Nosferatu’s vampiric inspiration is even more ancient than you might think

Nosferatu hit theaters on Christmas Day and based on the film’s box office earningsit seems that many horror fans eagerly rushed to see Bill Skarsgård’s creepy Count Orlok – whose appearance was closely guarded secret before the release — on the big screen. Now, David White, the film’s prosthetic makeup designer (his other credits include Guardians of the Galaxy, The crow, The miraclesand The northerner), shared some surprising information about the film’s startling climactic scene.

In case you haven’t yet sunk your teeth into Robert Eggers’ latest…

At the end of the film, the vampire is destroyed in the only way possible: by the sun’s rays while distracted by Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), who sacrifices herself by allowing Orlok to satisfy his dark lust at just the right moment before dawn. Her death is gruesome yet gothically glamorous; his death is horrible and just… terrible. Given writer-director Eggers’ reserved attention to detail, White’s explanation of how they created Orlok’s doubly dead appearance isn’t entirely surprising, though it’s suitably horrifying.

“Robert wanted to be able to cut from Orlok’s pained screams to the final shot of him lying dead on top of Ellen when he’s nothing more than a shell,” White recalled in an interview with Diversity. “I shared with Robert versions of bodies in various states of decay and desiccation. He really wanted the feeling of Orlok draining the life out of him, down to the last drop of blood. We took our latest inspiration from a reference photo of a rediscovered body of a 5,300-year-old ice man found in the Alps.”

The end result is a mix of practicality and VFX, White explained. “When I finished that, it was shot within the scene and VFX, then scanned the corpse and also scanned Bill in this final look. The VFX then enhanced the painful withering moment between the two glances to complete the scene.”

Making the desiccated “casing” feel even more dramatic is the fact that White’s other work on the film had one purpose: “I wanted to keep his age ambiguous — ageless, so to speak,” he told Variety . “I did this by being very careful about the amount of wrinkles and obvious character lines, keeping the look leaner, with no hoods over his eyelids and no bags under his eyes. He also has to be attractive and charismatic to Ellen and be able to hide his dirty rottenness and decay by keeping himself in the shadows as a cover.

The sun is unforgiving no matter who you are, but especially if you happen to be an ancient vampire. Nosferatu it’s in theaters now.

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