Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Nosferatu (2024)

Although some of Nosferatu and 1922’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, and even more differences between Bram Stoker’s original novel Dracula and this recent, loose adaptation. The setting of the novel is updated to , and director Robert Eggers’ 2024 remake substantially fleshes out the cast of characters introduced in the shorter, less complex plot of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.

However, not all of Nosferatu’s changes serve to complicate the source story. Eggers’ movie blends two characters from Dracula, Mr. Hawkins and Renfield, into one to make the story flow smoother. Herr Knock is both the protagonist’s employer and the vampire villain’s devoted servant, which makes him an altogether scarier and more cohesive character than the original Renfield. Similarly, Eggers changes Count Orlok’s appearance in Nosferatu since, as he noted in an interview with Variety, Transylvanian noblemen of his era would never have been seen without a mustache.

Nosferatu Turns Dracula’s Lucy Westenra Into Anna Harding

Emma Corrin’s Character Drops Much Of What Defined Lucy

These changes make Nosferatu feel more rooted in historical reality and make the story run smoother, but some other changes also improve the character arc of the movie’s protagonists. Nosferatu turns Dracula’s single ing character, Lucy Westenra, into Emma Corrin’s married mother Anna Harding, thus changing the role of Lucy’s three suitors who make up the novel’s ing cast. In this retelling, it is Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen who falls ill and struggles with her sanity after Count Orlok arrives in her country. In the novel, this fate befalls Lucy, and Ellen’s counterpart, Mina Harker, isn’t bitten until much later.

These changes fundamentally alter the way Ellen’s agency is depicted in the text. In Dracula, Lucy’s playful flirtation with a trio of suitors is punished horribly when she is slowly killed by Dracula, turned into an undead vampire, and eventually staked by her heartbroken fiancée. Nosferatu 2024 changes Dracula’s story substantially, but perhaps the most notable alteration is in the fates of Anna and Ellen. As Lucy’s Nosferatu equivalent, Anna is killed off-screen by Count Orlok after he bewitches her husband so he won’t wake up and then murders their children.

Nosferatu Dropping Lucy Makes Ellen’s Role Clearer

Ellen’s Agency Over Her Sexuality Overlaps With Lucy’s Role

Anna’s death is brutal, but it isn’t tied to her sexual agency in the same way as Lucy’s fate in the novel. Similarly, when Mina is praised for holding on to her senses and resisting Dracula’s allure in the novel, Ellen eventually offers herself to the vampire to save her city. Ellen has more control over her sexual agency and a darker past than her book counterpart Mina, having first encountered Count Orlok years before she met her husband. Harding’s traditional role as a doting mother creates an even bigger contrast between them.

Where Lucy’s love of male attention is clearly punished in the novel by her visit from Dracula, Ellen’s role in Nosferatu is more complex.

Anna’s husband complains about Ellen’s willful behavior and outspoken nature numerous times, and he is clearly uncomfortable with the fits she suffers as Orlok grows closer. However, where Lucy’s love of male attention is clearly punished in the novel by her visit from Dracula, Ellen’s role in Nosferatu is more complex. Nosferatu’s Ellen understands that there is some sort of link between her and Orlok and that he is somehow ineffably tied to her nature, and her decision to eventually allow him to take her life so she can save the city from his plague is a heroic sacrifice.

Nosferatu’s New Ending Riffs On Lucy Westenra’s Dracula Fate

Bram Stoker’s Novel Ends With Mina Alive And Lucy Dead

In Nosferatu, Anna and Ellen both die, but Ellen sacrifices herself to save the city. While Lucy unknowingly invites Dracula to kill her, Ellen intentionally does this to destroy him. The competition and later conciliation between Lucy’s suitors in the novel and earlier adaptations is funny and oddly moving, but losing this camraderie is a small price to pay for a plot alteration that makes Ellen a more self-led protagonist and offers a more complex, compelling depiction of the story’s female characters.

Ellen chooses to die so that others can live.

In both 2024’s Nosferatu and Dracula, major female characters are met with death as a result of their encounters with Count Orlok and Dracula respectively. However, Ellen chooses to die so that others can live and ends up becoming something of a sainted figure in the movie’s bleak ending. In contrast, Lucy is punished for her wish to entertain more than one suitor and ends up becoming an early instance of sexually available female characters being met with death in horror media as a result of their attitudes. Thus, Nosferatu’s changes to Lucy make the movie's story more complex.

Nosferatu is currently playing in theaters.

Source: Variety