Nosferatu
NOSFERATU may be 100-years-old, but it's looking good on it. With FW Murnau's silent classic celebrating its centenary this year it's been granted a limited cinema re-release and arrives at the QFT in Belfast this weekend – my advice is to see it while you can.
Dark and eerie and boasting a dreamlike grace that few vampire epics have equalled since, it remains an essential watch for anyone interested in both German Expressionism and the history of horror and fantasy cinema.
Despite its age, and the inevitable tendency for some colourfully theatrical acting to hog the screen at times, it's still a film that maintains a power to chill with its stark visual style and atmosphere.
And, in the central performance of Max Schreck as Count Orlok – all bald head, angular body and pointed rabbit fangs – it boasts one of the most iconic vampire images ever to grace a cinema screen.
Every time we see a shadow of a long limbed, claw-ailed figure ascending a staircase with a horrible jerky, nightmare nastiness, it's Nosferatu that's being channelled. It's an unforgettable portrayal of big screen terror that has been ripped off and referenced in innumerable horror flicks and TV series, from Salem's Lot to Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.
In short, it's a true trailblazer in the genre and a genuine game-changer for movie making. There's also a fascinating history to it that only adds to the magic.
It's fair to say the film is a full-blown adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel in all but name, with the plotline of a humble real estate clerk coming to the home of an evil Count being lifted wholesale from the book – but if Stoker's widow had got her way, it never would have crept onto the screen at all.
Famously, she successfully sued to have all copies of the film destroyed when it appeared in 1922, citing its obvious steal from her husband's most famous literary work. But, as is so often the case, not every reel of Murnau's moody masterpiece wound up on the rubbish tips of Europe and beyond.
We owe a huge debt to those figures who tucked away banned cans of film for safe keeping, because that simple tale of the evil Count who petrifies the Transylvanian townsfolk remains a beautiful piece of work that holds up remarkably well today.
Gloriously restored by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in Germany, it looks fantastic – and the print screening this weekend in Belfast, as part of the QFT's Visions Of Europe series, boasts the original 1922 score.
Werner Herzog went on to remake Murnau's film almost frame for frame with Klaus Kinski in the central role in 1979, but it's the original that still stands out. With its vision of plague-cursed streets and a doomed Earth, it all feels oddly reflective of the world we live in today, and the sense that the director gives us of an evil individual ruling over subservient masses for their own devilish ends suggests this 100-year-old classic still has the power to bite deep in 2022.
