As for Schreck, Dafoe has special feelings. Dafoe repeats, a sly smile taking over his gaunt, eerily haunted face. Yes, I like Max. He is a tragic figure. A Symphony Of Horror, one of the most influential classics of the silent era.
Vampires generate feelings of longing, lust and fear of disease and death.
Vampires can be an allegory for the black plague or, in contemporary times, for the AIDS epidemic. They also can conjure terror over sexual depravity. At the same time, in recreating the making of Nosferatu and turning it into a stylized fiction, Merhige used wit and humour. In one scene, Dafoe plucks a flying bat out of the air and eagerly gobbles it down as a snack. People standing with him are horrified.