Nosferatu (1922) review

Dir. F. W. Murnau

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★★

I am faced with one of my greatest challenges when reviewing a classic and it doesn’t get any easier; trying to say something new about a film most everyone has seen and everyone has already formed an incorruptible opinion on. Oh, what to say. Nosferatu is a perfect horror film in every sense. It transports us back to a simpler time in cinema, when jump scares weren’t the main concern, but atmosphere and tonal consistency. Where performances still mattered, and weren’t reduced to archetypal characters and stereotypes.

Nosferatu was the only production from the company Prana Films in 1921, and despite not having the rights to Bram Stroker’s novel, Dracula, ambitious writer Henrik Galeen was given the assignment and pursued the challenge in adapting his story to film. With legendary director F.W. Murnau behind the camera, as well, the project was shaping out to be a fascinating and unique look on the vampire himself. It was shaping out to be perfect, until Stoker’s widow, Florence Stoker, denied the rights to her deceased husband’s work for unknown reasons. With a few minor changes, Murnau pushed on and made the film, but when Stoker sued, initially, the punishment was to have every copy of the film destroyed. While that clearly wasn’t enforced to the fullest degree, it is unknown if the version available today is the original cut. Some reports have the film running at a runtime ten to fifteen minutes longer than the cut commercially available today, however, no official evidence has proven that the cut we possess today is censored or not.

There’s almost no reason to reiterate the story of the film seeing as it’s pretty much the story of Dracula, which almost everybody knows. The American cut of the film even refers to Count Orlok as “Count Dracula,” so the secrecy is corrupt. Let’s focus on the film itself. First off, one can not deny that this is one of the finest horror films ever made. The technicalities behind the film are primitive, raw, and undeniably authentic. It was shot with only one camera, incorporates some very unstable editing, utilizes grainy film stock, and as a whole, is crafted extremely simplistically. This is not criticism, but observationist recollections of the picture as a whole. I’d personally much rather have all of those things than very glossy, pitch-perfect horror production. The primitive nature of the film is a breath of fresh air in a world where everything has to be so painstakingly perfect all the time.

Nosferatu, himself, is played by Max Schreck, in arguably one of the greatest roles ever in a horror film. Schreck’s character is tall, lanky, with large, bulging, unblinking eyes, equipped with a large, boxy nose, an unmoved expression always on his face, and stiff and unmovable torso. His first appearance on screen is jolting and brings a shiver to even the most experienced horror moviegoer. Schreck immerses himself into this role, making his vampire character not a character aware of implausibility but one, by the end, you believe could actually be real.

I mentioned the use of film noir, as well. This is a recurring aspect for the film itself, mainly because it is so frequently and professionally used. The iconic “stair scene” where you see Nosferatu eerily walk up the stairs in shadow is a work of Gothic genius, and has become a staple of film noir in the horror genre. Not to mention, so has the delightfully creepy scene of Nosferatu ominously rising from his coffin and staring directly at the viewer. It is film technique like that that is truly invaluable.

My review of Nosferatu (2024)

Starring: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Alexander Granach, Ruth Landshoff, and Wolfgang Heinz. Directed by: F.W. Murnau.