Saltburn Cinematographer Reveals Inspiration From Classic Monster Movie

According to a new interview with Oscar-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren, his latest film features an unexpected look back at one of classic Hollywood’s first and most-loved monster movies. Sandgren, who serves as director of photography on Saltburn, said that filmmaker Emerald Fennell described the movie in terms of a vampire film, and that he took that cue and ran with it, taking some of his inspiration from 1922’s Nosferatu. The movie, now in the public domain, helped to establish some of the most enduring tropes of vampire films, and is one of the rare, popular films where the vampire appears monstrous rather than dashing.

Nosferatu is set to be remade in 2024. The new movie is directed by Robert Eggers, and stars Bill Skarsgård in the lead role as the vampire. It’s actually the second time the movie has been remade, with the first being a 1979 film from Werner Herzog.

“I asked Emerald for words to describe the film and she said ‘vampire,’” Sandgren told TheWrap. “She [also] said, ‘hair,’ ‘sweat,’ details like that. There were all kinds of words that got us into quickly thinking it’ll be interesting if we thought of it like a vampire movie, even though it’s not real vampires, but it’s in a similar vein.”

He added later, “We thought of German Expressionism, or the ‘Nosferatu’ kind of vampire movies. The other was the voyeuristic part of it, which felt more in the vein of Hitchcock suspense, where you would just see a close-up of an eye or you you have the POVs through doorways and then the sunny, romantic days. [Those] sort of sexual tones throughout had its own vibe that intervened with all of this.”

In Saltburn, Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.

The movie is in theaters now.