Watch The Nosferatu Cast Guess If Wild Ancient Medical Terms Are Real — EXCLUSIVE

Vampires aren’t the only ancient frights in Robert Eggers’ new imagining of Nosferatu — the 2024 remake of the legendary century-old horror film of the same name is also filled with bone-chilling archaic rituals. Some are so depraved you might not even think they were really practiced in the 1830s, but as as the movie’s cast learns in a video seen exclusively at NYLON, they were very much real.

Ahead of Nosferatu’s release, stars Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Emma Corrin were put to the test to see if they could determine real 1830s medical practices from fake ones. Naturally, the whole group knew that bloodletting was definitely a thing, but they got tripped up when faced with a made-up elixir called “strychnine tonic.”

Hoult was quick to declare the tonic real until Skarsgård weighed in: “Isn’t that like the most poisonous thing?” Hoult laughed off his initial guess by joking that he “was about to get some and head to the gym!”

Check out how the cast reacted to the rest of the outlandish medical phenomenons — like a medicine made from sheep’s eyeballs — in the video below.

Skarsgård, Depp, Hoult, Taylor-Johnson, and Corrin are at the center of the paranormal drama in Nosferatu. Skarsgård stars as the eponymous ancient vampire, who develops a psychic connection and obsession with a woman named Ellen (Depp). As he begins to stalk her, Ellen’s new husband Thomas (Hoult) grows concerned, and their friends Friedrich (Taylor-Johnson) and Anna (Corrin) find themselves entangled as well.

Nosferatu was originally a 1922 German film that was adapted from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The new version will fly into theaters Dec. 25.