Understanding Robert Eggers’ Count Orlok: what kind of creature is he, and what sets him apart from your typical vampire. Or why is he even haunting Ellen, to begin with.
“Cinematic vampires have lost their power and what makes them frightening,” says Eggers, who “went back to the folklore to understand the time when people believed vampires existed and were truly terrified of them.”
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“So it was clear to me that I needed to return to the source, to the early folkloric vampire, to written accounts about or by people who believed that vampires existed – and who were terrified of them. Most of these early accounts come from Balkan and Slavic regions. Many are from Romania, where Stoker’s Dracula resides.”
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There are strigoi vii (living; witches and sorcerers) and strigoi morti (dead), with Orlok being the last, of course. The undead who rise from their graves at night to create havoc, and must return to it before dawn. They are the “original vampires”, and legends about them are found throughout the Balkans.
According to Adrien Cremene in his “La Mythologie du vampire en Roumanie”, the strigoi myth dates back to the Dacians. The strigoi are creatures of Dacian mythology, troubled or evil souls, the spirits of the dead whose actions made them unworthy of entering the kingdom of Zalmoxis (Dacian God of life and death).
Appearance
The strigoi is more terrifying to behold than the classic nosferatu or vampyr. Most strigoi are bald and leathery, and their skin is infested with vermin (maggots), and cracked and oozing with putrescence and decay. They have long, spidery fingers. Their fangs cannot be retracted, and their disproportionate length is the cause of many running sores on their lips and chin. Strigoi are and look like an walking corpse, and from afar can even be mistaken for alive.
They tend to dress in moldy, torn out clothing (the ones they were buried in).
The "older" they get, the more hideous they appear, and ancient strigoi resemble demons more than their alive selves: this tells us Orlok is a fairly new strigoi (he was cursed to become one by Ellen herself, at the prologue, after all).
Causes
What is believed to be the cause for this curse is diverse, but according to the encyclopedist Dimitrie Cantemir and the folklorist Teodor Burada in their book “Datinile Poporului român la înmormântări” (1882), it can be one among several things, from physical characteristics to “bad death” (violent; murder; suicide; execution for false oath; alone and unseen; before their time; with unfinished business), die by a witch’s curse, being an illegitimate child; without proper burial; those who were mourned for too long; a life of sin; a life of pain and regret; etc.
Either way, it is believed that the soul did not leave the body immediately after death. Remains of consciousness could cause the dead to forsake their journey to the Afterlife, and would turn back home. For this reason, many funeral prayers in some regions of the Balkans are said at crossroads, for the souls of the dead to departure the physical world. Many traditions for repelling and preventing strigoi still endure, to this day.
Since Robert Eggers wrote an entire novella on his Orlok’s backstory (he doesn’t want to share with the public) and it even influenced Bill Skarsgård entire performance (including the meaning of the ending), the reason why Orlok was cursed it’s most likely not “he was a sorcerer in life” or has known violence (being a warlord, violence is already expected). We only know he was married and had a family. But since Eggers didn’t want to “go there” with the “sad vampire” trope but Bill thought vulnerability was necessary at times; it’s safe to admit Orlok backstory is tragic and sad. And the folklore which inspired his character further confirms this.
“O’er centuries, a loathsome beast I lay within the darkest pit ‘til you did wake me, enchantress, and stirred me from my grave. You are my affliction.”
Count Orlok speaks late 16th century English, and, as such, his words don’t have the “modern meaning”:
- “Loathsome” is connected to “grievous” (“grief”), and “beast” was commonly used to describe “brutish, stupid man” (during the Middle Ages, was also used as a synonym to “fool” or “idiot”);
- The “darkest pit” is likely a reference to this place between life and death;
- “Affliction” means “sickness” or “disease”; Orlok is saying Ellen is the one who cursed him to be a strigoi.
Characteristics
A strigoi is different from your regular vampire because it’s not blood they feed on specifically, but “life force” (“blood is the life”); in some legends, strigoi don’t even drink blood at all, because they drain their victims of their living energy, their soul. It’s the original “psychic vampire” (“emotional” or “energy” vampire).
“You will press thy lips to my cold mouth and I will drink upon thy soul.”
This process not only sustains the strigoi, but spreads disease and misfortune. In “Nosferatu” (2024) called the “blood plague”.
Strigoi bring plague with them and they don’t kill their victims immediately (as we’ve seen with Thomas and Anna); they return, night after night, until the victim withers and dies
, drained of their vital energy. Their victims suffer from anemia, exhaustion or other mysterious illnesses.
“He exhibits all the signs of a blood plague: sepsis, ophthalmic discharge - even flagrant rodent bites, here and here. I fear this ship has brought the plague to Wisburg. What's more, his body is entirely absent of blood.”
Personality-wise, strigoi are sentient and have mental clarity, however their humanity is removed upon their transformation, becoming amoral creatures, making no distinction between “right” or “wrong”, because their best human qualities are nullified by their curse. They retain, however, their most fierce and strongest desires into their strigoi self. Which in Orlok’s case appears to be Ellen herself (her soul and passion).
Unlike your typical vampire, being bitten by a Strigoi doesn’t turn the victim into one. If not stopped, the victim will (just) die (which is what we see in “Nosferatu”). To become a strigoi, one needs to have a set of requirements during their lifetime; which was what Herr Knock was after in “Nosferatu” (2024), believing it to be the secret to true immortality (like his book counterpart Reinfeild with Count Dracula); including a violent death to "seal the deal".
"I relinquished him my soul. I should have been the Prince of Rats – immortal… but he broke our covenant… for he cares only for his pretty bride! [...] Strike again! I am blasphemy!"
Strigoi are said to be able to control animals; they can communicate with them and use them for their own purposes (whenever for spying or attacking the living). In “Nosferatu” (2024), Orlok controls wolves and rats, alike.
Strigoi also possess psychic powers, connected to sleep. They can manipulate dreams, and foster nightmares in their victims, to create fear and mischief, and to drain the victim from their life force. Especially the weak-minded will lose their sanity in their presence.
In some myths, strigoi have astral projection powers, being able to appear as shadows or ghosts. Which is also Orlok’s case. And this also means, Orlok didn’t had any astral penetrative sex with Ellen in her teenage years (and the film tells us this), and what’s she has been doing was masturbation (and him as a shadow). Strigoi are not incubus; they are two completely different creatures.
Haunting
Strigoi are not necessarily evil; while some return for revenge purposes, most are souls who cannot forget their loved ones. Enter the underlying "reincarnation" theme in this story.
Ellen: “You are a villain to speak so."
Orlok: “I am an appetite, nothing more.”
In such cases, the Strigoi appears, at first, as a ghostly being, at the window or knocking at the door of those they have loved the most when they were alive, asking for entrance. It is said those who answer, are doomed. To this day, in this region, there’s the custom of not answering the door upon the first knock.
The majority of Strigoi don’t haunt places or communities (as a whole), but one particular person (and others as unfortunate collaterals).
There are some legends about villages terrorized by Strigoi, and the excepcional night of 29/30th of November, Saint Andrew’s eve, the beginning of Winter in Romania; where its said strigoi will compete to bring sadness and misfortune to the living, and see who can torment the most people. This date is thought to be exceptionally magical in Eastern European folklore; and this was also the night when Thomas witnessed the Roma people strigoi ritual killing (which is how a strigoi is killed in Balkan folklore, but that’s not the deal between Orlok and Ellen at the end, because the point is to break the curse he has upon himself).
In “Nosferatu” (2024), it’s Ellen who's the target of this haunting; as Orlok’s every action in the story is connected to her. Having her soul by his side for all eternity (“you shall be one with me, ever-eternally”) is his motivation.
“I think that what ultimately rose to the top, as the theme or trope that was most compelling to me, was that of the demon-lover. In “Dracula,” the book by Bram Stoker, the vampire is coming to England, seemingly, for world domination. Lucy and Mina are just convenient throats that happen to be around. But in this “Nosferatu,” he’s coming for Ellen. This love triangle that is similar to “Wuthering Heights,” the novel, was more compelling to me than any political themes.”
Once they rise from their graves, the strigoi search or are attracted towards their loved ones, trying to re-live their life together, and they will do anything for another minute with them. The strigoi is attracted to their old home, or their living family, and the haunting won’t stop until they are put to rest.
The motif of the strigoi lover has been a staple of Romanian Romanticism and stories of women and men being visited by their dead lovers were very popular, both in folklore and in high culture.
However, that connection was broken and the world of the living cannot be in contact with the Afterlife (death). As such, the very presence of the strigoi is life threatening, and they will, inevitably, drag their loved ones to their graves, as they will progressively be drained of their life force, wither and die, specially if the haunting isn’t stopped.
The reason for this haunting is diverse; revenge; mischief; unfinished business; unable to move on in the Afterlife without them; fulfill their greatest regret, etc.
In "Nosferatu" (2024), Orlok himself provides the answer:
“Your passion is bound to me […] I cannot be sated without you. Remember how once we were? A moment. Remember?”
In this context (Old English) the word “sated” is connected to the verb “sit” = “rest” or “lie”. Which translates into “I cannot rest without you.” Orlok can’t find peace in death without Ellen’s spirit at his side; which explains why their covenant is, precisely, their souls united, forever, in the spiritual world.
Which also provides the explanation as to why Orlok is dragging Ellen to an early grave: “you are not for the living. You are not for human kind”; only by her physical demise is this union in death possible. And Orlok himself needs to have his Nosferatu curse removed in order for this to happen, as well.
If the strigoi haunting isn’t stopped, the haunted will, inevitably, die, brokenhearted and insane. In some legends, strigoi return to their widows to have sex with them, until they die of an excess of intercourse (exhaustion).
Which is exactly what happens at the end of “Nosferatu” (2024); as Ellen accepts Orlok’s covenant of their souls united forever, as she gives him her heart for him to kill (dying of a broken heart, literally). He also has sex with her to death, as their ritualistic scene ends with her having an orgasm, and the initial penetration can be heard in the sound design. We have two strigoi legends on this ending.
Orlok feeds off Ellen’s blood (life energy), giving life to himself, for the Solomonari ritual to be possible; and their souls are merging inside of him. Strigoi are sustained by the “life energy” of others, they feed off their souls. At dawn, when the rotten corpse is destroyed (and this ritual to break the Nosferatu curse was confirmed to have been successful by Professor Von Franz), Orlok and Ellen’s joined souls are set free, as their combined blood (life energy) pours out of his body. This is probably why Robert Eggers went with this option of the blood coming out of Orlok, as he is now an “empty shell” because their spirits have been liberated into the Afterlife, together, forever. And the last shot of the film really drives home this; as they lie embraced in death, both finally at peace, their souls united, as it was fated to be.
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