Thought you’d seen the last of me, eh boils and ghouls? Well while my internet service did its best to pull the plug on my little horror project, there is still plenty of life in this shambling corpse. While deciding on today’s diabolical topic, it hit me like a sack of severed heads. The day previous being Max Schreck’s birthday after all, why not do a little ditty on Nosferatu?
It was merely by chance that we are able to watch Nosferatu today at all. Released in the German Expressionistic period’s heyday by F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu was a direct rip of Bram Stroker’s Dracula.
Although Murnau tried to avoid copyright issues by renaming some characters (Dracula became Count Orlock and 'nosferatu’ being the term substituted for ‘vampire’) these changes were as thin to see through as a ghost’s sheet – and so when brought to court by Stroker’s remaining family members, a judge ordered all the copies of the film destroyed and so they were – all save for one.
Hidden in a barn, the final copy of Nosferatu remained, having escaped the pyre that it’s brothers burned in, waiting patiently to be discovered until it was years later.
Nosferatu, or its long form title Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie Des Grauens (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror) is the very first vampire movie known to exist, and nearly a hundred years after its 1922 release, it remains a genuinely haunting and eerie movie. This film contains more ghastliness, more ingenuity, and more atmosphere than many of its predecessors that would come years later.
This is in no small measure due to its innovative use of film techniques, making use of negative film, double exposures, and filtered lenses among other camera techniques and special effects, there is a certain feverish, dream-like atmosphere cultivated by Nosferatu that simply doesn't exist in other takes. There is a feeling that this is truly a place and time where the dead could walk and feed upon the living, a reality much like our own, but which has very different rules.
While this otherworldly quality is in part due to the fact that it is a silent film, with the exaggerated stage makeup, the strange, animalistic way that Orlock’s movements are pronounced, and even small details like the cuckoo clock with Death ringing a bell to signal what time it is, what would otherwise come off as cliché or forced leaves you spellbound.
Speaking of Orlock, one cannot speak of Nosferatu without speaking of Schreck. For those of you that are curious, Max’s name literally means ‘Max Terror’ when you translate it into English, and what a horrifying sight he must have been when people first saw his visage. How terrible he must have seemed to an audience dressed in period clothing at the Marmorsaal where the film first debuted.
While Lugosi may have given us the archetypal interpretation that would have later become the ‘sexy’ vampire, Schreck’s was anything but. The scenes involving Schreck, most famously near the end where his shadow slowly navigates a staircase to reach a victim, leave an indelible print on the mind.
With his lanky, stooped posture and sunken eyes, oversized ears, jagged fingernails and rat-like teeth, Schreck communicated a kind of primal terror of what lies in the dark that Lugosi simply could never match. To speak for a moment about dedication to craft, Schreck grew out his nails for the roll and cut them as they are seen in the film. He never appeared out of make-up nor out of character in front of other members of the cast. Had it not been for the lawsuit, this movie would have made Schreck a massive star.
Speaking of could haves, it would have been interesting indeed to see just what other stories Albin Grau, the producer for Nosferatu would have done. A member of the German Occult group Fraternitas Saturni, Grau infused occult undertones into the film which may not be obvious on a first viewing.
It is Grau that we largely have to thank for the feel of the film, designing Schreck’s makeup and look as well as the costuming, props, sets and other various materials. Grau had first gotten the idea to do a vampire movie when he was serving in the German army in WWI on the Eastern front, where a farmer told him that his father was a vampire. His film company, Prana was supposed to make several films about Occultism, but due to the lawsuit, was ordered to fold.
Still, there was a minor silver lining in the lawsuit. A vast majority of the orchestral score has been lost to time. This in turn, gives composers and musicians a great deal of freedom in making a soundtrack for Nosferatu. Everyone from classical orchestras to Type O Negative has tried their hand at it, and watching Nosferatu with a different soundtrack can give it a very different feel.
Murnau’s classic is free to watch, and you can do so in many, many places. Still, I highly recommend to anyone wishing to possess not only an excellent horror movie, but a masterpiece of cinema start with this particular copy.
Pleasant screams, and until next time,
Eerie Evan.
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