It’s now Day 14 of the 30-day Horror Challenge. Today’s subject addresses one of the biggest pillars in horror. “The Greatest Vampire Movie.”
Cutting to the chase, it’s “Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror.” I’m talking about the 1922 German Expressionist silent movie, not the 1979 Nosferatu, not the 2024 Nosferatu, not the 2025 Nosferatu and not the 2000 movie Shadow of the Vampire.
Nosferatu is one of those very early movies that formed the foundation of the horror genre in cinema. The movie is an unauthorized adaption of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” and to put it into context, this movie was released in 1922. Stoker’s novel was released in 1897, just 25 years earlier. People watching this in the theater were alive when the original novel “Dracula” was published. It was as contemporary a work as “American Psycho” or “Finally Destination” is present-day. “Blair Witch Project” is a more distant release present-day than Dracula was to Nosferatu moviegoers.
I could come up with a dozen more unnecessary comparisons but you get it.
I went and saw this movie for a 100-Year Anniversary showing in a small local art house theater a few years ago (guess how many), and was struck that something this old was just still so, so good. It was made back before people fully grasped what a movie even was, and it played the foundation for every vampire movie that came after it for the next century.
Nosferatu was nearly lost to history. Upon its release, Stoker’s widow sued for copyright infringement, and the court ordered all prints of Nosferatu to be destroyed. A few prints survived, and were restored for viewing by modern audiences throughout the mid to late 20th Century.
If you can see this in an actual theater, the experience is worth it – especially if there is a live musical accompaniment.