All I want for Christmas is a new vampire to haunt my nightmares, and that’s exactly whatThe Lighthousedirector Robert Eggers is giving us. Eggers' highly anticipated Gothic horror filmNosferatuis hitting theaters on Dec. 25, and fans could not be more excited to finally see a scary vampire on-screen again.As the cast makes their rounds through the press circuit, we’re learning even more frightening details about the film, but one in particular takes the cake.
In a recent appearance onThe Graham Norton Show, actor Nicholas Hoult, who plays Thomas Hutter, husband of Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen, revealed a shocking detail about filmingNosferatu.Hoult reminisced about shooting the film with his co-stars, which apparently included 5,000 rats.
“I think we had like 5,000 rats. Some of them were trained as well. They were all trained, and I was like, ‘You couldn’t have trained all of them.’ There were certain pockets of them that were trained.”
Being in a room with one rat would be enough to frighten the weaker of heart, but 5,000? While the English actor noted that the rats did not smell the best, he went on to qualify his not-so-comfortable filming experience by saying it wasnot nearly as bad as it must’ve been for co-star Bill Skarsgård, who, according to Hoult, had to lay in a sarcophagus surrounded by the little cast members – as well as maggots.Yuck.
“He had this scene where he had to be kind of locked in a sarcophagus and he was in there in the full kind of Count Orlok prosthetic makeup. He’s got contact lenses in, they kind of make him go blind. And he’s laying in there, and they’ve filled it with rats and he’s got maggots all over him as well. And then they close the lid as well, so he’s just trapped in there with them. I did feel bad for him because then we’d do it a few times and I’d be pushing the sarcophagus and they’d be like, ‘Ah Nick, you’ve got to move your hand here or it’s got to be pushed a little bit quicker or whatever.’ I was like, ‘Sorry!’ They’d be like, ‘One more time Bill, because Nick….’ And I was like, ‘Oh, sorry!'”
‘Nosferatu’ Is as Intense as It Sounds
Eggers is reinventing the vampire to be scarier than ever. The visionary director revealed thathe had to completely unlearn the long-held tropes surrounding vampiresto put his own stamp on the blood-sucker. With most movie viewers still recalling the sparkly YA vampires of theTwilightfilms, or the sexy type from shows likeThe Vampire Diaries,Eggers knew he’d have to do some serious work to get audiences to take his vampire seriously, and, more importantly, walk away terrified.
It looks like the work is paying off.The remake of the 1922 German classic vampire filmalready has a near perfect Rotten Tomatoes score,exciting fans of the macabre.Eggers can rest knowing that he’s hopefully done a great job of making a truly spooky vampire film, which hits theaters in just a couple of weeks.
Nosferatu is a remake of the 1922 silent film of the same name from director F. W. Murnau. Robert Eggers is crafting his own version of the story for the reboot as writer and director, with Bill Skarsgård stepping into the shoes of Count Orlok. Nosferatu tells the tale of a young woman who falls victim to a vampire utterly infatuated with her.
