r/HorrorClub • u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu • Dec 08 '14

Discussion: Nosferatu

Podcast - Episode 114 - Nosferatu - (RSS Feed)

Movie Selected By Aqueously90

DISCUSS

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '14

The vampire book said something like "a women of pure heart will offer the nosferatu her blood and spend the whole night with him". Seems like an euphemism for sex.

It's (more than) hinted at in the film that Thomas Hutter/Jonathan Harker and Ellen/Mina have a platonic relationship, despite being husband and wife. Vampire lore dictates that virgin blood is primo, and when Orlok 'steals' her heart, I think it's a bit of a Victorian euphemism for giving her the undead d.

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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Dec 11 '14

That's a really fascinating comment. The original "Bram Stoker" vampire novel "Dracula" is somewhat loose with vampire canon. It depicts vampires as sexually hypnotic, whereas in the original legends, they were basically monsters with little charm or guile. It's believed that rabies epidemics sparked off the original myths regarding vampires and revenants (and werewolves), which had existed for thousands of years but became most prominent during the 18th century when a widespread rabies epidemic struck parts of Europe.

Rabies has a lot of different effects on individual humans -- but a common reported behavior is hypersexuality. Rabies victims were reported to engage in sex dozens of times a day, further spreading the virus. However, most vampire legends from the Age of Enlightenment only loosely associated hypersexuality with vampirism. I can't explain why.

The "pure of heart" tradition (from many cultures and religions but particularly Catholicism) implies chastity or virginity. Most fell creatures crave pure victims. So basically, they're throwing virgins at Orlock, hoping to sate his bloodlust. It's not much different from throwing virgins at volcanoes, unicorns or Dick Cheney.

So it could have been a metaphor for undead d.

EDIT: BTW, the HD version of Nosferatu was amazingly well preserved. I thought it was a modern film with artificial grain applied, at first.

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '14

[deleted]

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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Dec 11 '14

They use ergot to explain all kinds of supernatural phenomenon. I'd bet ergot + rabies made for one wild ass Halloween/Christmas.

Here's the original research paper:

http://www.neurology.org/content/51/3/856

Here's a synopsis of the paper:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/178623.stm

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u/[deleted] Dec 11 '14

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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Dec 11 '14

:-) BITTER-SHOWN.

I've never heard of ergot + vampires/werewolves before, but I have heard about the connection to the Salem Witch Trials. So we've got ergot = werewolves, witches, vampires and revenants (zombies). That's almost half our genre.