How the Original Nosferatu Changed Vampire Horror Forever

When you think about vampires, what do you associate with them? They drink blood, they’re undead, they have superhuman abilities, and they can be destroyed by sunlight, just to name a few vampiric attributes. But while the idea of vampires and sunlight not exactly being friends is largely a standard when it comes to the creatures of the night in fiction now, that wasn’t always the case. There was a time in fictional vampire lore when the idea of sunlight was only slightly more than an annoyance for vampires, robbing them of some of their powers, but otherwise not doing them any real harm. In fact, the idea that vampires are harmed by the sun is just over a century old — and we have Nosferatu to thank for it.

Originally released in 1922, the German silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was, technically, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 book Dracula. According to film historian Rolf Giesen, Nosferatu director F.W. Murnau and producer Albin Grau had contact with the publisher of the German translation of Dracula, but didn’t actually secure rights from Florence Stoker, Bram’s widow. Rather than simply directly adapt Dracula, Murnau and Grau instead made changes. Most of these changes were cosmetic: Count Dracula became Count Orlok, Mina became Ellen, Van Helsing became a skeptic named Dr. Bulwer. But there were larger changes, too including one about Count Orlok’s biggest weakness. While Dracula could move around in daylight unharmed — albeit with weakened powers — it would be fatal for Count Orlok to encounter sunlight.

It’s a key change when it comes to vampires. Prior to Nosferatu, most fictional vampire stories more closely reflected Stoker’s archetype, with vampires still having vulnerabilities — after all, Dracula is killed by hunters in the novel — but also being much harder to kill. Introducing the idea that something as mundane as sunlight could be fatal not only added a new restriction on vampires by having them only be a threat to humanity at night, but to an extent gave humanity an upper hand when dealing with the creatures. While this change (and the other shifts Nosferatu made) wasn’t enough to keep the film out of legal trouble and nearly resulted in the movie being lost to history, it did end up having long lasting impact, impact that some could argue is just as significant as that Dracula had. After all, the daylight enemy is one of the things we fully associate with vampires now.

[RELATED: Nosferatu Review: Gothic Horror at Its Finest]

The idea of daylight harming vampires has also sort of come full circle, even making its way into an adaptation of Dracula. In 2020, the BBC released a three-part series written by Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat along with Mark Gatiss, Dracula. The series is a very loose adaptation of Stoker’s novel but includes the concept that daylight is fatal to vampires. However, the final installment reverts back to the idea that daylight is actually harmless, with it being explained that Dracula merely convinced himself the legends about vampires and daylight were true so he could hide from society. It’s a clever way to both honor the original Dracula lore but also fit into the new normal for vampires Nosferatu created.

Nosferatu also had a major influence on vampire stories beyond the whole daylight thing. Count Orlok has gone on to be the template – particularly in terms of his appearance – for numerous other vampires in media. Some examples include Petyr and The Baron in What We Do in the Shadows (the former in the 2019 movie and the latter in the televisions series), The Master on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kurt Barlow in 1979’s Salem’s Lot, and perhaps most directly the Nosferatu clan in the game Vampire: The Masquerade. It’s quite a legacy – and one that has changed how we see vampires forever.

Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu lands in theaters on December 25th.