50 Fun Facts About Nosferatu

Which cartoon series ended a 2002 episode with the vampire from Nosferatu playfully flicking a light switch?

SpongeBob SquarePants slipped him into the episode Graveyard Shift in place of an original character first planned for the gag. The writer meant it as a tribute to a monster magazine he had loved as a child.

Which author's widow sued the makers of the 1922 film Nosferatu for adapting a novel without permission?

Bram Stoker's widow Florence only learned the film existed from an anonymous letter posted in Berlin. She fought the case to the end without ever watching it.

The 1922 film Nosferatu was the first to depict a vampire dying from exposure to what?

Sunlight only weakened vampires in earlier stories such as the novel Dracula, whose Count walks the streets by day. The film turned that weakness into a death sentence.

What did a court order to be done with every print of Nosferatu after the 1922 film's makers lost a lawsuit?

Destroyed was the fate the ruling set for every copy, negative included. Several prints survived anyway, which is the only reason the film can still be watched.

Which pop star was cast in the 2024 remake of Nosferatu opposite Anya Taylor-Joy but left the project in 2021?

Harry Styles dropped out citing scheduling concerns, and Anya Taylor-Joy was later replaced too. The film finally went before the cameras in 2023 with two different leads.

Which feature did the 2024 Nosferatu give its vampire because noblemen of his homeland and era all wore one?

A mustache was a must for the director, since any man of that old culture who could grow one did. The vampire's costume borrowed from the military dress of the 1500s and 1600s.

Which animals did Delft refuse to let the 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre release in their thousands?

Rats, 11,000 of them, were wanted for one scene, so part of the shoot moved to nearby Schiedam. A biologist hired to handle the animals walked out over how they were treated.

Which institution named the 1922 vampire film Nosferatu on its 1995 list of 45 important films worth watching?

The Vatican issued the list to mark a century since the Lumière brothers first screened their films. Its picks were sorted under religion, values and art.

Which actor spent up to six hours a day in prosthetic makeup to play the vampire in the 2024 Nosferatu?

Bill Skarsgård first auditioned for the hero, Thomas Hutter, and was offered that part. His turn as Pennywise in the It films then persuaded the director to recast him as the monster.

On which holiday did the 2024 remake of Nosferatu open in cinemas across the United States?

Christmas Day brought it $11.55 million in a single day. The film went on to gross $182 million worldwide, more than its director's three earlier films put together.

Which little-known actor was cast as the vampire in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu after another star declined?

Max Schreck was so obscure that rumours later claimed he did not exist at all. The name was said to be a pseudonym for a far better-known actor.

In the 1922 film Nosferatu, which name does the vampire Count go by in place of Dracula?

Orlok was one of many names changed from the novel, yet the German title cards still admitted the story came from Dracula. Some later rereleases simply changed the name back.

Which director of The Witch and The Lighthouse released his long-planned remake of Nosferatu in 2024?

Robert Eggers announced the project in 2015 and meant it to be his second film. It ended up as his fourth, after years of delays.

Which actor played the vampire in the 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre, in makeup modelled on the original?

Klaus Kinski sat through four-hour makeup sessions without his usual outbursts, having taken to the Japanese artist who applied it. It was the second of his five films with the director.

Which German director made the 1922 film Nosferatu before leaving for Hollywood four years later?

F. W. Murnau sketched every scene in advance and rewrote twelve pages of the script himself, including the ending. In 1926 he joined the Fox studio in America.

Which actress replaced Anya Taylor-Joy as Ellen Hutter in the 2024 remake of Nosferatu?

Lily-Rose Depp won the part at an audition that changed the mind of a casting director who had doubted her. The director later gave her Ellen's prop locket to keep.

Which actor plays the occult scholar Professor von Franz in the 2024 Nosferatu, his third film for its director?

Willem Dafoe had history with the story: in a film from 2000 he played the actor behind the original vampire, and earned an Oscar nomination for it.

What does the vampire bring to Thomas Hutter's home town in the 1922 Nosferatu, a twist absent from Dracula?

A plague arrives with the vampire's ship, and the town's doctors never suspect its true cause. The screenwriter added the idea, and the 1979 and 2024 remakes both kept it.

The 1922 silent film Nosferatu is a landmark of which German art and cinema movement?

Expressionism runs through the film's eerie imagery and its rhythmic script, yet much of it was shot outdoors in real harbour towns, forests and mountains.

To which region does Thomas Hutter travel to meet the vampire in the 1922 film Nosferatu?

Transylvania's villagers recoil at the mere mention of his client's name, and his coachman refuses to go beyond the mouth of the mountain pass. Hutter walks on alone until after sunset.

Which German director remade Nosferatu in 1979, calling the 1922 original his country's greatest film?

Werner Herzog saw his remake as a bridge between the silent-era masters and Germany's postwar film revival. He shot it with a crew of just 16 people.

What is Thomas Hutter's profession in the 1922 Nosferatu, the job that sends him to the vampire's castle?

Estate agent is his trade, and the derelict house he is sent to sell stands directly across from his own home.

The 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre was filmed twice over to exist in German and which other language?

English was the American distributor's request, so most dialogue scenes were shot once in each language. The director later called the German cut the more authentic of the two.

The 2024 remake of Nosferatu was shot mainly at Barrandov Studios in which European capital?

Prague hosted the shoot from February to May 2023, and an entire village set went up outside the city. Its design drew on folk-architecture museums in Romania.

Where on the body does the vampire feed in the 2024 Nosferatu, following folklore rather than film habit?

The chest was chosen because old folk tales often pictured vampires drinking from just above the heart. Thomas Hutter wakes in the castle to find the bite marks there.

In which form did the future director of the 2024 Nosferatu first adapt the vampire story as a teenager?

A stage show came first, written and performed with a classmate at their high school. It impressed one onlooker enough that he invited the pair to restage it at a professional theatre.

Which actor plays Thomas Hutter in the 2024 Nosferatu, a part first offered to the man who became its vampire?

Nicholas Hoult said he felt real fear when the wolves on set had to be restrained before his chase scenes. He kept one of the vampire's prosthetics and had it framed.

Which Hollywood star produced the 2000 film about the making of Nosferatu, at first hoping to play its vampire?

Nicolas Cage handed the role to another actor who asked for it and stayed on as producer through his own company, Saturn Films.

Which film from 2000 imagines that the star of the 1922 Nosferatu really was one of the undead?

Shadow of the Vampire grew from a legend spread by a 1953 French film book, which claimed that nobody knew who had really played the monster. The actor playing its vampire earned an Oscar nomination.

In which mountain range does the vampire's castle stand in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu?

The Carpathians hide a castle said to have been forgotten by the world for centuries. The local peasants fear phantoms and werewolves and never venture out after dark.

In which present-day country were the vampire's castle scenes for the 1922 Nosferatu actually filmed?

Slovakia's Orava Castle, perched on a rock high above a river, played the vampire's home. The ruins of a second castle supplied the film's final image.

Which device did the director of the 1922 Nosferatu use on set to control the pace of his actors?

A metronome set the tempo of the acting on a shoot too poor to afford a second camera. That left only one original negative of the whole film.

How did the director of the 1922 Nosferatu die in California in 1931, a week before his final film opened?

A car crash killed him at the age of 42, just before the premiere of Tabu, a film he had travelled to Bora Bora to make.

Which Stephen King miniseries of 1979 modelled its vampire Kurt Barlow on the bald, clawed Count of Nosferatu?

Salem's Lot borrowed the look to make its vampire monstrous rather than charming. The same design later inspired creatures in Star Trek: Nemesis and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

The 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre opens with real mummified bodies filmed in a museum in which country?

Mexico's Guanajuato museum displays victims of an 1833 cholera epidemic. The director took the bodies out of their glass cases and propped them against a wall to film them himself.

Why could the 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre call its vampire Dracula when the 1922 film could not?

The novel was public domain by 1979, so the remake restored the book's character names. In 1922 the author's widow still held the rights.

In the 1922 Nosferatu, what does Thomas Hutter blame for the bite marks he finds after a night in the castle?

Mosquitoes get the blame, although Hutter is already carrying a book about vampires that he found at an inn. He had scoffed at it before packing it.

In which fictional German harbour town do Thomas Hutter and his wife Ellen live in the 1922 Nosferatu?

Wisborg was invented by the screenwriter, who moved the story from the novel's London to the north German coast. The real port of Wismar played it on screen.

Which character in the 1922 Nosferatu is both Thomas Hutter's employer and the vampire's secret servant?

Knock goes mad as his master draws near, strangles a warden to escape the asylum and is chased by townspeople who blame him for the deaths.

What does Thomas Hutter cut at the dinner table in the 1922 Nosferatu, drawing his host's hungry attention?

His thumb bleeds while he eats supper, and the vampire tries to suck the wound before his repulsed guest pulls his hand away. The next morning Hutter finds fresh punctures on his neck.

Which short-lived German studio went bankrupt soon after making the 1922 Nosferatu, its only film?

Prana took its name from a Theosophical journal, itself named after the Hindu idea of a life force. Its founders had planned a whole run of occult and supernatural pictures.

Which occultist artist co-founded the studio behind the 1922 Nosferatu and designed its sets and posters?

Albin Grau said the idea came from a wartime meeting with a Serbian farmer who claimed his father had been a vampire. He also drew the strange symbols in the vampire's letters.

Which French actress played Lucy, who gives her life to stop the vampire, in the 1979 Nosferatu the Vampyre?

Isabelle Adjani saw her heroine as slowly drawn to the vampire rather than merely afraid of him. The 2024 film's leading lady has said she watched that performance and loved the film.

Which ancient language, reconstructed for the film, does the vampire speak in the 2024 remake of Nosferatu?

Dacian was chosen because the director imagined the Count as an ancient Romanian nobleman. The villagers around his castle speak Romanian and Romani instead.

Which schooner carries the vampire in the 1922 Nosferatu, standing in for the Demeter of the novel Dracula?

Empusa loses every member of her crew on the voyage, leaving the vampire in command of the vessel. Prints that restored the novel's names called her the Demeter again.

Which screenwriter of The Golem wrote the script that turned the novel Dracula into the 1922 Nosferatu?

Henrik Galeen was a specialist in dark romantic tales, and his script was praised as full of poetry and rhythm. His pages for the final scene went missing, so the director rewrote them.

Which German city's old salt warehouses played the vampire's new home in the 1922 and 1979 Nosferatu films?

Lübeck's Salzspeicher stood abandoned when the 1922 crew arrived, and the city's lanes also host the hunt for the vampire's servant. The remake returned to the same buildings 57 years on.

Where in Berlin did Nosferatu have its 1922 gala premiere, with guests asked to dress in period costume?

The Zoological Garden's Marble Hall hosted the evening, a society party titled the Festival of Nosferatu. The 2024 remake held its world premiere at Berlin's Zoo Palast cinema.

Which West German band, regular collaborators of its director, scored the 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre?

Popol Vuh drew the music from one of their own albums, and the film sets it beside Wagner's prelude to Das Rheingold and a Georgian folk song.

Which British writer's 1885 article on folk superstitions gave the author of Dracula the word Nosferatu?

Emily Gerard glossed it simply as the Romanian word for a vampire. Scholars have never settled where the term really comes from, and the novelist seems to have thought it meant not dead.