On March 4th 1922, F.W. Murnau released Nosferatu, and now it is one hundred years old. So, I decided to re-watch it.
I originally saw it in the 90's, and had a somewhat favorable opinion of it. I thought it was okay, and with that in mind I sat down and gave it a good watch. What do I think of it now? It is still okay.
Fair warning, this movie is now over 100 years old so damn the spoilers. I can actually link the entire movie below, so if you want to you can watch is first and read this later.
First off, it is a silent movie. All the dialogue is text cards and all the sound is a soundtrack. In this case it is a bombastic and upbeat German classical music soundtrack. Secondly, all the body language is very over done. This is just how it was, take it or leave it. Thirdly, it is essentially a rip off of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Murnau changed some things around as he did not have permission from Stoker's estate to make Dracula into a movie. Thus it takes place in Germany and Transylvania, not England and Transylvania. The main character is Hutter not Harker. Mina is called Ellen and instead of Professor van Helsing, there are Professors Bulwer and Sievers. Neither of the learned men do anything worthwhile in any case. The biggest change in character is that Renfield is missing and instead we get Knock who is Hutter's boss, but he is the one who goes mad and is locked up in an asylum ranting about the Master. Also, Knock is one of the most sinister looking dudes I have ever seen.
Finally we have the vampire. Elegant and sophisticated Dracula is changed to the creepy, rodent like Count Orlok. Orlok is tall and painfully thin. His ears are long and pointed, his nose long and crooked and his fangs are not incisors, they are located in the middle of his mouth. Imagine long rat teeth but needle sharp instead of square. He is one creepy dude.
Overall, the plot is the same as Dracula. Hutter goes to the Count's castle for a real estate deal and ultimately has to escape. By the way, Orlok, unlike Dracula has no sexy wives floating about, there is no one but the vampire himself. In the mean time, Orlok sails away and arrives in Hutter's home town Wisbourg, where he bought a house. There the final confrontation takes place (sort of), instead of a chase back to Transylvania. The end.
Overall, Nosferatu is a good movie, but it is unbalanced by some scenes that should have been longer and some scenes that make little sense to move the plot forward. We follow Hutter as he enjoys the sunlight at Castle Orlok and writes a letter to his wife, Ellen. Long scenes follow Ellen as she pines for her husband and suffers mentally through some kind of psychic connection with him. This does little to move the plot along. There are also scenes that I assume are meant to show the vampire's supernatural powers so they are shot in high speed, but sadly it just looks silly now. Finally the score is incredibly uneven. There are scenes, especially in the beginning when everything is happy and positive where the almost pompous music makes sense, but when Orlok has butchered an entire ships crew and the so called “Death Ship” floats into town, the same music sounds ridiculous.
Finally Orlok himself is a study in contrast. At times he is actually comedic, and at times he is one of, if not the creepiest vampire in film history. It's just that you don't know which Orlok you are getting from scene to scene. Overall he is cadaverous, stiff like he is suffering from rigor mortis and completely animalistic. There is nothing charming or seductive about him. He is a walking corpse hunting for blood. Your blood.
So do I recommend this movie? Every serious horror fan owes it to themselves to see this movie. Casual horror fans might want to skip it, but I urge you to try. I'll link it below.
That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great and safe week!
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCT1YUtNOA8&ab_channel=BestClassics
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