A castle fit for a vampire
ROBERT EGGERS TELLS US HOW HE MADE THE TITULAR FIEND OF NOSFERATU FEEL AT HOME
WORDS ALEX GODFREY
AS SOON AS Nicholas Hoult’s real-estate agent Thomas Hutter begins his approach to Nosferatu’s gothic manor in the new film of the same name, things go south. In Robert Eggers’ take on F.W. Murnau’s 1922 horror classic, Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) seems like evil incarnate —and Eggers ensured the bloodsucker’s surroundings were suitably diabolic. Here, the director talks us through the character’s unwelcoming environs.
THE CASTLE
Nestled on the top of a wretched hill in the Carpathian Mountains, its spires stabbing the sky, the grand old pile in Eggers’ film is, in fact, Transylvania’s Hunedoara Castle (aka Corvin Castle). Even if the action itself —anything involving human beings or vampires —wasn’t filmed there. “We wanted to shoot Transylvania for Transylvania, but at the end, it wasn’t financially feasible,” says Eggers. “So we shot some plates. Most of Transylvania [in the film] is the Czech Republic, but the most epic landscapes are actually Transylvania, including that castle.” The crew did, though, have to apply some cinematic wear-and-tear. “They’d been restoring Hunedoara Castle, so we needed to de-age it for the movie. It was looking too good.”