Review by Tristan Bishop
Nosferatu is now 92 years old, ladies and gentlemen – only 8 years until it gets a telegram from the Queen, in fact, so it seems odd that it should be getting a big re-release right now, but Eureka’s Masters Of Cinema label is putting out what promises to be the ultimate home release of this undying classic, as well as putting it out to cinemas in the run-up to Halloween. Most of you will have seen the original already, I would imagine, and those that haven’t will feel like they have – the film is now so embedded in popular culture. Hell, it even inspired one of the stranger Fast Show sketches back in the 90’s (“Monster! Monster!”). However, I had only previously seen the film twice before in my life – once at the tender age of 6 when I was staying at my sister’s house and was allowed to stay up late for Chinese food and monster movies, and again when I reached 18 and was given a VHS copy by a friend who was utterly bemused by it.
This version, however, is almost certainly the most complete and the closest to director FW Murnau’s original vision that has been seen in the last 90 or so years. For those that are not familiar with the history of the film, on its original release the film was (quite rightly) recognised by Bram Stoker’s widow as being a total rehash of Dracula with all the names changed. She took the producers to court in the UK, and they were ordered to destroy all prints of the film and burn the negative. Thankfully, UK law does not extend all the way to Germany, and the order was not followed to the letter. However the producers still felt they had an albatross around their necks, so they quickly sold off all the film material. A company called Deutsche Film Produktion purchased it, and re-edited the film into a slightly longer version (using extra material from Murnau’s unused out-takes), and re-released the film in 1930 under the alternate title ‘The Twelfth Hour’. The film was then released in the US and was re-cut again, and since then many film scholars and archivists have worked to try and assemble something close to what was intended to be seen.
The version here is a restoration completed in 2007 by F. W. Murnau-Stiftung and Luciano Berriatua, which includes material from a variety of sources (including the out-takes used in the Twelfth Hour variant), as well as unearthing the original score, unheard for nearly 85 years.
I’ll assume you are already well familiar with the plot, whether you have seen this, or perhaps Tod Browning’s version of Dracula (1931), Hammer’s Dracula (1958), Jess Franco’s Count Dracula (1970 – starring Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, and undoubtedly the closest adaption of Stoker’s work), or even Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), they are all basically the same story with minor changes – Young man leaves young wife to travel to Carpathian mountains to meet with a count who turns out to be a vampire, who keeps him enslaved whilst he plots to travel to England to seduce/feed on aforementioned wife. The major differences here are that England has been replaced by a small town in Germany (the fictional ‘Wisborg’), many of the secondary characters have been removed, and the ones that do remain, as mentioned above, have all had their names changed – Dracula is now Count Orlock, Renfield is now ‘Knock’ and Jonathan and Mina Harker are now Thomas and Ellen Hutter. The vampiric methods are slightly different here also: Orlock does not enslave or ‘turn’ his victims – they die outright, causing the townsfolk to blame a plague (possibly closer to the reality which inspired the vampire myths).
It’s near impossible to critique a film so central to the history of the horror film (even to film in general), and especially when a film is this old – silent German expressionist films don’t play by the same rules as modern day films, that’s for sure (unless you’re double-billing it with The Artist), but Nosferatu has a power that extends beyond ‘importance’ or interest only to film historians. Murnau’s direction, for instance, whilst a little leisurely at times, especially in the build-up, brings us some startling and effective moments – the first glimpse of Orlock is masterful, as he appears as a lonely figure, something less than human, at his castle gates, and the sequence on-board the ship which is carrying Orlock’s coffin contains some of the most famous imagery from the film, and positively reeks of atmosphere. The climax also stands as one of the most effective there is – from Orlock’s entrance, helped by some startling editing work whereby he appears to will a gate to open, to his final death throes, this remains spell-binding stuff. There is also the rarely-discussed humour of the film – from the count’s skeleton clock, to lines such as ‘Your wife has a lovely neck.’
The other main trump card here is Orlock himself – Played by Max Schreck, a German actor who is so convincing in his role that a whole mythology exists about whether he was an actual vampire (explored in 2000’s Shadow Of the Vampire) – he wasn’t, of course (unless he managed to balance being undead with having a successful film career), but he manages to portray a repellent, yet fascinating creature who inspires fear and sympathy at the same time. Incredibly, Schreck was a mere 42 at the time he made the film (coincidentally the same age as Murnau was at his tragic death in a car accident), but appears twice as old, his elongated, twisted physical appearance and exaggerated movements bring to life a character who embodies disease and loneliness. It’s an astonishing performance which even great actors such as Klaus Kinski (in the excellent Werner Herzog remake of 1979) and Willem Defoe (the aforementioned Shadow Of The Vampire) fail to match.
So, to the technical aspects – the film still looks battered and worn (although the print is as clear and bright as could be made under the circumstances), but we’re lucky to have a complete version at all, and the extras on the 2 disc release (sadly not available on the review copy) also look fascinating. The restored score is perhaps a little too alternately florid and strident for modern tastes, but is of its time, and very welcome as part of the restoration.
So if you’ve never seen Nosferatu, do yourself a favour and catch the re-release on the big screen, and if you have, well, this is the definitive version.
Eureka release Nosferatu to limited UK cinemas on 25th October, then to DVD & Blu-ray on 18th November 2013.