Fiction Reviews
Nosferatu Unbound
(2024) edited by Steven Paulsen and Christopher Sequeira,
FWG Publishing International, ££19.57 / US$14.99, pbk, 272pp, ISBN 978-1-922-85678-4
Published just over a hundred years after F. W. Murnau’s expressionist masterpiece was released, this collection offers a diverse array of re-imaginings of Count Orlok, Nosferatu.
Kirstyn McDermott’s opener, ‘These Pale Shadows’, projects him into the present and nicely entwines the character with the film Nosferatu itself, as ‘Ghost’, a retriever of rare artefacts, hunts down a much sought-after hand-tinted copy that reveals a dreadful secret.
‘The Doorman’ by Jim Krueger, on the other hand, has Orlok as the narrator, trapped in the modern world and having walked through, as he puts it, “too many doors”.
Similarly, but unusually, ‘The Last Dead Girl’ by Leverett Butts, portrays him as a world-weary gumshoe, tangled up in a case that turns out to be more than it seems. Jack Dunn’s ‘Celebration’ is in the same vein (ha ha) with Nosferatu deciding that the end is indeed nigh, not only for him but his extended 1920s family as well. Likewise, Steve Kilbey’s prose-poem, ‘Pages From a Diary’, adopts an elegiac tone as it spans the decades and different cities.
‘The Apartment at the End of the Hall’ by Aaron Harvie, then brings us back closer to modern times and instead presents the vampire unflinchingly as the predator he is.
In Steve Rasnic Tem’s ‘V is for Vermin’, however, he is much diminished, on a par with the rats and cockroaches that must be cleared out of a refurbished townhouse.
Elsewhere, some of the other characters come to the fore. The ‘Last of the Sacrificial Women’ by Deborah Sheldon focuses on an Australian descendent of Ellen Hutter, the object of Orlok’s unwanted affection back in Wisborg, Germany. Although determined to sacrifice herself as Ellen did, things do not quite go to plan.
Interestingly, Jason Nahrung’s ‘The Last Stage’ is also set down-under, with the owner of a gold mine sending his despised stepson off to find a missing coach and who, of course, finds more than he bargained for.
Ellen also features in H. K. Stubbs’ ‘When Stakes Are High, Stay Sharp’ which, as the title indicates, has a Buffy-style quality about it as she joins forces with her stake-wielding step-daughter to rid the world of monsters.
Another descendent of Hutter’s, this time through the male line, is also the central character of Brad Mengel’s ‘An Old Family Volume’. Freshly returned home from the horrors of the Great War, the narrator finds he must face his own ghosts in addition to the terrible creature living just across the road.
Also bringing in another character from the film is ‘Brother Mine’ by Claire Fitzpatrick, the brother in question being Augustus Knock who decides to try and find Heinrich, who, of course, becomes Orlok’s minion in the movie. And find him he does, although rescue is out of the question.
Finally, Sal Ciano and Peter Rawlik’s ‘The Vampyre’s Shadow’ gives us the diary entries of a woman desperately trying to save her infected husband.
Creepiness abounds but my favourite piece actually contains no supernatural elements: Jim Shephard’s ‘Nosferatu’ is a fictional account of the making of the film that emphasises Murnau’s demanding, but creative, obsessiveness. The volume also includes a brief introduction to the film by Leslie Klinger, followed by Dacre Stoker’s account of why his great-grandaunt sought to have all copies of Murnau’s work destroyed and concludes with ‘Being There! – In Search of Nosferatu Film Locations’ by Julia Kruk, Chair of the Dracula Society, complete with photos.
As unsettling as some of these stories are, I have to say that none had me wondering what might be hidden within the shadows of my bedroom at three in the morning – for that, I think I’d need to watch the film again.
Steven French
[Up: Fiction Reviews Index | SF Author: Website Links | Home Page: Concatenation]
[One Page Futures Short Stories | Recent Site Additions | Most Recent Seasonal Science Fiction News]