n 1843 A.D. in the town of Wisborg, there lived a man named Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) and his wife Ellen (Greta Schroder). Their days are filled with happiness – and smiles, laughter, and gardening. Hutter’s generous but strange employer, house agent Knock (Alexander Granach), knowingly sends his apprentice to Transylvania to meet with the lord Count Graf Orlok (Max Schreck), who wishes to purchase a deserted home in Wisborg. Knock, however, knows of the dangers, cruelly inviting doom upon not only Hutter but also his entire city.

Hutter departs immediately for the land of thieves and specters – an ominous description that doesn’t seem to deter anyone from venturing into such a forbidden territory. And when Hutter stops in a village near the Carpathian mountains for a bite to eat, the mere mention of Orlok’s castle startles and hushes the other occupants, prompting the innkeeper to warn the ignorant young man. “The Werewolf roams the woods.”

Based on the novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker (which would actually lead to a lawsuit, as rights were never properly acquired), it’s quite evident where the film is headed, particularly as Hutter heads deeper into Transylvania, ignoring warnings and ill omens (such as a book about Nosferatu, a vampiric demon who feasts on human blood) – as well as the spine-tingling music presiding over nearly every frame in the accursed land. At one point, he even laughs at the text, describing vampyres and the deadly sins. This translation of the epistolary source material puts forth a straightforward narrative, though it doesn’t deviate markedly from the main premise; director F.W. Murnau isn’t trying to reinvent the legend (the original subtitle was “A Symphony of Horror”). Instead, he wishes to present the tale with an adherence to the inherently ghastly nature of popular occult terrors. “And when he crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”

This 1922 German Expressionist classic is obviously devoid of the polish that advanced technologies and cinematographic techniques can afford, but it’s nevertheless accomplished in its arrangements of light and shadow and atmosphere. Visual limitations aren’t enough to stop the seriousness and bleakness, which lend superbly to the potency of this seminal masterpiece. The delivery of the story is, appropriately, entirely unambiguous. “Your wife has a lovely neck …”

Enduringly striking as well is the appearance of Schreck, whose towering, spindly frame, paired with dark eyes, a prodigious nose, pointy ears, bushy eyebrows, spidery fingers, and acicular teeth are almost comical in their exaggerations. Other iconic imagery abounds, including the initial reveal of Orlok’s face, visible through cracks in the top of his casket; the coffin lid levitating back in place as if a magic trick; the superimposition of the villain watching over his victims; plague rats swarming up from below deck; and two “mosquito bites” on Hutter’s throat. The mood of all of these sequences is fittingly macabre, managing to stifle any potential for unintentional insincerities.

Orlok’s shipbound voyage from Galaz somewhat needlessly stretches out the runtime (though it bolsters the aura of impending destruction), along with a pestilence panic and a Paracelsian instructor likening vampyres to Venus fly traps, spiders, and other parasitic organisms, since the popularity of the fictional fiend didn’t really require characters to attempt to convince viewers of the likelihood of such hellions – then or now. But the work as a whole is impossible to dismiss; the influence of Murnau’s unauthorized adaptation is no less than monumental, chiefly due to Orlok’s breathtakingly sinister presence and petrifying shadows. Plus, the finale, amusingly foregoing a stake through the heart, is unforgettable.

– Mike Massie