Dir: F W Murnau | 1922. Silent fantasy drama 93’
One of the earliest films by Murnau to show real promise – and with yet another version due out in the new year – ‘Nosferatu’ continues to capture the imagination; even creating its own mythology, including its simple survival due to film piracy in the face of legal action by Bram Stoker’s widow.
Opinions still differ as to whether the film is actually any good, with Carlos Clarens dismissing it as “crude, unsubtle, and illogical”; but Max Schreck’s ghoulish appearance – like Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West authentically the stuff of nightmares – continues to bring out the best in commentators, with David Pirie describing Schreck transforming “The well-groomed demonic vampire of Stoker…into a skeletal, contorted monster who shuffles with senile purpose purpose in and out of frame. He resembles an animated corpse far more tellingly than the whole parade of Hollywood zombies who were to succeed him”; which has even given rise to the preposterous rumour that Schreck was a genuine vampire, as depicted in the film ‘Shadow of the Vampire’. @RichardChatten