NOSFERATU: An allegory for depression?
Commentary and spoiler review on the 2024 retelling of the classic horror.
This analysis contains spoilers. You have been warned ;)
I came out of this movie on the day after Christmas thinking, “Boy, that movie was juicy.” Then I thought: I think this movie could have a deeper meaning than just surface-level horror.
Let me explain.
The movie opens with Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) calling, “Come to me,” from her window at night with tears in her eyes. You would recognize this scene from the trailer. She makes a plea for comfort and is led to another room with the curtain billowing inward with the shadow of the creature hidden there (such as the image above—it’s a really cool shot).
This scene is basically the catalyst for the events of the movie. As Jeremy Jahns put it in his top movies of the year video, she “slid into the DMs of the wrong guy.”
I can’t go into great detail about the step-by-step plot of the movie without doing it a great disservice, so let me just explain to you why I believe Nosferatu could be a greater allegory for depression.
Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) wants to provide for his new wife, Ellen. He does this by selling off a piece of property to a wealthy buyer, Count Orlok, under the condition that he deliver the paperwork in person. While everyone around him thinks this is a fantastic opportunity and “adventure,” his wife desperately urges him not to go, as she has a terrible feeling about the whole thing. It is heavily implied that Ellen has suffered with melancholy in the past, and the same people praising the opportunity claim she feels this way because she will miss Thomas while he’s gone.
I mean, yeah, but what about the demon thingy?
So while he’s away, she stays with some friends, Friedrich and Anna Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin, respectively), who have two daughters and a boy on the way. Thomas and Friedrich mention Ellen’s melancholy, and Thomas asks him to take good care of her.
What follows is a crisscross between the classic Nosferatu and Dracula. Plot-wise, Thomas is taken captive by Count Orlok (like Johnathan Harker) and left for dead as the vampire travels by boat, killing the crew with his plague (similar to classic Dracula). Bloody massacres ensue, and bada-bing bada-boom, Ellen sacrifices herself to save the city.
Obviously, there are way more things that happen than I’m describing here, but I didn’t want this to be a step by step rundown of the film.
Basically, there are many points where Ellen herself describes the “darkness within” herself, and the horrific dreams that she has. In one particularly descriptive account, she tells Thomas about the dream of her wedding to Death and how happy it made her. Thomas tells her not to speak of that, but I felt like something deeper was happening here.
As Count Orlok becomes obsessed with her and tracks her down, he is referred to as “the darkness,” and he brings much destruction in his wake as he manifests as demonic possession in Ellen and eventually tears through Friedrich’s family. To me, this is a great illustration of how depression, when a fully developed in a person, can wreak havoc on the people around them. In Ellen’s case, so many people cared for her, but her “melancholy” ultimately destroyed them. We see the struggle Friedrich’s family goes through when she’s in their care, even enlisting a special professional to take a look at her. This would be Willem Dafoe’s character, Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz.
There’s even a point where Ellen confronts her own husband to tell him that he can’t satisfy her like he (Orlok) can. I really hate to say this, and I wouldn’t say it unless I’ve witnessed this myself, but sometimes a person can be “in love” with their depression. I say this in the sense that they are almost addicted to it (hence the comparison).
I believe that the more Ellen becomes addicted to her own depression, the more tragedy falls on the world around her and her episodes increase. Ultimately, it is Albin who implores Ellen to “search the darkness within” herself and face the evil to save the city.
While Thomas fights for her in the best way he knows how (going after Orlok’s tomb), Ellen is calling to Orlok (her darkness) to end it by herself. She is recognizing, and embracing that darkness to confront it. By doing so, it ultimately ends her. Sadly, if you take this allegory like I did, it would look like she purposely ended her life to save the person she loved. In other words, she spared him from herself.
The whole purpose of the beginning of the film where she calls out for comfort (in my opinion) was her attempting to find some form of meaning, or comfort in her melancholy (which was repeatedly confirmed throughout the movie that she has suffered with). Her pleas summoned a deeper darkness, almost as if no matter how hard she prayed, her condition worsened.
It’s certainly a difficult experience to describe, but if you, or anyone you’ve been close to has suffered with depression, I think you would understand what I mean here.
At any rate, from the moment she described her dream to her husband, that’s when I started watching the film through the lens of, “is this a take on real melancholy?” I’d like to rewatch it with the same bias, just to see if it holds up on second viewing, even though that scene happens pretty early on.
Fun fact: there are many cats in this movie. According to some folklore, cats are the guardians of dreams, and I think the movie was trying to portray this. In that context, their presence in certain scenes completely makes sense. No cats are hurt in the story, but one poor pigeon is. Just a fair warning for animal lovers out there.
The End.
That’s it! I recommend this movie. It’s one of the best ones of the year, next to The Substance in my opinion. Granted, even though it is a retelling, it has a lot of great elements to it, and my interpretation of the relationship between Ellen and Orlok make it that much deeper for me. You may feel differently, so give it a watch and let me know what you think!
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