Nosferatu was the 1st silent film I ever saw, and the 1st DVD I ever owned. Must've watched it 100 times because it was permanently loaded in my laptop at school.

To me it marks one of the last great Expressionist horror films before horror turned to campy crowd pleasing fluff (where it mostly rests today). But back in the 1920s, films like Nosferatu, Vampyr, The Phantom Carriage, Cabinet of Dr Caligari were art films. They weren't necessarily trying to scare the audience so much as challenge their perception of reality.

Along came Hollywood who usurped the horror genre from the Europeans and dumbed it down a few brains. Germany couldn't compete with Hollywood's budgets and ticket sales so they gave up the ghost. Literally.

I haven't seen the remake yet. I believe Klaus Kinski has something to do with it? Probably time to check it out.

@CelluloidFan said:

I haven't seen the remake yet. I believe Klaus Kinski has something to do with it? Probably time to check it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu_the_Vampyre

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079641/

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/6404-nosferatu-phantom-der-nacht

I saw it in a theater years ago (on Halloween night in the 80s). They even had an organist. It was alright, I just have never been a fan of the silents.

Here it is on YouTube (I've not watched it yet but the anniversary will draw me in I'm sure.

https://youtu.be/FC6jFoYm3xs

The remake by Werner Herzog is good, but has one inadvertently comic moment that cracks me (and others) up and breaks the spell.
spoilers

The vampire creeps into a room, filmed through the absent reflection in a mirror I believe. I think he feasts on a young maiden or something, then creeps back out of the room, and then so politely shuts the door quietly behind him. I half expect him to put up 'do not disturb' sign on the door. Vampires may be brutal killers, but let it never be said that they are insensitive to accidentally waking up someone with a loud noise or inflicting a slight draft on them.

@bratface said:

I saw it in a theater years ago (on Halloween night in the 80s). They even had an organist. It was alright, I just have never been a fan of the silents.

I just adore going to see a film with an organist playing accompaniment....

@Fergoose said:

The remake by Werner Herzog is good, but has one inadvertently comic moment that cracks me (and others) up and breaks the spell.
spoilers

The vampire creeps into a room, filmed through the absent reflection in a mirror I believe. I think he feasts on a young maiden or something, then creeps back out of the room, and then so politely shuts the door quietly behind him. I half expect him to put up 'do not disturb' sign on the door. Vampires may be brutal killers, but let it never be said that they are insensitive to accidentally waking up someone with a loud noise or inflicting a slight draft on them.

That particular scene has a HUGE goof in the German version. You can clearly see the vampire's reflection in the mirror for 3 or 4 excruciating seconds. I guess someone wasn't standing on their mark ...or paying attention to the camera viewfinder ...or in the editing room...

I have a love/hate relationship with Herzog; just when you think he's a master, he lets some huge goof or a cheezy moment slip through. In some films, his attempts to capture realism (with non professional actors & hand held 'imperfect' shots) end up seeming pretty amateur. But overall I think his early Kinski films, including the 1979 Nosferatu remake, are worth checking out.

@DonGable said:

I've not watched many silent films. I actually think this is the first one in its entirety. I thought it was as good a moment as any, seeing it reached such a big anniversary. I can't say it blew me away, but in appreciating art for the time it came out in, and the limitation of a certain period, it does some pretty good things. You can't help thinking of all the things that's been clichéd in terms of vampires since this film came out. It's hard to deny its impact, it certainly was a big one, even though it was ordered destroyed after Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation from Dracula.

What's your experience with this film?? Share your thoughts!! :) And have you watched the remake from 1979?

I actually do like the film but the version I have uses the most godawful music that at times doesn't match the mood on screen. I don't know if I just got a crappy version but the mismatch of the music is quite distracting.

Also if anyone has not seen Shadow of the Vampire I would highly recommend that film.

@mechajutaro said:

The venerable Steven Hayes bears a strikingly resemblance to Nosferatu

As does Rudy Giuliani.

@movie_nazi said:

I actually do like the film but the version I have uses the most godawful music that at times doesn't match the mood on screen. I don't if I just got a crappy version but the mismatch of the music is quite distracting.

Yeah, due to the film being public domain, basically anyone with an accordion can compose their own soundtrack and sell it. Oddly enough, one of my favorite unofficial soundtracks was done by the 90s metal band Type O Negative. The song lyrics have nothing to do with the story but some of the heavy atmospheric tunes give it a fitting sinister vibe. At least a lot more fitting than some of the goofy soundtracks out there.

@rooprect said:

@movie_nazi said:

I actually do like the film but the version I have uses the most godawful music that at times doesn't match the mood on screen. I don't if I just got a crappy version but the mismatch of the music is quite distracting.

Yeah, due to the film being public domain, basically anyone with an accordion can compose their own soundtrack and sell it. Oddly enough, one of my favorite unofficial soundtracks was done by the 90s metal band Type O Negative. The song lyrics have nothing to do with the story but some of the heavy atmospheric tunes give it a fitting sinister vibe. At least a lot more fitting than some of the goofy soundtracks out there.

Yes, I have seen other silent films use modern scores with great results so I can imagine the hard rock track working with it. I have also seen Tod Browning's Dracula (1931), which was originally released without much of a score, with an added one and it improved the film immensely IMO. Nosferatu seems that to me would be an easy film to score so I just need to keep looking. There is a modern day silent film called The Call of Cthulhu (2005) based on the short story by H. P. Lovecraft which has an excellent score. I wouldn't mind those guys doing a score for Nosferatu.

Nosferatu (1922) is the only Silent film in my home DVD/Blu-Ray collection. Also the only Silent feature-length film I have see all the way through (and many times). I first watched it in its entirety probably around ten years ago. My main impetus for viewing it was first seeing a clip of the film in King of New York (1990) where a Chinese gangster is watching it in his private cinema, although it was many years before I got around to watching the full film (Nosferatu, I mean; I saw King of New York about a year after its initial release). I have not seen the 1979 version.

movie_nazi--

For a decent musical score, you might want to try the version from Kino Classics released on Blu-Ray some years back (the 2-disc "deluxe remastered edition") for an improved experience (this is the version I currently own; the feature runs approximately 95 minutes). There was a DVD released by Image Entertainment some time before that which also had a good score (in my opinion), though that version of the film ran shorter, around 81 minutes or so if I remember correctly.

@northcoast said:

Nosferatu (1922) is the only Silent film in my home DVD/Blu-Ray collection. Also the only Silent feature-length film I have see all the way through (and many times). I first watched it in its entirety probably around ten years ago. My main impetus for viewing it was first seeing a clip of the film in King of New York (1990) where a Chinese gangster is watching it in his private cinema, although it was many years before I got around to watching the full film (Nosferatu, I mean; I saw King of New York about a year after its initial release). I have not seen the 1979 version.

movie_nazi--

For a decent musical score, you might want to try the version from Kino Classics released on Blu-Ray some years back (the 2-disc "deluxe remastered edition") for an improved experience (this is the version I currently own; the feature runs approximately 95 minutes). There was a DVD released by Image Entertainment some time before that which also had a good score (in my opinion), though that version of the film ran shorter, around 81 minutes or so if I remember correctly.

You wanna stick around? I got Frankenstein coming on next. - from The King of New York .

Thank you very much for that suggestion. This is the version I have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unQodfkj4VI Is this different than the one you suggest?

Hi, there, movie_nazi.

Just going by the runtime of the link you've provided-- about 80 minutes --I'm going to say you probably have a very similar visual version to the Image release. However, that is definitely not the audio provided with the Image release. There are two options provided with the Image release-- a modern "techno"-type track (which I did not like), and a classical orchestral score, composed in modern times but modelled in the style of a musical accompaniment which may have actually been played with the film in Germany in the 1920s (which I liked).

I will say too that the version you have is definitely not the Kino version, which as I've said is considerably longer, and the Kino print has also been cleaned up quite a bit. I hope this all helps.

Edit to my original post: I have viewed and do own several other Silent films-- all Russian, from the director Evgeni Bauer --but these are not "feature length" in our modern parlance, as they all run approximately 45 - 50 minutes.

@northcoast said:

Hi, there, movie_nazi.

Just going by the runtime of the link you've provided-- about 80 minutes --I'm going to say you probably have a very similar visual version to the Image release. However, that is definitely not the audio provided with the Image release. There are two options provided with the Image release-- a modern "techno"-type track (which I did not like), and a classical orchestral score, composed in modern times but modelled in the style of a musical accompaniment which may have actually been played with the film in Germany in the 1920s (which I liked).

I will say too that the version you have is definitely not the Kino version, which as I've said is considerably longer, and the Kino print has also been cleaned up quite a bit. I hope this all helps.

Edit to my original post: I have viewed and do own several other Silent films-- all Russian, from the director Evgeni Bauer --but these are not "feature length" in our modern parlance, as they all run approximately 45 - 50 minutes.

Yes it does help, thank you and makes sense. I am also of the mind that the a classical orchestral score is the right choice and although that is what the version I have uses, it is sloppily applied. You have upbeat music in the dark scenes, etc. I will search for the Kino version. I recently watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the score is great. I think someone just took old music from the era and just slapped it on to film track of Nosferatu. My experience with silent films is that usually the music track matches the mood. If you are getting into silent films I would suggest Metropolis (1927) which was quite a technical accomplishment for its time.