Nearly a century after its 1922 premiere, "Nosferatu" remains a compelling adaptation
of "Dracula." Setting the tone for the modern horror film, "Nosferatu" influenced the look
and style of the genre's golden age in the 1930s and '40s. This is the untold truth of "Nosferatu."
The origins and unmistakable look of "Nosferatu" sprang from the imagination of production
designer Albin Grau. According to the Fortean Times, Grau was born in Germany in 1884 and
grew into a skilled painter, eventually leaving his job as a baker's apprentice
to study art. After World War I, he ended up turning that passion into a job with Germany's
largest film studio at the time, creating storyboards and concept art for movies.
Aside from art, Grau's guiding passion was the occult. A longtime practitioner of ritual magic,
Grau was a member of several German esoteric groups, and in 1921 he established his
company Prana-Film with the sole purpose of producing movies with supernatural themes.
Prana's only production was "Nosferatu," and although the film's occult elements are subtle,
they're best exemplified in the scenes showing Orlok's contract,
which is covered in astrological, hermetic, and alchemical symbols.
In "The Haunted Screen," author Lotte Eisner attempts to explain the cultural atmosphere
that led to famous German horror films of the silent era, such as "Nosferatu"
and the iconic Expressionist film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." As Eisner wrote:
"Mysticism and magic, the dark forces to which Germans have always been more
than willing to commit themselves, had flourished in the face of death
on the battlefields. [...] And the ghosts which had haunted the German Romantics revived."
Eisner's argument that the horrors of war inspired these classic films is well-founded,
as Albin Grau's vision for the film was as much rooted in his
own experience with war as it was with Bram Stoker's original "Dracula" novel.
An incident from Grau's days on the Eastern Front of World War I brought him face-to-face with the
possible reality of the supernatural, firing his imagination and kindling the spark which
would eventually become "Nosferatu." As detailed in Eisner's book "Murnau," in the winter of 1916,
Grau was staying with an old Serbian man. The artist and budding occultist listened to the Serb
tell the story of his father, who had died without receiving the sacraments and wandered his village
as the undead. Grau even later claimed that the peasant produced an official document detailing
the 1884 exhumation of his father. The dead man's body showed no signs of decay, and his teeth had
become abnormally long and sharp, protruding over the lips. Grau claimed that the peasant told him
that prayers were said and the supposed vampire was dispatched with a stake through the heart.
The bald, emaciated form of "Nosferatu's" vampire, Count Orlok, is among the most iconic images in
the history of the horror genre. However, the man behind the grotesque makeup remains
largely a mystery. Although volumes have been written about Max Schreck's contemporaries in
silent horror cinema, such as Lon Chaney and Conrad Veidt, as well as later figures of the
genre's golden age like Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, the life of the man who played cinema's
first real vampire has little in the way of documentation. Even Schreck's true identity
has been called into question with some sources suggesting that he was actually actor Alfred Abel,
best known for his roles in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and "Doctor Mabuse," working under
an appropriately spooky stage name. There's even an urban legend that Schreck really was a vampire,
something explored in the 2000 horror film "Shadow the Vampire," starring Willem Dafoe as Schreck.
Max Schreck was actually born in Berlin in 1879.
Despite speculation that Schreck — a German word meaning "fear" or "fright" — was a pseudonym,
it was indeed the actor's given surname. The son of a civil servant, Max Schreck trained to be an
actor at the Berlin Royal Theater and worked extensively on the stage before entering film.
Schreck died in 1936 at the age of 57, having never achieved much notoriety beyond "Nosferatu."
One of the most compelling plot elements of "Nosferatu," and one
that is not present in Bram Stoker's "Dracula," is the use of its main
antagonist as a harbinger of disease and pestilence. When Orlok arrives in Wisborg,
he brings with him a horde of plague-infected rats that decimates the population. Ultimately,
the vampire's presence is secondary to the horrors that disease inflicts on the city,
and it meant the filmmakers had a major challenge on their hands.
As detailed in a 2020 feature published by NorthJersey.com,
the producers of "Nosferatu" went to unusual lengths to acquire their cast of rodent extras.
On July 31, 1921, Prana-Film ran a newspaper ad that would lead to an unusual casting call:
"Wanted: 30–50 living rats."
The ad was apparently successful. In one of the film's most memorable sequences,
one of Orlok's coffins is knocked open, unleashing a stampede of vermin.
Following World War II, many critics came to interpret Orlok's plague of rats as a
metaphor for anti-Semitism in Germany at the time.
Although this reading has merit in retrospect, it was not the intent of the filmmakers.
Albin Grau felt the film was reflective of its era. Produced against the backdrop of Germany's
post-World War I decline and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed 287,000 in Germany alone,
"Nosferatu," in Grau's words, was reflective of the events that came together to suck the world
dry like a, quote, "cosmic vampire." It's a theme that still makes sense to audiences even today.
Although "Nosferatu" has long been assumed to be a Romanian word synonymous with "vampire,"
the term's origins present a complicated linguistic mystery.
The word entered Western literature with the 1897 publication of Bram Stoker's "Dracula."
According to horror historian David J. Skal, Stoker encountered the word in writer Emily
Gerard's 1885 essay "Transylvanian Superstitions,” which was later included in her book "The Land
Beyond the Forests: Facts, Figures and Fancies from Transylvania." In that book, Gerard
used the word as a synonym for "vampire," and described a creature feared by Romanian peasants.
Despite Gerard's assertions, "nosferatu" is seemingly unknown in Romanian folklore
and all attempts to trace the word dead end with Gerard's writing.
Though various researchers have tried, combing Greek, Roman,
and other ancient languages, it's also hard to pin down a linguistic origin word tied to it.
In 2011, writer Anthony Hogg finally discovered an earlier source containing "nosferatu." Predating
"Transylvanian Superstitions” by 20 years, "The Year and its Days in the Opinion and Custom
of the Romanians of Transylvania " by Wilhelm Schmidt contains the mysterious word, and uses
it in much the same way that Gerard's book did. However, "nosferatu's" true origins remain murky.
"Nosferatu" dispenses with the artifice of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" for an Expressionism
that's more akin to a heightened, yet nightmarish reality. Much of the film's terrifying atmosphere
stems from F.W. Murnau's use of practical locations. Slovakia was chosen to stand in
for "Nosferatu's" Romanian countryside. But filming in the rough Slovakian terrain of
the mountains proved challenging. One panoramic shot required porters to carry the camera and
film canisters 7,200 feet up a rock wall and hoist the equipment into place with chains.
Some of "Nosferatu's" most memorable scenes take place at Orlok's castle,
where Thomas first lays eyes on the ancient vampire. For the vampire's domain, Murnau
and Grau chose the 13th century mountain fortress Orava Castle. Today, it stands virtually unchanged
and is a popular historical tourist attraction. However, the decaying remains of Orlok's castle as
depicted at the film's conclusion are actually the ruins of a different castle in Slovakia.
The northern German town of Lübeck served as "Nosferatu's" fictional town of Wisborg.
A Unesco World Heritage site, Lübeck is home to several "Nosferatu" locations that are still
recognizable today, including the building that serves as Olrok's German home, Thomas and Ellen's
home, and the cobblestone streets through which the coffins of the plague victims are carried.
As an unabashed and wholly unauthorized adaptation of "Dracula," "Nosferatu"
famously drew the ire of Bram Stoker's widow. With "Dracula" her only source of income,
Florence Stoker was notoriously protective of her late husband's copyright. Prana-Film had gone
bankrupt by the time she got around to suing them, so she couldn't get any money out of the deal,
but Florence Stoker did succeed in another way. Despite never seeing a single frame of
"Nosferatu," Stoker sued successfully to have every print of the film destroyed.
Because of that order, the horror classic was almost lost forever.
Lots of films from the silent era have been lost, whether through neglect over time,
storage fires, or other mishaps. As historian David J. Skal has noted,
though, the "Nosferatu" case is one of the few instances in which someone has actively
tried to destroy every trace of a film, particularly a film they've never seen.
Yet, "Nosferatu" survived. In 1925, a livid Florence Stoker discovered that
a British film club called the Film Society was planning a private showing of "Nosferatu."
Stoker immediately attempted to seize the film, but the Film Society's co-founder was
able to keep her legal agents at bay with evasion and stonewalling. That fabled print
disappeared before Stoker and her lawyers could seize it, and eventually "Nosferatu"
turned up in the United States. Through a loophole in copyright law, "Dracula" had
always been in the public domain in America, and so "Nosferatu" was out of Stoker's reach.
Although "Nosferatu" is an adaptation of "Dracula," its antagonist Count
Orlok resembles neither the novel's aging aristocrat nor the suave and
seductive image of Dracula made famous by Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee.
"I am Dracula, and I welcome you to my house."
Orlok is, first and foremost, an ancient monster.
From his first appearance on screen, his true nature is never in doubt.
Allegorical baggage aside, it's evident that Orlok is much more than he seems.
As depicted in the film, Thomas discovers an old book detailing the origins and habits
of supernatural creatures while staying at a Transylvanian inn. In the ancient tome he reads,
"From the seed of Belial sprang the Vampyre Nosferatu who liveth and feedeth on human blood."
As detailed by Christianity.com, Belial is a "personification of wickedness and evil."
In the Old Testament, the word refers broadly to lawlessness and rebellion,
however, the New Testament specifically identifies Belial as Satan in the book of Second Corinthians.
Given this scriptural context, Orlok is the literal son of the devil,
or at the very least some kind of demonic presence..
As documented by Turner Classic Movies, F.W. Murnau left Germany for the United States in 1926.
Brought to Hollywood at the behest of producer William Fox, Murnau's success
in his home country meant he got unprecedented creative control for his first American film,
"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans." Released in 1927, the film was an artistic triumph
noted for Murnau's revolutionary camera work. In 1929, at the very first Academy Awards,
"Sunrise" won three awards, including "Best Unique and Artistic Picture."
After 1930's "City Girl," the director left Fox to make "Tabu:
A Story of the South Seas" with documentarian Robert Flaherty. Set in Tahiti, "Tabu" was
Murnau's only box office hit after leaving Germany, but the success was short-lived.
F.W. Murnau's life came to an end on March 11, 1931,
when his car collided with an electric pole at high speed on California's winding Pacific
Coast Highway. Murnau's body was returned to Germany, and he was buried near Berlin.
In July 2015, graverobbers broke into Murnau's tomb and removed the
director's skull from his iron coffin. Candle wax left at the scene led to speculation that
Murnau's corpse had been used in an occult ceremony. Sadly, his skull remains missing.
In 1979, filmmaker Werner Herzog mounted an ambitious and thematically complex
remake of "Nosferatu." Starring Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula,
the film presents the vampire as a lonely outsider who yearns for love and beauty.
"Time is an abyss profound as a thousand nights."
Though it was plagued by accusations of animal cruelty for the way the many
rats needed for the film were treated, Herzog's "Nosferatu the Vampyre" was a hit with critics,
who lauded the film for its visuals and innovative take on the vampire myth.
Among some horror fans, Herzog's version is considered a masterpiece in its own right,
but even a century later, there's still no substitute for the original classic.
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