Originally published: October 10, 2006 @ 10:51pm PST

 

You will have a marvelous journey. And, young as you are, what matter if it costs you some pain - or even a little blood?

- Renfield

Certain images and scenes have stayed with me over the years. Though my life is pretty much a blur before the year I turned 4 or 5, certain things pop up in my memory from before that period of time, such as asking for a favorite stuffed animal when I had my tonsils out at 2 or stating my love of tomatoes while sitting in a high chair. One such image that has stayed with me was from the original Salem’s Lot movie and it’s rat-like vampire. When looking through books on movie monsters later, I came across an image of Max Schreck as Count Orlok and that triggered an immediate recognition. I read about the storyline of the movie and knew that somehow I’d have to locate the movie and watch it.

Flash forward to about two or three years ago, when the local FYE was going out of business. I went in there to take a look around and found, to my surprise, a copy of Nosferatu in their horror section. "The Original Silent Vampire Classic" the top of the box screamed at me, while at the bottom, below the director’s name, it stated "In 1994 NOSFERATU was named one of the top five German films of all time." The back of the box confirmed that it was, indeed, the 1922 masterpiece, stating facts and some of the legal problems encountered originally which I’ll cover later. I immediately took it to the counter to buy it.

 

 

So, the story should be somewhat familiar, as it’s based off of Dracula. Jonathan Harker is sent to Transylvania by his boss, Renfield, who’s received a letter from Count Dracula that states he wants to purchase an estate in Bremen (where the movie takes place). Renfield intends to set the good Count up with a rather run-down looking place which neighbors the Harker residence. Leaving his wife with their friends, the Westenras, Harker travels to Transylvania, stopping in at an inn where he demands dinner and says he must be to Castle Dracula before it gets too late. This proves to be a party stopper because everyone in the inn looks at him as if he’s just said the most odious thing imaginable and the innkeeper goes over to him to tell him that he doesn’t want to travel at night, as the spirits become stronger then. Shortly, he’s shown to a room where he reads "The Book of Vampires". During this sequence, we see what appears to be possibly a hyena running around outside, while horses are running away scared. The next morning Harker reads some more of the book and throws it down in derision, amazed anyone could believe these things.

He takes off on the next coach and as the sun sets he arrives at a bridge, the furthest the coach will take him. He walks the rest of the way, finally making it to the meeting place. A strange coach drives up and the coachman gestures for him to get in. The coachman takes him to Castle Dracula, then takes off again for the distance. As Harker enters, he encounters Count Dracula himself waiting for him. Mildly scolding Harker for being late, he explains that his servants have all retired for the night, then escorts Harker to the dining room where they discuss the Count’s purchase. Getting sleepy and cutting his thumb, Harker is helped to a nearby chair by the Count and awakens to find a pair of bitemarks on his neck, which he chalks up to spiders or mosquitos as he writes to Nina, his wife. After sending the letter off with a horseman, Harker joins the Count for another evening, this time finally getting his signature on the sales papers. Harker returns to his room and picks up the Book of Vampires again, this time finding a passage about how vampires need blood and about the marks left on their victims’ necks. Harker looks out his door and sees Dracula, this time without his hat, showing a bald head, watching the door. Harker closes it and passes out again as Dracula approaches him. Meanwhile, Nina starts sleepwalking and she sees Harker in her dream… at this moment Dracula backs away from Harker and walks out the room, the door closing behind him. He must prepare to move the next day…

This movie was amazing. Max Schreck played Count Dracula and did it in amazing fashion. His facial features spoke what his voice couldn’t and the way that he moved in the movie was awesome. You could really believe that he was a vampire (more on that in a bit, also).

When this movie first came out it was based off of the Dracula novel, but they couldn’t procure the rights to make it, so they changed several things in the story as well as the characters’ names: the location was moved to Bremen and the year was pushed back to 1838 (as opposed to the 1890s) to coincide with an outbreak of plague in the city. Dracula became Graf Orlok, Harker became Thomas Hutter, his wife Mina became Ellen Hutter, Renfield became Knock, and Van Helsing became Professor Bulwer. These changes didn’t satisfy Bram Stoker’s widow, however, and her husband’s estate sued Prana-Film GmbH for plagiarism and copyright infringement and won. Upon the order of the courts, most of the prints of the movie were destroyed, but luckily, some copies had already been distributed to different parts of the world. For years, the movie was thought long gone, with only those few still images left, but then prints started appearing from collections and finally the whole movie was found.

Nowadays, there are several copies of the movie available on DVD. The version that I watched, made by Alpha Video, replaced the names back to the original Dracula roots (with the exception of Mina, who was referred to as Nina, for some reason). Others leave the German names and change the score (one - you can still find! - had songs by the group Type O Negative in place of the original score).

The movie itself gives a look into the history of not only the character of Dracula, but of modern day vampires in general. The Nosferatu look inspired several other vampires (the previously mentioned Barlow of the original Salem’s Lot, the Nosferatu clan from Vampire: The Masquerade and its numerous spin-offs, a HorrorClix figure called Nosferatu, even Baraka from Mortal Kombat, while not a vampire, was based off of the look). The movie also inspired a "What if?" style movie called Shadow of the Vampire in 2000 that featured John Malkovich as director F.W. Murnau and Willen Dafoe as Max Schreck, playing the character as a real vampire, rather than as an actor in makeup.

My final score for the movie is a 5 out of 5. While I read that there were better prints and presentations of the movie out there, I have to say that this version is more than adequate. In the end, it comes down to how enjoyable the movie was and for me it was really fun viewing it. So that’s it for tonight’s presentation! Until next time, this is Red Hawk signing out!

-- by Red Hawk of http://www.happyhorror.com

Tags: classic, horror, movie, supernatural, vampires

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