Nosferatu

“...and the truth bore witness to the miracle: at that very moment, the Great Death came to an end, and the shadow of the Deathbird was gone, as if obliterated by the triumphant rays of the living sun.” (Author’s note: this review is based on the 2006 Berriatúa restoration.) I’ve said previously that Georges Méliès invented the horror genre with The House of the Devil 26 years prior, but perhaps no film really created what defined the early years of horror cinema as F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (or, from here on, just Nosferatu) did. Murnau’s work, most influentially, makes its mark as the first vampire film and therefore sets a precedent for all vampire fiction after it. It also, perhaps, sets itself as the greatest fan film ever made, as the film borrows heavily (read: 90%) from Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. It is the film equivalent for Dracula that Dante’s Inferno would be in literature for the Bible. Both very influential, both heavily borrowing from their sources. Something I learned from finally seeing this film for the first was the use of color tints in films from this time period. Initially I was admittedly confused, but after some explanation (and googling) I came to understand the purpose of the tints and I think they add very nicely to the film! I love the use of yellow for sunlight, blue for dusk/night, and pink for the sunrise. What a creative way to convey the time in settings in a simpler form than colorizing each frame of the film by hand. And the lore Murnau establishes here for vampires. Orlok, while being the spawn of the demons of Hell, is the first vampire (and therefore Nosferatu the first film) to be seen dying as he’s caught in the sunlight, but he also kills his victims with his bite rather than convert them to other vampires like Dracula or later vampire additions such as Edward Cullen would. Orlok may not be a very good vampire missionary, but he certainly is a crucial contribution to the genre of vampire cinema for what makes him stand out to contemporary vampires of his time. Of course no review of Nosferatu is complete, however, without talking about Max Schreck as Count Orlok, the vampire antagonist of the film. While of course he looks creepy and I imagine horrified audiences when the film initially released in 1922 (and even at times during my viewing gave some really creepy vibes), I cannot help but find him somewhat goofy; perhaps part of this could be attributed to his cameo in SpongeBob SquarePants as a night shift employee at the Krusty Krab, but even in this film Orlok does some things that make him seem less sinister - he sucks the blood from Hutter’s thumb after the latter cuts it trying to cut bread, he carries his coffin with him, he even looks both ways before crossing the street near the film’s climax. Even so, Schreck is a great actor and I love the look they gave him for Orlok, and that’s ultimately what matters here. And the set design is meticulous and fantastic, the nature shots Murnau uses doing an excellent job of establishing the setting of Orlok’s residence as a place of a man who is not just looking for an ordinary real estate deal. No, Orlok lives in the middle of empty fields and mountains, the people refusing to go anywhere near. That little bit does so much for establishing a character and it’s really a great way to do so. Very little exposition on Orlok is said through the intertitles beyond what the people who live within the proximity say. And that’s not mentioning Orlok’s castle! What a great use of the Neo-Gothic Orava Castle, a location used for later Dracula adaptations as well. My one complaint - and this is more of a complaint in regards to this particular restoration, so I will not be knocking the film’s score down for this - is the soundtrack. My god does it not quite fit the vibe this film clearly has going for it. It’s really jarring and I’d advise avoiding this restoration or at the very least muting the audio track and replacing it with your own music of choice (hopefully fitting). It’s a shame, because the restoration is phenomenal otherwise. Overall, Nosferatu is an essential piece of cinema and horror history. It is a film that every horror fan should see at least once, even if its ability to terrify isn’t quite as powerful as it was for audiences in 1922. There is so much to absolutely enjoy here.