Set in 19th-century Germany, Nosferatu tells the tale of how an unsuspecting woman named Ellen Hutter (Lily Rose-Depp) becomes the latest obsession and target of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) — a Transylvanian nobleman and legendary vampire. It’s clear that Orlok already has some degree of influence over Ellen in the teaser as she wonders whether the menacing longing she feels is a sign of evil living within her. But while Ellen is somewhat certain that she’s being stalked by an otherworldly ghoul, very few of the people around her aside from professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) seem to know just how much danger they’re all in.
With its shots of a foreboding shadow reaching across the sky, the trailer illustrates how, much like the 1922 Nosferatu (which was an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel), Eggers’ film will dig into the way Orlok’s presence sets off a kind of slow burn hysteria that makes people question their beliefs and faith. And while it does look like the film’s mortal characters will put up a fight, it’s pretty obvious more than a handful of them will be way out of their depth when Nosferatu hits theaters on December 25th.
