Nosferatu’s Resurrection Was A Long Time Coming

How so?

For example, early vampires from Balkan and Slavic lore often did not drink blood. They would strangle or commit adultery with their victims. If they drank blood, it was often from the chest. It was a tale of obsession and love. It seemed like a good, good, visually beautiful poetic motif.

But then I wondered where that folklore came from. These are people who experience sleep paralysis, where they experience the nightmare of this vampiric visitation. They have this pressure in their chest. So while piercing a vampire’s sternum with its fangs is ridiculous, it’s kind of grounded in reality. So it was fun to explore those kinds of things that would keep it fresh but still feel like it could be integrated into this world.

Most of this movie was shot with practical effects?

I mean, there’s tons of CG effects in the movie, but you’re practically trying to do all the big crazy things that can be done with CG. So you can use CG to fix things and extend things, and you’re less aware of the dexterity of your hand because you’re not looking for things that look fake, because usually things that are fake are real.

I ask because I work for WIRED Think about AI a lot. There’s a lot of talk in filmmaking about “AI could do this, AI could do that,” but I watch your movies and I don’t think AI could do that. What do you think about these things?

Guillermo del Toro calls AI’s greatest achievement “semi attractive screensavers” is fair. I think AI is best used to inspire people to do more human things. So that’s all I have to say about it.

I know we’re running out of time, but I have to ask: What monsters will you be fighting next?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I mean, I’d love to see a Robert Eggers Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

Maybe I should give up on this joke because it’s probably going to go all over the place.

I mean you already got it SpongeBob has been in a lot of press lately.