October Horror Movie Challenge: Nosferatu (2024)

 Tonight is a good one. I saw this near when it came out and was going to talk about it then, but I think tonight is a good night for a rewatch. Plus it give Bill Skarsgård a chance for a better movie than last night's.

Nosferatu (2024)

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) isn’t just a remake; it’s a resurrection. Like the vampire at its center, this story keeps returning from the grave every few generations, and somehow, each time it reflects the fears and fascinations of its age. I’ve covered this story before, the eerie, expressionist nightmare of Nosferatu (1922) and Werner Herzog’s hauntingly romantic Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). Eggers’ version stands confidently beside them, not as a copy or homage, but as a fever dream that feels both ancient and new.

This film bleeds atmosphere. Eggers’ knack for historical texture is on full display here, shadowed streets, candlelit halls, and the creeping weight of superstition pressing in from every frame. You can practically smell the damp wood and grave dust. It’s a gorgeous film to look at, but more importantly, it feels lived in, the way all great Gothic horror should. It feels like it was shot at the same time as the original 1922 version, only you are not watching a film from 1922, you are living in Wisburg viewing the 1890s from the 1920s.

The cast is exceptional across the board. Bill Skarsgård (who is becoming a bit of horror icon) gives us a Count Orlock who is both pitiful and terrifying, a creature shaped by hunger and loneliness as much as evil. He’s not the romantic vampire of modern cinema (like his brother Alexander's character Eric Northman of "True Blood") and is more the plague and death himself, given human form. It’s not surprising that Skarsgård disappears under the makeup; what’s impressive is that he still conveys so much anguish through it.  Watch his eyes. 

Nicholas Hoult as Hutter (or Harker, for the original Stoker version) plays the role with just the right blend of innocence and mounting dread. Lily-Rose Depp brings a fragile, almost ethereal quality to Ellen (Mina), the film’s tragic center, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Harding/Holmwood) and Emma Corrin (as Anna/Lucy) round out the cast with sharp, grounded performances that make the human drama as compelling as the horror.

And of course, Willem Dafoe as Professor Eberhart (Eggers’ Van Helsing figure) is a treat. It’s impossible not to appreciate the meta-textual layer here, Dafoe once played Max Schreck himself in "Shadow of the Vampire (2000)," a film that imagined the making of the original Nosferatu with Schreck as a real vampire. Seeing him now on the other side of that mirror is a delight for longtime fans of the myth.

Where the 1922 version was stark and alien and the 1979 film was slow and melancholy, Eggers’ Nosferatu is feverish, baroque, and tragic. It’s horror as folklore; personal, physical, and cosmic all at once. The tone is closer to The Witch or The Lighthouse than Dracula; it’s about fear of the unknowable and the price of obsession.

I loved it. It’s the rare modern Gothic that understands how to be beautiful and horrible in equal measure. Eggers never mocks the old tropes; he reveres them. He lets the candlelight flicker, the coffin creak, and the silence linger just long enough to make your skin crawl.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Do I even need to go over how this would work in-game? Pretty much Ravenloft and Vampire the Masquerade were based on the original movie and the associated Dracula myths/stories.

But taking a page from Egger's books use vampires that are not all "good evening" and charm. Some, most even, should be Death on two legs. 

In this movie Orlock was a Solomonar, or a type of evil sorcerer. This puts him more in line with the Dracula of "Powers of Darkness" and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula." So there is a lot of different things you can do with a vampire like this than you typically see with Dracula. 

In NIGHT SHIFT a vampire with levels of Sorcerer or Witch is truly terrifying creature. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 18
First Time Views: 16

The Enchanted World: Night Creatures

 I wanted to have more of these done by now, but I fell out of the habit and it became easier not to do them. Well, how about I restart them. 

There are three books in the Enchanted World series that would be good for Halloween, but given my October Horror Movie Challenge is all about the monsters of my youth, this one is the most appropriate. 

Night Creatures

by Editors of Time-LIFE Books, 1985 (141 pages) 
ISBN 0809452332, 0809452340  (US Editions)

This one is also divided into four chapters. 

Chapter One: Perilous Paths through the Dark

We start out with a tale of Beowulf and Grendel, though from the point of view of Grendel and how it roamed the lands of Denmark for countless years at night. I am struck by the similarities between Grendel and Gollum to be honest. It also make Grendel's Mother seem more like some sort of Hag as well. It has a similar description to the Black Annis featured later in this chapter. A connection I have often explored.

We switch to tales of Nyx, and vampire bats, Hecate, and other creatures of the night. This chapter covers all sorts of night creatures. There is even a bit on Trows, which would have been great to have back in 1985. 

A Reckoning with the Fianna's Ancient Bane is the story of a young Fionn MacCumhal slaying a shadow creature on Samhain.

Chapter Two: Visitations from the Realm of Shadow

These creatures are the returned dead and ones from beyond the world of mortals. Smoke like ghosts and spirits and other minor phantasms to returned corpses bent on murder. The Night Hag, or Nočnitsa, of Eastern Europe plagued children at night threating to eat them. Their favorite meal was new born babies. Similar creatures were found in Scotland. 

There was also the Dream Lover, the Mara, who prefered to feed on men. All these creatures though are harmless compared to the mother of demons, Lilith.  Though I don't think Lilith was ever a blonde.

Even young women had to fear the dead's return with dream lovers of their own coming back to claim them as their brides. 

Chapter Three: Blood Feasts of the Damned 

Vampires are found in the myths and tales of every culture.  Tales from Iraq, Greece, Germany, Scotland, the Ukraine,  and more are detailed. Along with the various guises of the vampire. 

As varied as the vampires are all over the world, so are the means in which to dispatch them. A stake in the heart for some, an iron stake in the forehead for others. Sunlight for most. 

All of these creatures seek the blood of the living and often, the blood of those they loved.

This vampire chapter might some of the most well known material in the series to be honest. 

Chapter Four: The Way of the Werebeast

It is possible that shape-shifting humans to animals are the oldest sorts of monsters we know. Far more ubiquitous than ghosts, night hags or even vampires, the lycanthrope or werebeast is know all over the world.

Werewolves seem to be the most feared of Europe, likely due to the fear of wolves. In other parts of the world where other large predators live we find other werebeasts. In Scandinavia warriors would don bear skins and fly into a rage. We get the word berserker from this meaning "bear shirt." Likewise men of the Volsung clan would do the same with wolf skins. There is a bit here about shamans, but I wanted more.

In Japan the tales were a little different with wise creatures taking on the form of humans, or at least human like. There were also women who could transform into foxes. 

I am a little surprised there wasn't a significant amount of text on some of the shape-shifting monsters of India. But when you share a chapter with werewolves, werebears, and fox-women, expect lower billing. If any at all. 

Many of these tales are well know to anyone who has played RPGs, especially any horror RPGs. But a few might be new. Still I find little tidbits of information here and there that are wonderful to have. I must investigate the nočnitsa some more, and I am certainly going to revisit my own take on Trows. 

One thing that gets lost in the vampire and werewolf love of the last two chapters is all the varieties of hags mentioned here. Grendel's mother, night hags, mara, Lilith. Just great stuff honestly. Again, I should go back and challenge my notions on my Lilim demons. 

I also noticed how much this book looked like a Ravenloft book from the AD&D 2nd Ed era. Could be coincidence, but at one point I had this sitting on my freezer to take pictures and I had to double take to make sure it was not my Realms of Terror book. Too bad they are such odd sizes. I would buy and extra one and put it on my shelf of Ravenloft books.

This reminds me I really need to get back to covering these books.