Micro-review · 1922
Nosferatu (1922)
- Directed by
- F. W. Murnau
- Country
- Germany
- Running time
- About 94 minutes
- Our rating
- ★★★★½ 4.5/5
Murnau shot real streets and real ships and made them feel cursed. Max Schreck barely moves and it's still the scariest vampire on film. The shadow on the stairs does more than most modern jump scares. Watch it at night, with a good score.
The longer review
Nosferatu was made without permission. Prana Film adapted Dracula, renamed everyone, and moved the story to a German port town, and Bram Stoker's widow sued and won an order to destroy the prints. Enough copies survived that we can still watch it, which feels like the film's own little act of undeath.
What makes it last is how little Count Orlok does. Max Schreck plays him with rodent teeth, long fingers and a stiff, upright walk, and he rarely hurries. Murnau keeps him at the back of the frame, in doorways, rising out of a coffin as if on a hinge. Later vampires seduce. This one simply arrives, and the plague arrives with him.
Murnau also took the camera outside, which was unusual for German films of the period. The harbor, the narrow streets and the ship gliding into port were real places, and that makes the horror feel close at hand. Some of the effects, like the sped-up carriage, look quaint now. The shadow of Orlok's hand climbing the staircase does not.
The middle section drags a little, and the intertitles in some versions are clumsy. Greta Schröder gives Ellen a stillness that matches the Count's, though, and the ending, which hinges on her choice, is stranger and sadder than the version most people expect.
Before you watch
Restored versions with tinted scenes and a recorded orchestral score are worth seeking out over the murky public-domain copies that circulate. Running times vary with projection speed and source, so don't be surprised to see anything from about 80 to 95 minutes listed.