Review Tuesday: NOSFERATU [1922]

 

NOSFERATU

[1922]

The classic vampire silent film.

Everyone in the universe is familiar with NOSFERATU. In fact, this film changed and solidified the vampire lore forever. Since it turned 100 years old this year, I decided to FINALLY watch it, in its entirety, for October, a month of HORROR REVIEWS.

This movie is largely based on Bram Stoker's DRACULA but with some changes and modifications, likely due to screen time (one hour and twenty one minutes). Since it was unofficial and unauthorized Stoker's heirs took the filmmakers to court and has all copies of the movie destroyed. Of course, some copies survived allowing this film to become the stuff of legends, itself, like its content. 

 

Many of the characters and events were unsurprisingly similar from the source material, but the villain was called Graf Orlok infamously performed by Max Schreck. 

 

The film, itself, is perfect in its simplicity. Nosferatu gets Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to draw up his paperwork. Then he seals Hutter within the castle. Then heads to sea to his new home, to search for fresh blood. 

 

There is a surprising amount of special effects in such an early film. Plus it really fun to just sit and absorb every moment of this film. After finally seeing all the way through, without interruption, I would say this was worth the time to see and well worthwhile. 

 

While this movie was pretty scarce by the middle of the last century, there are several outlets that you can find it, fairly easily on Tubi, Roku, Vudu and Pluto. Please do so, if you haven't, or maybe as a refresher for scary season! I highly recommend it!