Directed by F. W. Murnau

Position on the list (at time of viewing): 125

This film is very much in the vein of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which I reviewed previously. Still very much within the school of German Expressionism, this movie is all long shadows and stark lighting and strangely detailed, surreal backdrops. Again, it is a surprisingly effective horror film, but most of the DNA that it shares with modern horror is in visual imagery (as opposed to editing, pacing, etc.).

The story is very clearly adapted from the traditional Dracula storyline, with a real estate agent named Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) making his way to an obscure, traditional village to arrange transport for a mysterious noble (Max Schreck) who is much more than he initially appears. The magic in this presentation of the material is much more in the realm of the stylistic and the atmospheric than the narrative. From the very beginning the movie seems haunted. Murnau adjusts the speed of his footage to indicate the unreality of the situation Hutter finds himself in. Everything is strange and disturbing, dripping with menace and a pervasive sense of dread. The movie was actually famously too close to its source material. An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s work, this production was actually sued by the Stoker estate, who won, and demanded that all copies of the film be destroyed. It’s only through luck that copies of this movie survive to the modern day. With so many of Murnau’s films lost to time, the world is lucky to still have this one.

Perhaps the most memorable element of the movie are its next-level monster effects, which are incredibly impressive, and are really on a level that we haven’t seen yet. Makeup, sure, that’s been a constant, but the level of prosthetics and creature design here are truly next level. Count Orlok is legitimately the stuff of nightmares, with disturbingly long, clawlike fingers and bugged out eyes. Even the scenes where he is passing as human he looks grotesque and strange. It really makes one wonder why anyone would ever spend the night at the guy’s house, but that’s really beside the point (horror movie logic was a thing even back in the 1920s). His presence on screen is powerful and otherworldly, and Murnau’s cinematography only heightens that dissonance that the viewer feels. The lighting is stark and impressionistic, and so memorable that this movie started a catchphrase for me–anytime I see a director using shadows, I say “Somebody’s seen a Murnau film!” It annoys my wife greatly. He really is that excellent, though. Pretty much everyone owes a great debt to the work he does here with both lighting and general cinematography.

The acting is still firmly in stilted silent film territory, but that’s not a terribly fair criticism, since it applies to 95% of movies at this point in history. Other than that, it has a lot of the same problems as other films–scenes that go on for a bit longer than necessary, some difficulties in pacing (this has learned quite a bit from Griffith in terms of tension, but it’s still not perfect). All of those slight negatives pale, though, in the face of the profoundly affecting atmosphere that this film creates. It oozes creepiness throughout. There is not a film before this one on the list that manages to create a pervasive, low-level sense of dread throughout the entire experience (Caligari comes close, but I think this is the more effective film). There is a direct line from this film to 2015’s The VVitch, and the latter film owes a huge debt to the Euro-horror trend that this movie functionally begins.

We’ll have to wait until the early ’40s for more modern American-styled horror (which is what most of us think of when we think of the word), but this is a great start for the genre. Despite all of the limitations, this is still a titanic classic. I am torn on rating it, however. I think that its incredibly high spot on the list is more due to historic significance than the impact it will have on a modern viewer. For my money, there will be a significant number of at least as good or better vampire movies later, but this is (by far) the highest rated movie to approach the subject matter. None of the classic Universal Dracula films even make the top 1000 at all (which is a huge oversight in my opinion). Dreyer’s Vampyr is down in the 200s, but that’s the closest anything else comes. I absolutely cannot deny the movie’s historic significance, but I can’t help but think that the groundwork laid here by Murnau will be built upon in so many wonderful ways later. This is probably my love of modern horror coming out and skewing my judgement, but I can’t see through to giving this the full four stars. Between the inaccessibility to the modern viewer and the fact that I think further films will advance these themes in more interesting ways, this one falls a little short despite its classic status.

The Score: