Marvel’s new vampire movie Morbius hit theaters this week. But if you want to see an outstanding representative of the genre, you should go back to the beginning of film history and stream “Nosferatu” – free of charge in the Arte media library.
Film history would have been different without the work of Irish author Bram Stoker. His seminal gothic novel Dracula was the obvious inspiration for the classic film Nosferatu (Stoker’s widow even sued the film company for copyright infringement) and the Morbius movie wouldn’t exist without the book, they say underlying Marvel Comics but on the vampire myth. However, Nosferatu and Morbius are two very different films – and not just because the former is a hundred-year-old black-and-white silent film and the latter is a modern-day superhero film loaded with computer effects.
The Marvel film “Morbius” with Jared Leto as a vampire is largely carelessly made and thus ineffective spectacle cinema, which will soon be replaced by the next – and hopefully much better – comic blockbuster. In our review, you can read in detail why the potential that lies dormant in the film was unfortunately not used. “Nosferatu”, on the other hand, is still a film with a lasting scary effect, which tells of the unstoppable journey of evil power in a faded black and white look. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” is available free of charge in the Arte media library until June 1, 2022, ready for retrieval.
According to one DashFUN ranking “Nosferatu” is no less than the best vampire film ever:
This is what Nosferatu is about: Anyone who knows the Dracula novel has watched one of the classic films with the most famous of all vampires or the “Simpsons” episode with Mr. Burns as a blood-sucking count, knows the rough plot of “Nosferatu”: Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wagenheim ) travels to Count Orlok’s (Max Schreck) estate in the Carpathian Mountains to arrange the purchase of a house in the small coastal town of Wisborg. The Count wants to move.
Hutter is warned not to contact Count Orlok. The residents of the area are very afraid of the castle and Hutter’s wife Ellen (Greta Schröder) also has a bad feeling about it. When he realizes that he’s actually dealing with a vampire, it’s too late. Nosferatu soon boards a ship and makes his way to Wisborg, which soon is no longer tranquil at all…
“Nosferatu”: Still a masterpiece today
You have to get involved with “Nosferatu”. The style of the film undoubtedly comes from a different time and probably from the one that enjoys a cinema screening with orchestral or piano accompaniment for the centenary of the classic. But FW Murnau’s masterpiece can also unfold its effect at home in the stream.
Anyone who gets involved with “Nosferatu” experiences the horror of the images. Without spoken dialogue, sound effects, and wild tracking shots, the stylistic devices of modern horror cinema are missing here, but the fear arises all the more blatantly in the distorted faces of Gustav von Wagenheim and Greta Schröder. It is a reaction to the insidious appearance of the tall Max Schreck, who expresses his unbridled thirst for blood in the long-drawn-out grimace with the wide-open eyes.
FW Murnau and his team have created terrifying images that are larger than film. Horror cinema had only just begun in 1922 with “Nosferatu” and immediately reached one of its peaks.
