In the shadowy landscape of 19th century Transylvania, Thomas Hutter, an earnest real estate agent from the fictional German city of Wisborg, is dispatched to the remote Carpathian Mountains to visit a new client who wishes to purchase a house in his home town. His client, Count Orlok, possesses a chilling and otherworldly demeanor. Ignoring the local peasants' fearful warnings and strange omens, Hutter travels to the Count’s decrepit and eerie castle. There, Hutter discovers unnerving indications of the Count's true nature and is horrified to realize that Orlok is no mere mortal but a creature of the night—a vampire with a thirst for human blood.

Oblivious to the gravity of the danger, Hutter’s loving wife, Ellen, awaits his return in Wisborg, as the Count sets his ominous sights on the town, fixated on a picture of Hutter’s wife. As the Count arranges for his coffins to be shipped to Wisborg—filled with Transylvanian earth, essential for his survival and power—the haunting journey aboard the vessel Demeter turns grim. The crew succumbs to mysterious, deadly circumstances, one by one, leading to the ship’s arrival with a cargo of death—a foreboding prelude to the terror the vampire plans to unleash upon Hutter’s hometown. With the Demeter’s chilling arrival, an unsettling presence encroaches upon the once peaceful Wisborg, setting off a chain of events that would disturb the slumber of even the most rational mind.