Nosferatu
Director: F.W. Murnau
Writer: Henrik Galeen
Based on: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (loosely)
Cast: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Georg H. Schnell, Ruth Landshoff, Gustav Botz, Alexander Granach, John Gottowt
Seen on: 8./9.4.2025

Content Note: antisemitism

Plot:
Real estate agent Knock (Alexander Granach) sends his employee Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to Count Orlok (Max Schreck). Orlok wants to buy a house in Wisborg. Hutter agrees, reluctantly leaving his newlywed wife Ellen (Greta Schröder) at home. But there are strange things going on at Orlok’s castle, and Orlok himself brings dread to Wisborg – and to Hutter and Ellen.

As a film and vampire fan, it was quite a hole in my cinematic knowledge having never seen Nosferatu, but this particular gap has been closed now, and I’m glad that it is. Nosferatu is still quite an experience to watch.

I am sure that in 1922, Nosferatu hit very differently than it does seeing it today. Nowadays, we can still admire the craft and artistry of the film, but not so much see the horror that it (probably) inspired a hundred years ago. Max Schreck‘s Orlok with his strange looks and stranger movement isn’t exactly ridiculous from today’s perspective – it is too well-known for that, too engrained in the movie vocabulary by now – but it is not scary anymore, either.

Visually, the film is still stylish as fuck. Murnau just knows how to frame a shot, and they found some excellent locations to shoot at, too. Here, too, the film really shows off what kind of filmmaking was possible even 100 years ago already.

That Orlok’s character design, his conflation with rats and the pest, plays into antisemitic stereotypes cannot be denied, though. I doubt that it was on purpose, but it doesn’t need to be on purpose to still be true. Considering the film’s time and place of creation, it is safe to say that antisemitism was pervaisve enough for this to happen (and to some extent, it still is).

For me, it was most interesting to see the changes in vampie lore that came with Nosferatu (fatal sunshine) and to see what is still around as vampire stereotypes, if you will. Nosferatu leans heavily of occult connections with the book that Hutter and Ellen read and that just happens to have all the explanations to occult phenomena you could possibly need. That connection is rarely present anymore in vampires today.

Summarizing: stands the test of time.