What makes a vampire hot? A deathly important investigation

Vampires are hot – this is an indisputable fact. It’s partly because they’re hot that they haven’t properly dropped out of our pop culture cycle since Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Gothic horror novel from 1897. It’s why, in 2011, they contributed almost $10 billion to the economy. (How much do they contribute in the 2020s? We don’t know. Bring back real journalism!) But some vampires are hotter than others.

This sad fact entered the deadly light of day last week, with the release of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, a remake of FW Murnau’s 1922 horror of the same name. In Eggers’ film, Bill Skarsgård plays a particularly monstrous iteration of the titular vampire, AKA Count Orlok. “He’s kind of hot, he’s handsome in a way,” says Nicholas Hoult (who plays Nosferatu’s estate agent, Thomas Hutter) in one interview. “Everyone’s gone very quiet... but he’s hot, I was into it.” In another interview, the actor reveals that he has the Count’s prosthetic vampire penis framed in his house.

Skarsgård himself has been less enthusiastic about Orlok’s undead appeal, however. Quizzed on fans’ attraction toward his “hot vampire” role, he says: “I don’t know what to say. It is what it is. It’s in the eyes of the beholder, let’s put it that way...”

Online, the subject has proved predictably divisive. Hot Orlok advocates swoon over the vampire’s historically-accurate handlebar moustache, obsessive tendencies, deep voice, and fancy fur coats. Orlok haters point to his historically-accurate handlebar moustache, obsessive tendencies, the rotting sores that cover his body, and the plague of rats that precedes him wherever he goes. Of course, in this case, ugliness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Very glad that Count Orlok isn’t hot in Nosferatu,” reads one post. “Him being that nasty-looking is what is going to make it clear for a solid half of the audience that no, his affection is not something you want.”

The problem is, this whole conversation is pointless. The debate was over before it even began. The real hot Orlok was introduced in 1979, courtesy of Klaus Kinski, the star of Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu.

OK, Herzog called him Count Dracula, but that doesn’t matter. With a shaved head, pallid skin, false ears, false teeth, and four-inch-long fingernails, Kinski’s vampire is still more human-looking than Skarsgård’s, but it only makes him creepier – and hotter. This is helped by Herzog’s direction for Nosferatu, which withholds the more erotic elements (brought to the forefront in Eggers’ film – too obvious!) until the Count’s very last moments, instead drawing out the loneliness and frustration of his eternal life. “We see him more sympathetically,” said Kinski in a 1978 interview with the New York Times. “He is a man without free will. He cannot choose and he cannot cease to be. He is a kind of incarnation of evil, but he is also a man who is suffering, suffering for love.”

We don’t need to spell out the attraction of a man suffering for love. However, it’s still worth comparing Kinski’s frail, vulnerable vampire (or even the hunched over, leering Orlok played by Max Schreck in Murnau’s original) with the hyper-masculine version played by Skarsgård. It can tell us a lot about what makes a vampire uniquely hot – which, importantly, lies in a subversion of what we usually consider to be sexy.

First, a reminder of some other hot, male vampires that have swooped onto our screens in years gone by: Twilight’s Edward Cullen, Tom Hiddleston and John Hurt in Only Lovers Left Alive, Richard E Grant in The Little Vampire, Louis and Lestat in Interview with the Vampire. Bill Skarsgård, not in Nosferatu, but as Roman Godfrey in Hemlock Grove. Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (a divisive yet unshakeable fave of one Dazed editor).

In case you haven’t picked up on the recurring theme yet, let’s turn back to Twilight. On the one hand, you have Jacob – he’s a werewolf but, for romantic purposes, he’s basically just a jacked, tanned, well-meaning guy who can’t stop taking his shirt off. This is what it means to be ‘traditionally hot’, AKA the kind of man who lands on the cover of GQ. On the other hand, you have Edward. Yes, Robert Pattinson is also hot – Twilight is a mainstream romantic fantasy film; it grossed over $3 billion worldwide – but on paper Ed’s a weird, reclusive, 104-year-old stalker with pale skin and addiction issues (blood). This is ‘vampire hot’.

It makes sense that vampires attract us in ways we’re unfamiliar with, or resistant to. In Nina Auerbach’s Our Vampires, Ourselves (1995), she suggests that every age welcomes the vampire it “needs” over the threshold, typically as a cultural mirror that reflects contemporary fears and fantasies. In the Victorian setting of Nosferatu, this has a lot to do with suppressed sexuality and gender roles. In the 20th century, meanwhile, vampires often had more to do with individualism and rebellion (think: The Lost Boys). But sexuality – perhaps especially heterosexuality – isn’t exactly in a great place in the 2020s either.

So vampiric attraction opens the door to a different kind of hotness, rooted in emotional sensitivity and the inherent tragedy of the (super)human condition. The hot vampire may have demonic thralls, but he’s also in thrall to his own desires. Kinski, a violent firebrand IRL, understood this and played Dracula as a fawning, submissive parasite. Skarsgård plays Orlok as a dominant force of nature: “An appetite… nothing more.” This is fine, a great line in the script, maybe even hot! But it’s not uniquely vampire hot – we can get it anywhere, from mainstream reality TV to Fifty Shades of Grey.

There have been a lot of academic work hours devoted to the toxic masculinity and heteronormativity of Twilight, and with good cause – between brooding and yearning, Edward’s constantly getting into fights, displaying his unnatural strength, and rescuing Bella from dangers that were his fault in the first place. His pale, isolated weirdo act only goes glittery-skin-deep. This is why it’s important to have characters like Kinski’s Dracula or Tom Hiddleston’s Adam (who mopes around and melodramatically hoards wooden bullets in case he wants to kill himself). True vampire hotness is a rare thing, and the tellers of vampire tales should make the most of their unique opportunity.