This article is excerpted from the Autumn/Winter 2024 issue of AnOther Magazine.
“I love Universal Studios’ 1930s films Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and Bride of Frankenstein. They are some of the most iconic monster movies in cinematic history. Even if you’ve never seen them, you know Frankenstein’s monster has a flat head in his Halloween costume because of Boris Karloff, and Dracula wears a tuxedo because of Bela Lugosi. They are ingrained in people’s imaginations. The first Frankenstein I saw was when I was six years old. This film shocked me exactly the way it was meant to. The way Karloff walked and his face really frightened me, but even as a child I realized he was a victim too. When he threw the girl in the water I was scared, but I understood he wasn’t doing it on purpose.
“I’ve always been interested in dark stuff. I preferred Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker, and the Wicked Witch of the West to Dorothy, but the witch really scared me. I always had nightmares about her. So what is this fascination and repulsion? Universal films are not about shock and horror, they’re about atmosphere. It’s my intention to explore the darkness in our hearts in a realistic way, to go back to childhood instincts with a more adult approach. How can I create the post-expressionist atmosphere of Universal horror films in a more realistic and down-to-earth way, and make the monsters believable?”
Dark stereotypes may be radically redrawn and reimagined in American director Robert Eggers’ feature debut, The Witch (2015). The scene of witches kidnapping babies and grinding their bones is heartbreakingly realistic, instantly transcending the boundaries of fairy tales and folklore. In The Lighthouse (2019), a fiery duel between Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, the flesh of a mermaid is repulsive and fascinating in equal measure. Eggers’ historical accuracy and aptitude for art design make these period dramas true feats of immersive cinema, built around blood, viscera and raw emotion, as well as the 2022 Viking epic The Northman. Nosferatu, due for release in January 2025 and starring Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, is a long-awaited film. Eggers first directed the play when he was 17, at school. His directing method is rigorous, “pushing the audience” and trying to reverse stories we think we know to show something that hasn’t been shown before. “All my influences are obvious, and Nosferatu is a remake after all,” Eggers says, but he also plays with classic cinema, expected cinema and clichés, “wanting to subvert them and do something unexpected.”
Photo Assistant: Ricardo Muñoz Carter
This story appears in the Autumn/Winter 2024 issue of AnOther Magazine, on sale now – order your copy here