Max’s Drive-In Movie – Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

I love silent movies but I wasn’t prepared for this one. I’d heard it was scary but I thought…how scary could a 1922 film be? I think the comedy of Keaton and Chaplin is some of the best comedy to this day but horror?

Noferatu shadow

It was a great surprise with this one. The one word I would use is shadows…they make great use of them in this one. With the film stock they use plus that grainy look…it does make this vampire frightening. Some prints are tinted blue and yellow in some scenes. Nosferatu himself works well as a different-looking Dracula.

The first time I saw it was with my son who found out about it in high school. I tracked it down and bought a copy around 2017 or so. We were both impressed by this movie and it’s just so creepy and disturbing. Yes, you have to follow the subtitles of course but it isn’t filled with them.

Some people avoid silent or foreign films but try this one out. It’s only an hour and twenty minutes. You can see it for free on YouTube. There is another adaptation coming out this Christmas.

It’s a wonder we have this film at all. This was an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula by Bram Stroker. Since the production company, Prana-Film did not secure rights from Stoker’s estate, they changed some elements—Count Dracula became Count Orlok, and the settings were shifted from England to Germany. However, the film’s narrative remained close to the novel.

After the film’s release, Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker’s widow, sued the producers for copyright infringement. The court ruled in her favor, ordering the destruction of all copies of the film. However, several prints survived, allowing the film to gain recognition over the years.

PLOT

Wisborg, Germany-based estate agent Knock dispatches his associate, Hutter, to Count Orlok’s castle in Transylvania as the Count wants to purchase an isolated house in Wisborg. They plan on selling him the one across the way from Hutter’s own home. Hutter leaves his innocent wife, Ellen, with some friends while he is away. Hutter’s trek is an unusual one, with many locals not wanting to take him near the castle where strange events have been occurring. Once at the castle, Hutter sells the house to Orlok, but he also notices and feels unusual occurrences, primarily feeling like there is a dark shadow hanging over him, even in the daytime when Orlok is usually asleep.

Hutter eventually sees the Count’s sleeping chamber in a crypt, and based on a book he has recently read, believes the Count is really a vampire or Nosferatu. While Hutter is trapped in the castle, the Count, hiding in a shipment of coffins, makes his way to Wisborg, causing death along his way, which most attribute to the plague. Hutter himself tries to rush home to save his town and most importantly save Ellen from Nosferatu’s imminent arrival. In Wisborg, Ellen can feel the impending darkness as Nosferatu gets closer. But she learns that a sinless woman can sacrifice herself to kill the vampire. Will Hutter be able to save Ellen, either from Nosferatu and/or her self-sacrifice?

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

38 thoughts on “Max’s Drive-In Movie – Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror”

  3. Yes, an excellent horror film, Max. I found out about it when I bought a book reprint in 1976, In Search of Dracula, by Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu (1973). The back section lists Dracula/vampire filmography, starting with silent films. Nosferatu (1922) by F.W. Murnau is listed as the first real vampire movie. I found a German copy of the film while overseas the following year in an Italian bookstore of all places, and the 1929 English version, Nosferatu, the Vampire, was with it. I bought the English one, which was on 8mm film and very grainy, which added to the eeriness, like you mentioned.

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    1. Thank you Steve. I was blown away by it. Like I said…I love Chaplin and Keaton’s comedy and I think a lot of it is smarter than todays…but with drama and horror…I was more iffy about although I love Clara Bow as a comedian and dramatic actress…
      This was just plain out creepy….the shadows they used was incredible.
      On 8mm…that is really cool Steve.

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  5. I can identifie with your review.
    That film comes from the ages but it still remains a frightning experience. I wrote a note my last encounter with the vampire. If you date to enter my dark crypt… 🦇
    letourdecran.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/nosferatu-le-vampire/

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  6. I’ve heard of it but never seen it. I had no idea about the suing & destruction of the copies of the movie. That really is something…good a few were smuggled through for history’s sake.

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    1. Yea they lifted the story so lawsuits went on then also…instead of a song it was a movie. I’m glad it survived…it’s a wonder a movie wasn’t made about the story of it….the new one looks pretty good but….it’s so dark looking on screen because of the CGI…

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  8. I’ve seen clips of it but not the whole thing. What I like about this vampire is he isn’t suave and sexy like they often try to make them. I daresay the plot of Dracula has become a cinematic trope. It’s too bad Stoker couldn’t have patented it! We all know what the vampire is, what they will do, and the victims along the way — until they are stopped. IIRC in real vampire lore, the vampire is “staked” to the ground so they cannot fly about terrorizing people. I watched a 3-part series on netflix awhile back with Claes Bang as Dracula (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_(2020_TV_series) ) that was super good and scary with a really creepy minion (not Renfield but the Harker character.) Claes is a compelling vampire I would not want to come face to face with, any more than with Nosferatu!

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    1. That sounds really good…that Dracula…I am going to see if one of my IT guys have that…he is a huge fan of Dracula and Frankenstein. I’ll tell you when I do. I want to see that.
      This one….they use shadows so well…look at his fingers…they creep me out.

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  9. Wot? No CGI? No flaming ghosts on motorcycles, no magic hammers being tossed around, no buckets of blood? No muscle bound Hulk, no Man Of Steel in truncated shorts over their Blue Man suit? No Bat Cave? No cabin in the woods, no unbelievably elongated fangs biting into fresh white virginal necks? Simply relying on shadow play and brilliant acting- this can’t be no Hollywood Schlockbuster.

    Still creepy as all Hell.

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    1. I know! Don’t worry though… Hollywood has a new version coming with all of that crap.
      It was such a cool thing to see this and feel the creepiness… knowing it was that old.

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      3. Oh yeah. The sheet starts moving, then she sits up confused, not knowing what going on, calling for her kids or whatever, then realizes, “Oh shit, wait a minute, I’m a vampire. I need to start attacking people”! Then it’s on!

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  12. Pingback: Max’s Drive-In Movie – Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror – MobsterTiger

    1. Thanks Lisa…I liked that. CB recomended Shadow of a Vampire that was about that movie…the making…I have it but hasn’t watched it yet.

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  16. It’s a long, long time since I’ve seen this. I preferred the remake in 1979 (Nosferatu the Vampire) by the director Werner Herzog, who cast Klaus Kinski as the vampire. Also very creepy and strange. (And the front incisor fangs were there, too… I prefer to see eye-teeth fangs, myself!) In those days I was vampire-addicted, you might say! I devoured vampire stories in horror books and movies, bought video tapes of my favourite ones, and even wrote some vampire stories (well, a couple of unpublished books) myself.

    I think the scariness of the original has to do with the light/shadow and anticipation. There was a marionette theatre near where I used to live, in London, when I was a kid and teen and some of the shows they put on there had a similar vibe to Nosferatu. (Not anymore, now it’s been sanitised for the poor little things…) Some of them scared the sh*t out of me!

    Have you seen a British (later remade in the USA) show called ‘Being Human’? Made by the BBC, it’s meant to be a dark comedy, but there’s only a little comedy in it. I missed it completely when it came out (circa 2007 I think) but watched nearly all of it all recently and now havethe first three seasons on DVD, I liked it so much. There were five seasons, but I didn’t like the fourth and fifth as much as they got rid of nearly all the original cast in the 4th and all of the originals in the fifth which, for me, was wrong. It’s worth watching the first three seasons, though, if you can get hold of it. It has a silly premise (a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost share a house and try to be human) but one which works suprisingly well. I’ve not tried watching the American remake, not sure I really want to, but as you like British shows, I’d recommend starting with that. It gets really, really dark in places.

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    1. I would like to see the 1979 remake…I will do that. I agree…the use of shadows made it so creepy.

      (Not anymore, now it’s been sanitised for the poor little things…)  THAT was so funny…yes everything has been.

      Yes…I saw Being Human when it first aired…I would download the videos from a Brit IT guy I knew…I got them the day after they would be showed…I stopped watching it as well after all the original cast was gone. I know women loved the vampire guy!

      I didn’t know you were into Vampires…that is cool!

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      1. Y’know, considering how much horror, starting with the average fairy story from Victorian times, my generation (and probably yours, too) was exposed to as children, it’s a wonder we turned out okay at all…

        Er, yep (and more) to ‘the vampire guy’ in Being Human. I think vampires appeal more to women than men, anyway, though…

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      2. You know…sometimes I think a little horror is good for us…it stimulates the senses.
        Yea I saw a lot of posts about the vampire lol. I really liked that show…and the other one where dinosaurs would pop up through doorways through the city…I forgot the name.

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