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Count Orlok | |
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First appearance | Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) |
Created by | F. W. Murnau |
Based on | Count Dracula by Bram Stoker |
Portrayed by |
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In-universe information | |
Aliases | The Bird of Death Nosferatu |
Species | Vampire |
Gender | Male |
Nationality | Romanian |
Count Orlok (German : Graf Orlok; Romanian : Contele Orlok), commonly but erroneously known as Nosferatu, [1] is a fictional character who appears in the silent film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) and in its remake Nosferatu (2024), which is based on Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula. [2] [3]
The actor Max Schreck plays Count Orlok in the silent film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922). Actor Bill Skarsgård plays Count Orlok in the film Nosferatu (2024). The 1922 film is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of the novel Dracula. Character names were changed, including changing Count Dracula's name to Count Orlok, in an attempt to avoid accusations of copyright infringement. However, the original intertitles explicitly state that the film is based on Stoker's novel. In the 2024 remake film, the names from the 1922 film are maintained.
In Nosferatu , Count Orlok is a vampire from Transylvania, and is known as "The Bird of Death", [4] who feasts upon the blood of living humans. He is believed to have been created by Belial, the lieutenant demon of Satan.
Orlok dwells alone in a vast castle hidden among the rugged peaks in a lost corner of the Carpathian Mountains. The castle - and its master - have been forgotten by the world for centuries, is swathed in shadows, and is badly neglected with a highly sinister feel to it. He is in league with the housing agent Knock, and wants to purchase a house in the (fictional) city of Wisborg, Germany. Local peasants live in terror of phantoms and werewolves haunting the region and never venture out after dark. Thomas Hutter scorns their fears as mere superstition, and ventures to the decrepit castle; however, the coach-driver will not take him over the bridge leading to it. A black-swathed figure in a black coach (Orlok in disguise) drives him the rest of the way. He is greeted by Orlok, who claims that as it is past midnight all his servants have gone to bed, and the two dine together and discuss Orlok's purchasing of the aforementioned house. [5] Hutter accidentally cuts his thumb when slicing bread and Orlok is barely able to control himself from drinking from Hutter's wound. After Hutter collapses in a chair, Orlok feeds off of him, but this is not shown on screen: Hutter discovers two bites on his neck the next day but attributes them to mosquitoes, unaware at this point that his host is in reality, a vampire. [6]
Hutter only realises the horrific truth later in his chambers after further reading from The Book of the Vampires, and he discovers that he is trapped in the castle with the Nosferatu. Orlok advances upon Hutter, and Hutter's beloved wife, Ellen, senses through telepathy that her husband's life is in mortal danger; she screams for him and somehow Orlok is powerless to touch him. The next morning Hutter searches the castle, and discovers to his revulsion that Orlok is "sleeping" in the basement in a filthy coffin filled with earth. Hutter then witnesses Orlok loading a cart with several coffins filled with soil, one of which he then hides in and they are driven off to be loaded onto a ship headed for Wisborg. This soil is later revealed to be unhallowed earth from Orlok's own grave; according to The Book of the Vampires, Nosferatu must sleep by day in the unholy earth from their graves to sustain their power. [7]
On board the ship, he kills every crew member until only the captain and his first mate remain. [8] Later when the first mate goes to the cargo hold to investigate, Count Orlok rises from his coffin, terrifying the first mate who jumps overboard in fear. The captain ties himself to the wheel of the ship and then Count Orlok creeps up on him and kills the captain. His journey by sea spreads plague throughout Europe. [9]
Upon his arrival in Wisborg, Orlok infests the city with rats that sleep in his coffins, and countless people fall victim to the plague, forcing the local authorities to declare a quarantine and provoking hysteria among the citizens. [10] Rather than come back as vampires, however, his victims simply die. Ellen and Hutter know the causes of the plague but fear they are powerless to stop the vampire. Ellen watches sullenly as lines of coffins are carried through the empty streets, and she realises Orlok must be stopped. Ellen learns from The Book of the Vampires that – rather than a stake through the heart – the Nosferatu can only be vanquished if a woman pure in heart willingly allows him to feed off her long enough to prevent him from seeking shelter from sunrise. Ellen coaxes Orlok to her room and lies in bed whilst he drinks from her neck. The sun rises, and Orlok is burned away in a cloud of smoke. Knock is able to sense Orlok is dead. Ellen dies soon after. [11]
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He is regarded as one of cinema's most influential filmmakers for his work in the silent era.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent and brings the plague to their town.
Shadow of the Vampire is a 2000 independent period vampire mystery film directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven Katz. The film stars John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. It is a fictionalized account of the making of the classic vampire film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, directed by F. W. Murnau, during which the film crew begin to have disturbing suspicions about their lead actor.
Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck, known professionally as Max Schreck, was a German actor, best known for his lead role as the vampire Count Orlok in the film Nosferatu (1922).
R. M. Renfield is a fictional character who appears in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. He is Count Dracula's deranged, fanatically devoted servant and familiar, helping him in his plan to turn Mina Harker into a vampire in return for a continuous supply of insects to consume and the promise of immortality. Throughout the novel, he resides in an asylum, where he is treated by Dr. John Seward.
Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker is a fictional character and the main female character in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
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Nosferatu: Plague of Terror was a four-part comic series released by American publisher Millennium Publications in 1991–1992. Conceived as both a prequel and sequel to F.W. Murnau's silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, it was written by Mark Ellis, designed by Melissa Martin, with art provided by Rik Levins, Richard Pace, and Frank Turner. The storyline presented a more complete story of Graf Orlok, the Nosferatu, separate and distinct from the Dracula legend.
Boo! is a 1932 American Pre-Code comedy short film by Universal Pictures, directed and written by Albert DeMond. Boo! contains clips of horror films Nosferatu (1922), The Cat Creeps (1930), and Frankenstein (1931), mocking them thoroughly.
Greta Schröder was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Thomas Hutter's wife and Count Orlok's victim in Nosferatu (1922). In the fictionalized 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of Nosferatu, but in fact she was little known. The bulk of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances. Following a failed marriage with struggling actor Ernst Matray, she was married to actor and film director Paul Wegener.
The character of Count Dracula from the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, has remained popular over the years, and many forms of media have adopted the character in various forms. In their book Dracula in Visual Media, authors John Edgar Browning and Caroline Joan S. Picart declared that no other horror character or vampire has been emulated more times than Count Dracula. Most variations of Dracula across film, comics, television and documentaries predominantly explore the character of Dracula as he was first portrayed in film, with only a few adapting Stoker's original narrative more closely. These including borrowing the look of Count Dracula in both the Universal's series of Dracula and Hammer's series of Dracula, including include the characters clothing, mannerisms, physical features hair style and his motivations such as wanting to be in a home away from Europe.
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Thomas Hutter is a fictional character in the silent expressionist horror film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), its remake Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)(renamed as Jonathan Harker) and its second remake Nosferatu (2024).
Nosferatu is an upcoming American gothic horror film written and directed by Robert Eggers, and starring Bill Skarsgård as the titular vampire. Following Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), it is the second remake of the 1922 German Expressionist film of the same name written by Henrik Galeen and directed by F. W. Murnau, which in turn is an "unauthorized and unofficial" adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.
Published 1922