Summary
Despite the fact that Hutter has arrived around midnight, it apparently isn't too late for a little dinner. As strange as this Count Orlok character may appear, at least he exhibits more of this country hospitality. But of course, in no time at all, things get weird. Hutter is visibly creeped out by Orlok's presence, as the Count sits there reading over a letter written in the same cryptic script as the one we saw Knock read earlier on. And then the evening takes a turn.
While Hutter is carving up a piece of bread, a clock with a little skeleton atop it strikes midnight. The sound startles Hutter and his knife slips. Orlok comes to attention and notices that Hutter's finger is bleeding. Orlok stands and walks over to Hutter, entranced by the "precious blood." Orlok wraps Hutter's hand in his long fingers and brings Hutter's hand to his mouth. Hutter, naturally, recoils and steps away.
The shocked Hutter retreats, but Orlok implores him to stay awake and chat with him for a bit. After all, as Orlok tells Hutter, the Count will be up all night because he gets his sleep during the day. We watch Hutter walk backward and take a seat, but it doesn't look like he does so by his own volition. Orlok commands some force that pushes Hutter backward into a chair.
Hutter passes out in the chair. He awakes in the morning to find two little holes on his neck. He thinks nothing of it, especially when he looks over to the dining room table and sees a feast laid out for him. Hutter wanders outside, enjoying the air, and writes a letter to Ellen telling her not worry and mentioning two strange mosquito bites he found on his neck that morning. A horseman appears to take the letter from Hutter.
When evening falls again, we see Count Orlok ruffling through documents for the real estate sale, looking as creepy as ever. The mood lifts dramatically when a locket with a photo of Ellen falls out of Hutter's jacket, and Orlok can't help but admire her. Spirits changed, he quickly signs the document, and Hutter has made the sale. Well, Orlok's spirits have lifted at least. Hutter seems put off by the fact that the Count commented that his wife has a beautiful neck, and rightfully so.
Soon, Hutter is in a bedroom that looks like the one he stayed in at the inn. That youthful vigor doesn't seem to be with him anymore, and he kisses the photograph of his wife like he is inhaling life from it. He finds that funny little book again—the same one he threw to the ground in the inn—and opens it to the page about Nosferatu sucking blood from his victims in the night.
The clock strikes midnight. Hutter is shaken. He opens the door from the bedroom and finds Orlok and his shadow hunched on the other side of the hall. The terrified Hutter realizes the mistake he has made and retreats to his bed. The door flings open by itself, and Orlok saunters in. We cut to Ellen, who bolts out of bed, sensing something is wrong. She calls for a doctor, and the doctor finds her walking along the railing of her balcony. At that exact same time, Orlok, the Nosferatu, creeps towards Hutter's bed. Ellen calls aloud for her husband before passing out into her bed.
In the morning, Hutter decides to explore the grounds, to better comprehend this castle and its gruesome owner who will soon be his own neighbor. While patrolling the ground he finds a coffin. He opens it. Lying in it is Count Orlok. Hutter flees back to his room in a panic and hastily plots a quick escape. He climbs out the window but falls and injures himself.
Analysis
This sequence at Count Orlok's castle is not just where we see classic vampire tropes develop and mutate. We are also introduced to some key themes of the story to come. On one count (no pun intended!), Count Orlok's physical appearance is quite notable. The only real special effects in the film are applied to making Max Schreck look as gruesome as possible in his performance as Orlok, but the make-up was also an opportunity to insert some plausible deniability.
Remember, this is an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, so the production company tried to change the vampire in whatever minor ways they could. Hence, Orlok's two long teeth are in the front of his mouth, as opposed to towards the sides. As Thomas Elsaesser notes, these are the placement of sharp teeth on a rodent, and this creates a link between Orlok at the rats he'll bring to Wisborg in the next part of the movie.
Elsaesser offers some other useful analysis of Orlok's appearance in his essay "No End to Nosferatu (1922)," specifically in his difference from anyone else in the film. Notice his strange hat, his massive nose, his peculiar coloring. As Elsaesser notes, these attributes help cast Orlok as some generalized mid-European other, an amalgamation of all of the cultures that Western Europeans only heard tales about, be they Jews or Balkans. Part of the horror of this film is the invasion of idyllic Wisborg by a foreign-born plague, and what better icon for that foreignness than a grotesque vampire?
Vampire stories are also tales rife with eroticism, and are particularly well-suited to explore themes of divergent sexuality. Nosferatu no different, and in this sequence we see the vampire reveal himself through a kind of bisexuality. When Orlok goes to lick the blood from Hutter's finger, his movements are particularly creepy because they're so sensual. Hutter recoils, but is it because a man is trying to drink is blood, or because a man is trying to seduce him? Of course, Orlok is also attracted to Ellen as soon as he sees her picture. Here, the vampire is established as a predator, both of sex and blood.
F.W. Murnau had to hide his own homosexuality during his lifetime, thanks for a German law that criminalized homosexual sex. Therefore, some choose to view Nosferatu as Murnau working through the fraught dynamic between the prevailing moral attitudes at the time and his own needs and desires. In Orlok, we see a man who lives only in darkness and is spurned by the man he tries to seduce, made to live a solitary life as an outcast. Of course, Orlok is also evil personified, but not without pathos.
