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NOSFERATU – Robin Carolan
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Irish author Bram Stoker essentially invented the concept of the vampire as we know it in popular culture with his novel Dracula in 1897, but the first on-screen vampire actually appeared in 1922 in director F. W. Murnau’s silent film Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens. Murnau’s film is a loose adaptation of Stoker’s story, with some key changes to the setting (England vs Germany), character names (Dracula is Orlok, Jonathan Harker is Thomas Hutter, Mina is Ellen), and some of the details on who and what the vampire is and does, but the core story is essentially the same. Hutter is a young clerk at the real estate company of Herr Knock, and is newly married to the lovely Ellen. Hutter is sent by Knock to negotiate a land deal on behalf of Count Orlok, who lives in a huge dilapidated castle in a far-flung corner of eastern Europe; when he arrives he finds Orlok to be a decrepit, ancient, terrifying creature, but nevertheless he signs the papers and purchases the property. Orlok sees a picture of Ellen in a locket that Hutter carries and recognizes her as the girl he has been mentally and sexually tormenting for years; he is obsessed with Ellen, and she is the reason he is purchasing the property in the first place. Orlok imprisons Hutter in his castle and leaves to finally claim Ellen as his own, but Hutter – who has realized that Orlok is a vampire – manages to escape and follows Orlok, intending to stop him. Read more…
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