Since the beginning of early cinema, Count Dracula has been featured in hundreds of movies. However, the first time audiences were introduced to Bram Stoker’s blood-sucking character was in F.W. Murnau’s unofficial silent film adaptation Nosferatu where the book’s names and details were changed.

Stoker’s heirs sued Nosferatu ’s producers, and a German court ruled that all copies of the film be destroyed. That didn’t quite happen — too many prints had made their way overseas by that point — but Murnau’s vision was almost wiped from the record,

The intense perfectionist behind "The Northman" and "The Lighthouse" tells IndieWire how he made the vampire tale his own.