Blog Monster Movie Monday: Nosferatu
Nosferatu (1922)
Starring: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroder, and Alexander Granach
Directed by: F. W. Murnau
Written by: Henrik Galeen based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Production Company: Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal and Prana-Film GmbH
This time your faithful Evil Genius film critic has decided to get into the Transtemporal Trolley to check out the classic film Nosferatu from 1922. Now before I share my evil thoughts with you about this vampire masterpiece. I have little experience with silent films. I would not know a cinematic convention of the 1920s if it slapped me in the forehead. Therefore, any technical achievements which I feel is impressive for a 1920s film, but which was already standard, I can only blame on ignorance. Feel free to correct my understanding of these wayback wonders, but all I can say is what I liked and what I didn’t.
I got my copy of Nosferatu from one of those great 50 movie DVD boxes, Horror Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection. The version included in this boxed set has the characters named from Stoker’s original book and carries a credit to Stoker’s work. So Count Orlok was really Count Dracula, Hutter was Van Helsing, and Knock was Renfield. I will refer, however, to the characters’ original names.
Nosferatu is a simplified version of Stoker’s book Dracula. Count Orlok wants to buy some property and Hutter is dispatched to finalize the deal. Hutter’s trip is a strange one as local villagers encourage him not to travel at night, a few references to phantoms, and the last leg of his trip is an inordinately quick ride. The strange looking Orlok proves to be even stranger as he jumps at Hutter’s cut on his hand, becomes enthralled with a picture of Hutter’s wife Ellen, and comments how he sleeps during the day. Hutter eventually becomes Orlok’s victim. The count then loads up several crates of earth and heads to his new home. Hutter shortly thereafter escapes and begins working his way back home as well.
Reports come in that the Plague is breaking out in several port cities as the Demeter, the ship in which Orlok has hidden himself, sails to Orlok’s new home. The Demeter drifts into port with the entire crew dead. Orlok moves himself in and soon reports of the Plague wiping out the population. Hutter makes it home to Ellen who is suffering from nightmares. Ellen discovers a book Hutter returned with telling about vampires and how to destroy the power of the creature: a woman who gives her blood willingly to Nosferatu and sits with him until daylight will destroy the fiend. Ellen does as the book says and Nosferatu is destroyed.
You know the story, but I find the one major twist to Stoker’s tale an interesting one. Harker and Van Helsing are always the heroes who fight off and eventually destroy the vampire, but here Ellen saves the day, and as far as I can tell she does so at the expense of her life. Mina, Ellen’s counterpart, always plays a role in Dracula’s defeat, but here Hutter sleeps through the final encounter between Ellen and Orlok. A remarkable plot change that helps make Nosferatu stand out from other adaptations.
The beautiful Greta Schroder, who plays Ellen, gives an impressive performance as the morose victim of a vampire’s advances who steels her composure to rid the world of the shadow of the vampire. Gustav von Wangenheim, on the other hand, gives us an oddly manic-depressive Hutter who laughs at strange times and excessively and then after escaping from the vampire does little more than sleep.
Max Schreck, however, is the star despite only being onscreen for approximately nine minutes. They say that Murnau found Schreck so ugly that he decided the only vampire make-up needed was pointy ears and false teeth. Well, Schreck’s Orlok is a truly creepy villain and some of the special effects used to create Orlok’s supernatural feats are impressive such as the famous scene of him rising from the coffin and when he disappears before entering Hutter’s residence. Schreck really captures the eerie character in a way that Bela Lugosi couldn’t with his suave Dracula. Funny aside…did you know Schreck means “terror” in German? And did you know he was married to a woman named Fanny? So he could be Max Terror, fitting for a man so ugly to need so little make-up to play the grotesque Orlok, and his wife could be Fanny Terror, which could be a reference to the effects of eating too much Mexican food, or an anal sex porn video.
Back to Nosferatu…what I found most interesting was the character of Knock. Knock, played by Alexander Granach, proves to be an equally disturbing character grabbing flies from the air and eating them with a look of innocent enjoyment, then cutting his eyes in diabolical intent at his captors. Knock, of course, is Nosferatu’s Renfield who has become my favorite character from the original Dracula. The deranged Renfield is consistently played the most captivating in movie versions from Granach here, to Dwight Frye in the 1931 Dracula, to Tom Waits in the 1992 Dracula. Frye’s laugh as Renfield is a haunting sound of mania, and Waits’s insect obsessed Renfield is a unsettling character.
Starring: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroder, and Alexander Granach
Directed by: F. W. Murnau
Written by: Henrik Galeen based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Production Company: Jofa-Atelier Berlin-Johannisthal and Prana-Film GmbH
This time your faithful Evil Genius film critic has decided to get into the Transtemporal Trolley to check out the classic film Nosferatu from 1922. Now before I share my evil thoughts with you about this vampire masterpiece. I have little experience with silent films. I would not know a cinematic convention of the 1920s if it slapped me in the forehead. Therefore, any technical achievements which I feel is impressive for a 1920s film, but which was already standard, I can only blame on ignorance. Feel free to correct my understanding of these wayback wonders, but all I can say is what I liked and what I didn’t.
I got my copy of Nosferatu from one of those great 50 movie DVD boxes, Horror Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection. The version included in this boxed set has the characters named from Stoker’s original book and carries a credit to Stoker’s work. So Count Orlok was really Count Dracula, Hutter was Van Helsing, and Knock was Renfield. I will refer, however, to the characters’ original names.
Nosferatu is a simplified version of Stoker’s book Dracula. Count Orlok wants to buy some property and Hutter is dispatched to finalize the deal. Hutter’s trip is a strange one as local villagers encourage him not to travel at night, a few references to phantoms, and the last leg of his trip is an inordinately quick ride. The strange looking Orlok proves to be even stranger as he jumps at Hutter’s cut on his hand, becomes enthralled with a picture of Hutter’s wife Ellen, and comments how he sleeps during the day. Hutter eventually becomes Orlok’s victim. The count then loads up several crates of earth and heads to his new home. Hutter shortly thereafter escapes and begins working his way back home as well.
Reports come in that the Plague is breaking out in several port cities as the Demeter, the ship in which Orlok has hidden himself, sails to Orlok’s new home. The Demeter drifts into port with the entire crew dead. Orlok moves himself in and soon reports of the Plague wiping out the population. Hutter makes it home to Ellen who is suffering from nightmares. Ellen discovers a book Hutter returned with telling about vampires and how to destroy the power of the creature: a woman who gives her blood willingly to Nosferatu and sits with him until daylight will destroy the fiend. Ellen does as the book says and Nosferatu is destroyed.
You know the story, but I find the one major twist to Stoker’s tale an interesting one. Harker and Van Helsing are always the heroes who fight off and eventually destroy the vampire, but here Ellen saves the day, and as far as I can tell she does so at the expense of her life. Mina, Ellen’s counterpart, always plays a role in Dracula’s defeat, but here Hutter sleeps through the final encounter between Ellen and Orlok. A remarkable plot change that helps make Nosferatu stand out from other adaptations.
The beautiful Greta Schroder, who plays Ellen, gives an impressive performance as the morose victim of a vampire’s advances who steels her composure to rid the world of the shadow of the vampire. Gustav von Wangenheim, on the other hand, gives us an oddly manic-depressive Hutter who laughs at strange times and excessively and then after escaping from the vampire does little more than sleep.
Max Schreck, however, is the star despite only being onscreen for approximately nine minutes. They say that Murnau found Schreck so ugly that he decided the only vampire make-up needed was pointy ears and false teeth. Well, Schreck’s Orlok is a truly creepy villain and some of the special effects used to create Orlok’s supernatural feats are impressive such as the famous scene of him rising from the coffin and when he disappears before entering Hutter’s residence. Schreck really captures the eerie character in a way that Bela Lugosi couldn’t with his suave Dracula. Funny aside…did you know Schreck means “terror” in German? And did you know he was married to a woman named Fanny? So he could be Max Terror, fitting for a man so ugly to need so little make-up to play the grotesque Orlok, and his wife could be Fanny Terror, which could be a reference to the effects of eating too much Mexican food, or an anal sex porn video.
Back to Nosferatu…what I found most interesting was the character of Knock. Knock, played by Alexander Granach, proves to be an equally disturbing character grabbing flies from the air and eating them with a look of innocent enjoyment, then cutting his eyes in diabolical intent at his captors. Knock, of course, is Nosferatu’s Renfield who has become my favorite character from the original Dracula. The deranged Renfield is consistently played the most captivating in movie versions from Granach here, to Dwight Frye in the 1931 Dracula, to Tom Waits in the 1992 Dracula. Frye’s laugh as Renfield is a haunting sound of mania, and Waits’s insect obsessed Renfield is a unsettling character.
So Nosferatu proves to be the masterpiece I had heard it was. If you’d like to check it out, you can see it online here: Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror
posted by Bodog at 4:47 PM
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