Horror and love: our obsession with the morbid
As a cut-and-paste Dracula, the tale of Nosferatu may sound eerily familiar. The latest film edition — the third in a succession of imaginings — is a testament to our never ending fascination with the horror genre or, more specifically, fear and aggression.
Nosferatu : a review
I went to see Nosferatu and I must say, it was much funnier than I expected. Now, I don’t necessarily think this was the intention. There were certainly all of the classical tropes of the horror movie; creepy music, jump scares, terrible situations and images. Cinematically it was good, but to me it seemed more of a horror caricature. The language also felt very forced, with the writers perhaps taking the ‘Victorian’ brief a tad too far. Some of the costuming likewise prompted a chuckle: Aaron-Taylor Johnson’s giant orange top hat, for example. I am sure it was meant to be dramatic and horrifying to see Nicholas Holt face down before the fireplace, but it looked more like the morning after a hard night out.
The craving of fear is not a modern phenomenon. Indeed, the concept of the ‘sublime’ — described as an adoration of that which frightens us — has floated in the human psychology much longer than the coining of the term. The romantics (to whom I am partial) epitomised this obsession though, with poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge taking this desire for fear to the extreme. In almost abandoning the real world, figures of the past have indulged totally in the ‘sublime’, leading to the association of [good] art with suffering (my podcast episode on this very topic!).
That’s where Nosferatu comes in, because as the third iteration of a 130 year legacy, it shows that we never tire of the same morbid tales. Psychologically, we have anticipation bias, meaning that when we think something will happen, and it does, we feel satisfied with ourselves — very clever. Nosferatu had this in abundance, with the classic panning of the camera away from the empty corridor, Exorcist-like possession, and the jump scare (although not too many, which I liked — there was certainly more focus on eeriness and narrative than scaring the audience).
The fact we saw the Count more and more throughout the film slightly stripped him of his mysticism. Where Count Dracula maintains his mystery and is the true vampire, Nosferatu is more led by his emotions, his needs, his serial killer intention. By the time he reaches Germany, he is more akin to Jack the Ripper than Dracula, which adds an intriguing layer to the underlying themes of the original Stoker novel.
Themes, themes, nothing but themes
In this way, horror (much like fantasy) allows us to simultaneously escape and critique our world. There may be an unreal situation, such as a literal vampire, that is used as a device to say something about the state of society, and this can develop overtime, which in part explains this reincarnation of the Nosferatu story (as well as it being highly bankable). In 1897, when Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, only nine years previously had the original media-hot serial killer, Jack the Ripper, been active. Now set into consciousness, despite the actual truth of the figure himself, British contemporaries were indulged in this murderous narrative. It brought sensation, and perhaps in Dracula there is a hint of this extraordinary tale, as well as an attempt to show us the real horrors behind what had occurred to the killed. Another popular interpretation is the wrath of the vampire being representative of disease. It is the fear of spreading, of invasion, with the physical effects manifesting in the style of the plague.
Horror media allows us to indulge in a situation from a safe place, but there is a darker side to our enjoyment.
There are many interpretations of what the vampire may represent. Classically, the creature is a manifestation of our fears of the “foreign”; an outsider who travels to our land, even lives on our street. An interesting analysis comments on the “culinary” othering of the “outsider”, where the vampire’s taste for blood serves as a metaphor for the contemporary disgust of locals at international cuisine. Dracula holds undercurrents of xenophobia, both when the vampire is in England and in the apprehension of his arrival.
The spread of disease also serves as a keystone origin story of the vampire tale. As noted in the linked article from WordPress, the process of decomposition, as well as more general understanding of disease, in medieval Europe was not where it is today, providing the perfect breeding ground for supernatural explanations. Fearing the spread of the disease state, people may have enacted certain rituals on the dead correlated with their symptoms, such as a rock in a child’s mouth with malaria if suspected to be airborne. Indeed, the rock may have been one of many used in the classical treatment of “shroud-eaters”, whose exhumed appearance seemed to recapitulate what we see today as the classical vampire.
The Victorian era in Britain saw mass increases in immigrant numbers to the country. This naturally challenged not only the social order, but the idyllic image that many had of their “thoroughly English” lives. As 1900 rolled around, a rising grievance of locals against immigrants manifested in multiple ways. In fact, it is widely unknown or forgotten that it was the newer Jewish community that bore the brunt of the Whitechapel murders. Many of our core ideas regarding the vampire also come from this era, as cited to the aforementioned Dracula.
Goodness versus evil is canonical in the horror genre; in fact, a necessity. Combatted directly with the connotations discussed, it is alarming how much we adore these creatures and (more significantly) adore when they are beat down. While I am not saying that every horror fan must be anti-immigrant, what is important to recognise is that we discuss the layers behind the bat. Indeed, Stoker himself may have been attempting to comment on these issues, or may not have thought on the topic at all, but the message remains the same.
As a quick deep dive, it is very interesting to realise that Van Helsing is also an immigrant. However, having altered to the “thoroughly English” customs and way of life (alongside a healthy dose of piety), he is embraced and even used to eradicate the latest wave of internationals. This may remind us of the evangelical and cultural agenda of the British Empire, spreading Christianity and manners of living to the colonies.
Another thought I had was the vampire as our fear of ageing. One is frozen when they become one, as exemplified in Interview with the Vampire, and yet lives on in a potentially tortuous immortality. Age is correlated with grief, but also with a desire for eternal youth.
Clear in Nosferatu, perhaps giving it moral credit above Dracula in its explicit depictions of what Dracula so conceals in the name of propriety, are the attitudes towards women of the time. Birthed in the age of the “New Woman”, Draculabecame a text extolling the virtues of the wifely and pious Mina Harker against the transgressively promiscuous and free-spirited Lucy Westerna. Lily-Rose Depp’s character in Nosferatu comes to represent both of these characters in some way, being contrasted in her day-to-day attitudes and her night’s of terror. In sacrificing her body and her life, she saves the ones she loves, while Lucy becomes a vampire by virtue of her “letting” Dracula visit her every night — victim blaming 101. Nosferatu is much more brutal than Dracula (most of the main cast die, and there is significant gore), perhaps commenting on the brutality with which the female lead is treated, and not only by the vampire himself. This, perhaps, speaks volumes on the thrill associated with horror, particularly with its largely male audience. It is telling when excitement is the dominant reaction when aggression meets sexualisation.
Vampires have, through Twilight and depictions by the likes of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, come to be terribly romanticised. No longer are they the blood thirsty killers terrorising Victorian Europe, but the latest bad boy crush. This dilutes not only any underlying messages that creatives may have wanted to portray, but also nullifies our feelings of fear. This is one thing that Nosferatu does well; the vampire is the antithesis of desire, a foil to self-sacrifice for love. It is thrilling, no doubt, but glorifying the pursuit of the “bad boy” has serious dangers in itself. It is important here to separate the actor from the character, where attraction to one does not necessarily mean attraction to both.
So what does this tell us about ourselves and the world at large? Regarding our love of horror, it shows us how we are attracted to the morbid, the bad, the dangerous. It reflects our need to be thrilled or frightened out of our realities. For our society at large, it shows us darker truths that we must reckon with if we are ever to move on as a society in digestible, even implicit ways, making us think without (ironically) scaring us away. These stories highlight the darker sides of our histories, our now, and challenge us to analyse them and make a change.
Vampire or not, Nosferatu or not, horror is an outlet for more than just a jump scare or two.