Nosferatu Cut A Scene That Made A Key Character’s Death Even More Disturbing

One brief deleted scene from Robert Eggers’ Gothic horror masterpiece Nosferatu provides more background on a key character’s death, somehow making it all the more disturbing and tragic. Eggers’ remake of the Dracula-adjacent story was a critical hit on top of being one of the highest-grossing horror movies of 2024, and it continues to rack up box office milestones despite its release on VOD and digital platforms less than a month after its theatrical release. Nosferatu’s extended cut contained some new scenes, along with some that were cut from the movie entirely.

It should be noted that the extended cut of Nosferatu is just four minutes longer than the theatrical cut, meaning that the version that hit theaters was Eggers’ complete vision of the movie. A popular note from critics was that Nosferatu was paced exceptionally well, balancing action and scares with time to soak in the breathtaking visuals and sets. One of the scenes that Eggers chose not to include in either the theatrical cut or the extended cut directly connects to a character who doesn’t survive the ending of Nosferatu, and it makes his death even more disturbing in retrospect.

One Of Nosferatu’s Deleted Scenes Shows Friedrich & Anna Harding Being Intimate

The Fragmented Scene Was Interspersed With Orlok’s Pursuit Of Thomas

Robert Eggers only included three deleted scenes in the digital release of Nosferatu, and one of them shows Emma Corrin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Anna and Friedrich Harding making love in the missionary position in their marital bed. The two are interrupted when Anna hears Ellen get up from her bed and walk through the house while under Orlok’s spell. The scene comes right after Thomas attempts to kill Orlok in his sarcophagus, and Orlok takes control of Ellen with the now-iconic line, “Your husband is lost to you. Dream of me. Only me.”

The scene with Anna and Friedrich is fragmented, and interspersed with the scene (which was not cut) that involved Count Orlok stalking through the castle in pursuit of Thomas so that he can place him under his spell and feed on him again. The scene does not contain any nudity and their bodies are mostly obscured by the darkness of night, and it’s easy to understand why Eggers thought it was not necessary to include it. Eggers may have seen it as unnecessary given that it almost over-explains the circumstances of Friedrich’s death, but it contains a powerful visual callback.

Nosferatu’s Deleted Scene Directly Connects To Friedrich’s Death

Their Physical Position Is Recalled When Friedrich Is Discovered Dead

Towards the end of Nosferatu, a plague-afflicted and grieving Friedrich Harding goes to the Wisburg cemetery, and opens the mausoleum where his wife and two daughters were recently placed. The sick and delusional Friedrich approaches his wife’s coffin, removes the lid, takes his wife’s body into his arms and kisses it. The scene cuts directly to Thomas, Professor Von Franz, and Dr. Sievers’ discovery of Friedrich’s body in the mausoleum, still on top of his wife in her coffin.

It’s never shown in great detail, but it’s clear based on the positioning of their bodies (Anna’s funeral gown was thrown up, and her legs were split) that Friedrich, consumed by his grief and near the end of his life, deluded himself into trying to make love to his wife one last time. While the theatrical release includes him saying multiple times how irresistible he finds his wife both physically and emotionally, thus implying what he was doing to his wife’s corpse, the deleted scene directly shows them in the same position in which the survivors find the Hardings’ bodies.

How The Friedrich & Anna Deleted Scene Advances Nosferatu’s Theme

It’s A Poignant Juxtaposition Of Love Versus Loneliness

Nosferatu is fascinating in how it juxtaposes beauty and death, which is very intentional on Eggers’ part. With Nosferatu, he was attempting to recreate the classic Renaissance literary/art trope known as “Death and the Maiden”, in which a beautiful young woman who symbolizes innocence is set upon by Death (typically personified as a skeleton or hooded figure), as a reminder of death’s inevitability. The scene is recreated quite literally in the final scene of the movie, as the rotten living corpse of Orlok dies on top of the beautiful and innocent Ellen Hutter.

The deleted scene involving the Hardings is another juxtaposition, this time not of Death and the Maiden, but rather of sex and love versus death and loneliness. Ellen and Orlok both embody those concepts as well, with Orlok’s decaying body often juxtaposed against Ellen’s sexually-charged writhing that is halfway between pleasure and pain. However, Friedrich Harding’s character arc also encapsulates the overarching theme of Nosferatu; he begins the movie expressing his love for his wife through sex, and ends it trying to recapture that quite literally in death once he is left utterly alone.

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Nosferatu

8/10

Release Date

December 25, 2024

Runtime

132 Minutes