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When it came to creating his take on the legendary monster Count Orlok for Nosferatu, director Robert Eggers wasn't in the mood for splitting hairs, especially the ones he chose to apply to the face of Bill Skarsgård. In an interview with Empire, the director of the 2024 horror film responded to the surprising bit of kickback he received for giving the unholy creature a twirlable mustache to hide those fangs and do away with the smooth scalped ghoulish presence from the original 1922 film from F. W. Murnau.
“I get that,” Eggers confessed. “It’s a hard pill for some people to swallow. But I also don’t care, because there’s just no fucking way that this guy wouldn’t have a moustache,” the director declared. “I love the way Max Schreck looks too [in Murnau’s original], and it’s a change. So, fair play, as people say over here.”
The mustache is just one of the many crucial details that Eggers considered when bringing his iteration of the bloody nightmare to life. Despite Count Orlok being an immortal evil, he was still a product of the time, which the director was determined to get right.
"The question then became, 'What does a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like?'" Eggers told Variety. "That means this complex Hungarian costume with very long sleeves, strange high-heeled shoes, and a furry hat. It also means a mustache. No matter what, there's no way this guy can't have a mustache. Try to find a Transylvanian person who's of age who can grow a mustache that doesn't have a mustache," he explained. "It's part of the culture. If you don't want to bother Googling, think of Vlad the Impaler. Even Bram Stoker had the sense to give Dracula a mustache in the book."
It's Eggers' attention to detail that excites us whenever we get our first glimpse of his next horror, Werwulf. But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. For now, you can check out our list of horrors we're most excited about this year here.
