Starting off October with a classic, the 1922 version of Nosferatu. Nosferatu is a movie that everyone has heard of but, personally, I’ve never seen…until now. The story follows an estate agent, Hutter, who is sent to sell a house to a Count called Orlok. This Count is a vampire. The vampire soon becomes very interested in Hutter’s wife and in the end sucks her blood until she dies, like any old vampire would do. Along the way, however, Hutter learns things about vampires from books and being bitten himself but believing it to be mosquitoes. The movie can be hard to get into but once you do it is impossible not to watch until the end.

Nosferatu was created in 1922 so is a silent film. This means that when characters are speaking the scene changes to dialogue being shown on screen. These little breaks did annoy me sometimes as, even though they were essential, the dialogue stayed on screen for way too long and made you lose interest especially in the early scenes.

The main thing of this movie is the music. The music is amazing and really sets the scene and atmosphere. Now whenever I hear the music again all I will be able to think is the Count is going to be coming after me! The movie also uses a lot of colour. Even though it is shot in black and white certain scenes are tinted blue or yellow or even green to make the audience feel a certain way towards the scene. Usually, the yellow is used for daylight and the green is used to make the audience feel uneasy about what they are witnessing.

Even though it is a silent movie this did not deter me and, to be honest, made the whole thing a lot scarier. Having the Count just wandering the halls without saying a thing and letting his grotesque features and mannerisms do the talking really added to the fear factor. The dialogue, in most parts, was mainly used as exposition so wasn’t completely needed either. The scariest thing about this movie was what you saw, and seeing the Count’s shadow pass across the screen or his long fingernails was really creepy. You can tell why it is a classic.

The whole ‘vampire’ element wasn’t too overplayed either. Yes, in the end, he does suck blood from a woman’s neck but wholly it was more of a plague of crazy rather than a vampire demon. People were being isolated in their homes and crosses were being drawn on doors. It was very reminiscent of the black plague and really added a separate sub genre to the original genre we know and love. Even with the original vampire movie they didn’t want to be too on the nose and I like that.

Would I recommend Nosferatu? Of course! The beginning is quite slow and, to be honest, the movie felt much longer than it’s hour and a half run time but once the action starts it really gets interesting. Vampires are so overused and overdone these days it’s nice to go back to the original and see where it all began.

What do you think of Nosferatu?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding