Nosferatu’s end is a vignette of a woman working to conform herself to her culture’s understanding of a proper woman, all so that her society might be safe and her city return to its proper order.
This is one of the most searing film essays I’ve ever read — a total dismantling of any surface-level reading of Nosferatu as “feminist.” Thank you for refusing to be seduced by the aesthetics of agency and actually interrogating the ideological architecture behind it. Your analysis of Ellen as a “split Other” — racialized through the vampire, sexualized through her abjection — is devastating. What lingers with me is your framing of Ellen not as a liberated heroine, but as a vehicle for restoring patriarchal order through her own erasure. That final act isn’t triumph. It’s tragedy.
And yes — the contrast with The Witch is so stark. That film ends in flight. This one ends in shame. In silence. In death. I’m haunted now by the thought that Eggers, despite all his symbolic ambition, couldn’t quite bring himself to let the monstrous-feminine live.
I’m currently in the midst of research for my university project which is a video essay on Eggars Noferatu and its connection to Barbara Creeds “The Monstrous Feminine” and reading your essay almost felt orgasmic. It connects and sums up everything SO I have researched, read and written down so well. You explained the film with Creeds and Kristevas theories and thoughts on the subject of female monsters, othering and abjection with so much care and intricacy, I am truly in awe! Thank you!
First of all: tremendous piece. Thank you for writing it.
I'm curious what you make of the film's existence at all. That is to say: after working on it sporadically for nearly a decade, why do you think Eggers told this story, this way, at this time?
This is one of the most searing film essays I’ve ever read — a total dismantling of any surface-level reading of Nosferatu as “feminist.” Thank you for refusing to be seduced by the aesthetics of agency and actually interrogating the ideological architecture behind it. Your analysis of Ellen as a “split Other” — racialized through the vampire, sexualized through her abjection — is devastating. What lingers with me is your framing of Ellen not as a liberated heroine, but as a vehicle for restoring patriarchal order through her own erasure. That final act isn’t triumph. It’s tragedy.
And yes — the contrast with The Witch is so stark. That film ends in flight. This one ends in shame. In silence. In death. I’m haunted now by the thought that Eggers, despite all his symbolic ambition, couldn’t quite bring himself to let the monstrous-feminine live.
Masterful work. Please write a book.
—Anton
I’m currently in the midst of research for my university project which is a video essay on Eggars Noferatu and its connection to Barbara Creeds “The Monstrous Feminine” and reading your essay almost felt orgasmic. It connects and sums up everything SO I have researched, read and written down so well. You explained the film with Creeds and Kristevas theories and thoughts on the subject of female monsters, othering and abjection with so much care and intricacy, I am truly in awe! Thank you!
First of all: tremendous piece. Thank you for writing it.
I'm curious what you make of the film's existence at all. That is to say: after working on it sporadically for nearly a decade, why do you think Eggers told this story, this way, at this time?