Summary TL DR

This blog post is a film review of the 2024 remake of Nosferatu, comparing it to the 1922 version. The review analyzes how the portrayal of Victorian-era female repression, a central theme in both films, appears exaggerated and even humorous to modern audiences due to shifts in gender roles, mental health understanding, and storytelling styles.

The review further explores the effective use of ambiguity and symbolism in the original Nosferatu to evoke fear, contrasting it with the remake’s more explicit approach.

Finally, the review examines the ongoing issue of repressed thoughts and emotions in both Victorian and modern times, across various categories like sexuality, social identity, and disability, concluding that while some progress has been made, certain forms of repression persist.

Janet and John’s take on repression of thoughts and emotions

What happened

We watched Nosferatu (2024) in a German synchronized voice over version where just the dialog, the verbal aspect of that movie alone, encompassed everything Kaethe Lachmann had warned us about.

And as she exaggerates only a little, as tool for humor here, her performance becomes funny.

We keep that in mind, when we now consider the exaggeration of Nosferatu (2024) themes and start by asking if they risk to come across as unintentionally funny as well.

Nosferatu in Modern Times

From [link]: The term “nosferatu” has now become synonymous with the word “vampire,” though they aren’t 1:1 in terms of meaning. Nosferatu is a transliteration of the Romanian word “Nesuferitu,” which means “the offensive one” or “the insufferable one.” The former definition is certainly a great fit for Count Orlok, who has both a ghastly appearance and is seen as a terror among those who have to contend with his bloodlust. On the other hand, the word now known as vampire has roots relating to both “witch” and “blood monster.” Conversely, Dracula is derived from “draguli,” which means “son of the devil.”

The Victorian repression of female emotions, as depicted in works like Nosferatu (1922), appears anachronistic and sometimes, as in Nosferatu (2024), even comical to contemporary audiences due to cultural, social, and psychological shifts over the last century.

Here’s an overview of why this is the case:

Changing Gender Roles and Empowerment

• Historical Context: In the Victorian and early 20th century, women were often idealized as paragons of virtue, purity, and emotional restraint. Expressions of strong emotions, especially sexual desire or anger, were deemed improper or even pathological.
• Modern Perspective: The feminist movements of the 20th and 21st centuries have championed emotional authenticity and autonomy for women. Today, the idea that a woman should suppress her emotions for societal expectations feels antiquated and at odds with modern ideals of gender equality.
• Impact on Perception: This stark contrast makes Victorian repression seem artificial and restrictive, leading to a perception that such portrayals are exaggerated or absurd.

Evolving Depictions of Female Characters

• Past Tropes: Female characters in films like Nosferatu were often relegated to archetypes—the pure and passive maiden, the sacrificial figure, or the hysterical damsel. These tropes were reflective of broader societal norms that viewed women as fragile and subordinate.
• Contemporary Characters: Modern narratives favor complex, multifaceted female characters who express a full range of emotions without judgment. When audiences see the outdated archetypes, they may find them shallow or unintentionally humorous due to their lack of realism.

Increased Awareness of Mental Health

• Victorian Psychology: In the Victorian era, emotional outbursts or deviations from the norm in women were often pathologized, labeled as hysteria or madness. This reflected a limited understanding of mental health and a tendency to control women through medicalization.
• Modern Understanding: Today, emotions are seen as a natural and healthy part of the human experience, and there is greater awareness of how repression can lead to psychological harm. The exaggerated emotional suppression in Victorian narratives can now seem both unrealistic and cruel, provoking laughter or discomfort.

Shift in Storytelling and Tone

• Early Cinema: Silent films like Nosferatu relied on melodramatic performances to convey emotion without dialogue. This often amplified the visual representation of repression, making it appear more theatrical than subtle.
• Modern Preferences: Audiences now favor nuanced storytelling and naturalistic acting. The overt emotional repression and melodrama of early cinema can feel over-the-top or unintentionally comedic when viewed through this lens.

Cultural Distance and Parody

• Temporal Gap: As societal norms have shifted, what was once serious can now appear quaint or absurd. Victorian-era gender norms, with their rigid formality and moralistic underpinnings, seem alien and ripe for parody.
• Satirical Commentary: Modern creators often parody Victorian repression to highlight its absurdity, reinforcing its comedic or exaggerated quality in contemporary eyes.

Symbolism of Nosferatu and Female Repression

• Nosferatu (1922) but also newer versions such as Nosferatu (2024) portray, or try to portray, the suppression of female emotions as part of a broader theme of societal control and fear of the “Other.” The vampire symbolizes unchecked desires and transgressions, while the female protagonist’s repression aligns with the era’s anxieties about women’s sexuality.
• Modern Irony: Today, these themes might be interpreted ironically, as audiences are more likely to sympathize with repressed desires than view them as dangerous or immoral.

Ambiguity as a Mirror for the Viewer

The vague, symbolic, and distanced nature of a film like Nosferatu (1922) can make the projection of viewers’ own fears and emotions more effective because it engages the imagination and allows for subjective interpretation. Here’s a detailed exploration of why this approach works:

• Universal Interpretation: When a story is vague or symbolic, it avoids imposing a fixed meaning, leaving space for viewers to project their own fears, emotions, and personal experiences onto the narrative. For example, the vampire in Nosferatu can symbolize death, disease, repressed desires, or societal anxieties, depending on the viewer.
• Contrast with Realism: Realistic and detailed portrayals such as in Nosferatu (2024) can narrow the interpretative possibilities, confining the emotional resonance to the specifics of the narrative.

The Power of Suggestion

• Implied Horror: Horror works best when it taps into what is unseen or unspoken. The absence of explicit dialogue or overly realistic depictions forces the viewer to imagine what is happening or what might happen. This uncertainty can be more terrifying than any concrete depiction.
• Emotional Engagement: Ambiguity requires the viewer to actively fill in gaps, engaging their mind and emotions more deeply than if everything were explicitly laid out.

Symbolism Amplifies Archetypal Fears

• Archetypes vs. Specifics: Symbolic imagery, such as the shadowy figure of Count Orlok in Nosferatu (1922), transcends individual experiences, tapping into universal fears like death, the unknown, and the monstrous. These archetypes resonate on a deeper, often unconscious level.
• Distanced Representation: The 1922 film’s lack of dialogue and realistic detail enhances its dreamlike quality, making it feel like a shared nightmare rather than a specific story. The Nosferatu (2024) movie in contrast is overly detailed.

Emotional Distance Encourages Projection

• Role of Detachment: By keeping characters and events at an emotional distance, the film avoids dictating how the viewer should feel. This emotional detachment paradoxically invites viewers to bring their own emotional responses to the story, personalizing the experience.
• Silent Film Atmosphere: The lack of spoken dialogue in Nosferatu (1922) creates a contemplative space where viewers must infer meaning from gestures, expressions, and symbols, making the experience more immersive.

Timelessness through Minimalism

• Abstract over Concrete: Vague and symbolic narratives feel less tied to a specific time or place, giving them a timeless quality. This universality makes the fears they evoke more relatable across generations.
• Avoiding the Limits of Realism: Realistic depictions can quickly become dated or overly specific, limiting their impact on future audiences. The abstract qualities of Nosferatu (1922) allow it to remain haunting and relevant.

Silence and Mystery Heighten Tension

• Dialog Reduces Mystery: Dialog can clarify motivations, explain events, and resolve ambiguities, such as overly represented in Nosferatu (2024). While this is certainly an attempt to enhance realism, it also reduces the sense of mystery and unease that fuels psychological horror.
• Silence Evokes Imagination: Without dialog, viewers must infer the characters’ thoughts and intentions, often imagining something darker or more disturbing than what is explicitly shown. This is greatly enhanced in Nosferatu (1922) where there are no verbally spoken words, just a haunting music track.

Audience as Co-Creator

• Collaborative Storytelling: By remaining vague and symbolic, Nosferatu (1922) invites viewers to “co-create” the narrative in their minds. This makes the experience more personal and impactful, as each viewer brings their unique fears and emotions into the film’s gaps. The Nosferatu (2024) is far too specific, and sometimes badly represented, to concise, to superficially focused.
• Engagement through Ambiguity: A less precise film demands active participation, drawing viewers into the story in a way that detailed realism might not.

Cinematic Presentation of Horror

Horror films rely heavily on visual, auditory, and narrative techniques to evoke fear, tension, and unease. The cinematic approach varies greatly depending on the filmmaker’s style and the subgenre of horror, with differences in tone, atmosphere, and execution. A key contrast is how horror is presented through sparse and atmospheric storytelling versus exaggerated, campy approaches.

Sparse, Atmospheric Storytelling (Empty, Sleek, Coarse, and Deep)

This style leans on minimalism, subtlety, and depth to craft tension and dread, often targeting psychological engagement.

Characteristics:

• Visual Design:
  • Empty spaces, desaturated or muted colors, and sleek, minimalist environments (e.g., The Witch, Hereditary, Nosferatu,. 1922).
  • Coarse textures or natural settings that evoke unease (e.g., decaying structures, barren landscapes).
  • Deep shadows and long takes emphasize isolation or vulnerability (particularly in Nosferatu, 1922).
• Sound Design:
  • Sparse use of sound, with silence used to build anticipation.
  • Low-frequency droning or dissonant tones that evoke discomfort.
  • Sudden, jarring noises used sparingly for impact.
• Screenplay and Dialogue:
  • Naturalistic or understated dialogue, often with long stretches of quiet (not so much in Nosferatu, 2024).
  • Characters speak in subdued tones, avoiding unnecessary exposition.
  • Subtext is more important than overt explanations, inviting the audience to piece together the horror themselves.
• Impact:
  • Creates an unsettling atmosphere that lingers.
  • Engages the audience’s imagination, allowing fear to stem from ambiguity.
  • Examples: The Babadook, It Follows, A Ghost Story.

Exaggerated and Campy Horror (Cartoonesque Dialogues and Grimaces)

This style is overt, theatrical, and often tongue-in-cheek, evoking fear through heightened emotions and grotesque exaggeration.

Characteristics:

• Visual Design:
  • Bright, garish colors, or highly stylized sets (e.g., Suspiria [1977]).
  • Exaggerated props, costumes, and makeup for grotesque or comedic effects (e.g., Evil Dead II).
  • Chaotic camera movements or extreme angles to heighten disorientation.
• Sound Design:
  • Over-the-top orchestral stings or melodramatic scores.
  • Loud, sudden sounds used repeatedly for jump scares.
  • Exaggerated screams, laughter, or growls that verge on parody.
• Screenplay and Dialogue:
  • Characters deliver overly dramatic or comically clichéd lines.
  • Dialogue often explains too much, leaving little for the audience to interpret.
  • Grimaces and overtly theatrical acting replace subtle emotional cues.
• Impact:
  • Can entertain as “fun horror” but often sacrifices depth for immediate shock or laughter.
  • Relies on spectacle, which can either alienate or amuse the audience.
  • Examples: Beetlejuice, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Shaun of the Dead.

Comparison

Which Style Is More Effective?

• Sleek, Coarse, and Deep Horror is often seen as more intellectually engaging and timeless. It allows for a layered experience where fear grows from a combination of atmosphere, subtle storytelling, and emotional resonance.
• Cartoonesque Horror, on the other hand, appeals to those seeking an entertaining, lighter experience. It provides catharsis through humor and shock rather than dread, though it risks alienating audiences who prefer subtlety. The Nosferatu (2024) clearly also uses (involuntary?) humor as vehicle.

Both styles have their place, and some films successfully blend elements of both (e.g., Cabin in the Woods). The choice depends on the intended audience and the emotional response the filmmaker wishes to elicit.

Comparing Victorian times and modern day times with regard to repressed thoughts and repressed emotions

While the deeper subject or actual focus of the Nosferatu narratives is that of repressed sexual urges, an anachronistic rendering may leave  a modern audience stunned or overwhelmed with a subject matter that is not only factually historic but emotionally outdated.

To better reach modern audiences with the idea of providing repressed thought based horror entertainment, a different approach is needed.

A great example of a mysterious movie that goes deep in adequately and poignantly using exactly that as a vehilce, i.e., repressed thought that escapes via alcohol and hormone release, in order to create situative horror, the movie “Black Bear” with Audrey Plaza. Similarly great in working that level of unease and mystery is the Peter Sellers movie “The Party”, that pulls dark and repressed ideas both with regard to racism and vicarious embarrassment into the open with unforgiving harshness. Both may be, however, far more uncomfortable to watch than Nosferatu particulary with regard to modern repression of thoughts and emotions (2024).

Here’s a table comparing the most frequent repressed thoughts and emotions in Victorian times and modern times. These examples reflect societal norms and cultural contexts that influenced what people felt compelled to suppress.

Sexuality

Victorian Times

• Sexuality was shrouded in strict moral and religious codes. Sexual desires, especially for women, were considered shameful and linked to “immorality.”
• Homosexuality was not only taboo but criminalized, forcing individuals to lead double lives or suppress their true identities entirely.
• Celibacy outside of marriage was idealized, while sex itself was treated as a duty for reproduction, not pleasure.

Modern Times

• While more open, taboos around sexual satisfaction and non-conforming identities (e.g., asexuality, pansexuality) persist, often due to cultural or familial pressures.
• Societal beauty standards and hyper-sexualized media portrayals lead to insecurities and suppressed feelings of inadequacy in relationships.
• Individuals may repress desires to explore unconventional sexual practices or polyamory out of fear of judgment.

Emotional Expression

Victorian Times

• “Proper” individuals were expected to remain composed. Displays of anger, frustration, or sadness were considered unrefined, particularly for women.
• Men were taught to suppress all but stoic or cheerful expressions to maintain authority.
• Grief and mourning were regulated by societal conventions, with set periods for public displays.

Modern Times

• Despite growing acceptance of emotional vulnerability, men still face pressure to suppress emotions like sadness and anxiety to conform to ideas of masculinity.
• Women often suppress anger to avoid being labeled as “emotional” or “irrational.”
• The rise of social media fosters a culture of performative happiness, where genuine struggles are hidden behind curated lives.

Social Identity

Victorian Times

• Class divisions were rigid, and individuals felt pressure to act “appropriately” for their station.
• Aspirations for upward mobility were often seen as overreaching, especially in women.
• Marriages across class lines or attempts to “better oneself” were met with suspicion or disdain.

Modern Times

• Social mobility remains a pressure point, but now it often manifests through the lens of career and lifestyle.
• Social media exacerbates feelings of inadequacy, as individuals compare their lives to curated online personas.
• People may repress dissatisfaction with their lives to maintain appearances, fearing judgment or rejection.

Mental Health

Victorian Times

• Mental illnesses were misunderstood, with terms like “melancholia” and “hysteria” used to dismiss or pathologize emotional struggles.
• Women’s mental health issues were often attributed to their biology and suppressed through institutionalization or “rest cures.”
• Men with mental health struggles were stigmatized and expected to endure silently.

Modern Times

• Mental health struggles like anxiety, depression, and burnout are more widely recognized but remain stigmatized in many professional and cultural circles.
• The “hustle culture” and pressure to be constantly productive lead to suppressed feelings of inadequacy and exhaustion.
• Therapy and medication are increasingly accepted, but many still avoid seeking help due to stigma or financial barriers.

Ambition

Victorian Times

• Women were discouraged from pursuing ambition outside domestic roles, while men were pressured to achieve traditional markers of success.
• Social norms dictated that ambition be pursued within the confines of propriety, limiting innovation and creativity.

Modern Times

• While ambition is celebrated in some circles, it is often criticized when perceived as “selfish,” particularly for women balancing family roles.
• Suppression of ambitions occurs due to fear of failure or societal pressure to follow traditional paths (e.g., corporate careers over creative pursuits).

Spiritual Doubt

Victorian Times

• Religion was central to life, and doubt was seen as dangerous or immoral.
• Many suppressed internal conflicts about faith to avoid ostracization or accusations of heresy.

Modern Times

• With secularism on the rise, people are more open about spiritual questioning, but societal expectations for material success often suppress existential exploration.
• Fear of being dismissed as “naive” or “overly philosophical” leads many to bury questions about life’s purpose.

Desires for Autonomy

Victorian Times

• Women were expected to live under the authority of fathers, husbands, or brothers, and desires for independence were deemed rebellious or inappropriate.
• Young men’s autonomy was often tied to financial or social expectations, limiting genuine freedom.

Modern Times

• The pressure to conform to societal ideals (e.g., marriage, parenthood, specific career paths) continues to suppress autonomy.
• Financial instability in modern economies often stifles the pursuit of independence, as individuals remain tethered to unsatisfying roles for survival.

Interpersonal Tensions

Victorian Times

• Romantic dissatisfaction was often repressed due to the stigma of divorce or separation.
• Forbidden relationships across class, race, or religion led to lifelong repression or secret affairs.
• Families often hid conflicts behind a facade of harmony to maintain social standing.

Modern Times

• The digital age fosters disconnection, as people present curated versions of themselves online, suppressing authentic communication.
• Social norms discourage airing relationship struggles publicly, leading to internalized resentment or dissatisfaction.
• Loneliness and unspoken tensions are common in both romantic and platonic relationships due to the pressures of maintaining appearances.

Tabooized Elements in Self-Constituting Narratives

While female sexuality may have been all the rage when considering Victorian times and what was a hot subject with regard of what we repressed back then, the modern days have their own share of thought and emotion repression that is also seen in the way we all deal with people with unwelcomed ideas such as political thoughts.

Self-constituting narratives involve how individuals or groups define themselves through stories about their experiences, beliefs, and values.

Tabooized elements, repressed aspects, are those aspects of the narrative that are repressed or excluded because they conflict with societal norms or personal self-image.

With an increase in wokeness and with an increase in public humiliation of people that express strange, extreme or otherwise unaccepted ideas, these become stored in the cellar of that person’s mind, as sub basis narrative according to Fabian Virchow.

Fabian Virchow constitutes the self as built on both basisnarratives and subbasisnarratives. Basisnarratives are what we culturally or in our families share as ground truth, as basic belief. “We have always grown our own potatoes”, or “all teachers are bad people and good people do not go to school” may be such beliefs. Once society marginalizes an idea that is found in basisnarratives, the people that have these may stop sharing these narratives while hanging on to them, then placing them in their mental cellar so to speak, as subbasisnarrative. These still constitute the self of that person but that part then is not accessible to others any more, as it is only rarely or never shared.

Examples of Tabooized Elements:

1. Cultural or Historical Trauma:
   • Narratives that challenge national or cultural myths (e.g., colonialism, systemic oppression) are often repressed to maintain a cohesive identity while avoiding public defacing, embarrassment, discrimination or humiliation.
   • In personal narratives shared with others in public, acknowledging complicity in or benefit from these histories may be too uncomfortable to integrate.
2. Unacceptable Desires or Beliefs:
   • Individuals may suppress thoughts or feelings deemed inappropriate, such as socially “unacceptable” sexual desires, ambitions, or extreme, violent, uneducated or (un)democratic political affiliations.
   • For example, people might repress admiration for authoritarian figures or ideologies due to societal condemnation, even if these resonate with their own underlying fears or own desires for control.
3. Conflict Between Individual and Collective Identity:
   • People will experience inner conflict when their authentic selves diverge from the collective identity (e.g., rejecting gender roles in a patriarchal society). This also needs to be repressed or subdued.
4. Shame and Failure:
   • Failures or moments of perceived weakness are often omitted from self-constituting narratives to preserve a coherent and “respectable” self-image.

Repression and the Subbasisnarrative

The repression of these tabooized elements occurs at both an individual and societal level:

• Individually, repression allows a person to maintain a sense of coherence, even if it involves self-deception.
• Collectively, repression sustains dominant ideologies by excluding elements that could destabilize the prevailing social order.

The subbasisnarrative persists in the unconscious, influencing behavior and decisions in subtle ways. For instance:

• Projection: Repressed desires or fears may be projected onto others, leading to scapegoating or prejudice.
• Cognitive Dissonance: Repressed contradictions within one’s narrative may result in discomfort, denial, or overcompensation (e.g., performative virtue signaling).

Connection to Repressed Thought

Fabian Virchow’s insights into ideological movements, such as far-right extremism, offer a lens to understand how subbasisnarratives can fuel repressed thought:

1. Ideological Repression:
   • Taboo political ideologies, such as fascism, climate change or COVID denial, may persist in “coded” forms within mainstream discourse.
   • Individuals might suppress direct alignment but still resonate with its underlying principles (e.g., nationalism or xenophobia).
2. Identity Defense Mechanisms:
   • Groups may construct myths or narratives to repress collective guilt (e.g., denial of historical atrocities, COVID public health management) while subconsciously or even consciously embedding these unacknowledged traumas in their ideology.
3. Shadow Narratives:
   • Repressed subbasisnarratives may manifest as “shadow narratives,” surfacing in art, media, or extremist propaganda that indirectly expresses the suppressed content.

Implications for Understanding Repressed Thought

• Taboos and Agency: Tabooized elements of self-constituting narratives may reflect a loss of agency, where individuals or groups conform to societal pressures while suppressing their authentic desires or beliefs. If that also is neglected, the unconscious may play real tricks there.
• Unconscious Influence: These repressed elements, though hidden, shape perceptions, relationships, and socio-political movements, may erupt, particularly in moments of crisis or upheaval or stress.
• Breaking the Repression: To confront these subbasisnarratives, individuals and societies must engage in reflective processes that bring the repressed elements to light, allowing for reconciliation and transformation.

So all those that have suppressed their own unwelcomed but deeply seated beliefs, such as a belief in own hard authority, and that have a hard time taming that beast in the cellar of their mind, trying to keep a subbasisnarrative from leaking into becoming a (shared) basisnarrative, may like to see movies with a thusly more modern approach to fears, horrors and projected monsters.

Disability and Nosferatu themes

Conclusion

The perception of Victorian emotional repression as outdated or even comical arises from the significant cultural, social, and psychological evolutions over the past century. Contemporary audiences may find more empowerment and authenticity in modern and adequate emotional expression, making the exaggerated restraint of earlier eras seem foreign, exaggerated, or even comical and laughable.

These shifts reflect not only progress in gender equality but also progress in a deeper understanding of human psychology and progress in storytelling. Not all issues have progressed in the same way over the centuries however. The treatment and social standing of disabled people today has clear aspects of an outdated and old, very well established discrimination practice that people did not have to learn from scratch, that is not different now from back then.

Nosferatu however is not about disability but about female sexuality. There, cinematically, the symbolic, vague, and distanced style of the original Nosferatu (1922) enhances the projection of viewers’ fears and emotions by creating a canvas for personal interpretation. This ambiguity activates the imagination, engages unconscious archetypes, and avoids the constraints of overly realistic storytelling. By leaving space for subjective experiences, Nosferatu (1922) achieves a timeless, haunting quality that resonates deeply with diverse audiences. The Nosferatu (2024) version fails to provide a similarly adequate canvas for own projections.

That said, also the present times are fraught with repressed thought, with transgressions, as apparently were the Victorian times. There remain things today that are in the dark, and that could and should be pulled into the light.

When repressed or suppressed narratives or emotions and thought continue to prevail in a person, their manifestations to this day may be superbly violent and horrific. Loss of impulsive control, loss of the ability to keep a lid on what’s cooking in the cellar, remain hot and relevant subjects. The bottomlessness, emptiness of this type of horror remains unimaginable, unimagined and thus not adequately portrayed.

A modern reinterpretation of Nosferatu may well encapsulate such contemporary difficulties and tragic life stories, ideas and narratives, and then use art forms that effectively relate an adequately unfathomable extent of various attributed versus experienced meanings in an authentic manner.

That is where the Nosferatu (2024) provides a dissatisfactory attempt, failing on a number of relevant and relatable accounts. It thus is framed differently, depending on the viewer’s own frame of reference. Clearly, Nosferatu (2024) is mostly about an old man with decubital ulcers, poor respiratory system condition, very poor neglected hygiene, and almost total lack of overall castle cleanliness, combined with now would be termed as severe personality disorder, as it appears at the end of his life, in what then turns out to be a palliative situations, where all is predicaments and conditions cannot be and are not cured, but only unsatisfactorily remedied, on a more or less day by day, or, more precisely, night by night basis. The mental aspects of his own suffering are not detailed well. Thusly is embodied what has to be understood as the phantasy of the young woman that ends up dying for her passion, also without greater details about her bodily and mental afflictions. However, they both seem to be severely and gravely ill, and in dire need for better care and attention of their conditions and ailments. That this narrative and story is left at that is frustrating.

When a colleague sitting next to me while we watched Nosferatu (2024) was startled, when the young man stumbled into the cellar with Count Orlok’s coffin where he sleeps and then opened it and Orlok was like AAA. So I asked her, what did you expect, a vacuum cleaner? Seriously: even though the whole situation oozes with social and medical neglect, what is wrong with an occasional manicure and overall castle maintenance. Particularly when caring about one’s own or someone else’s inner monster.