Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror

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I finally saw this classic vampire silent movie from 1922. I've seen colored version with music playing in the background. I think that maybe it would look better in black and white but the soundtrack was pretty decent. I expected it would be a little boring but I enjoyed it. The Plot: It's direct adaptation of Dracula novel but they had to change the character names because of copyright problems. So Count Dracula became Count Orlok, Harker was Hutter and Mina was Ellen. The Dracula story is pretty complex and it would hardly fit into single movie (many tried but they all failed in my opinion), especially not in 90 minute silent film from 1922. They removed the part where Lucy gets bitten. Therefore Van Helsing didn't have any impact on the story and there was no vampire hunting. They altered the ending so they cut out the entire second half of the novel. And it worked great. I was surprised how well they could tell the story with just a few title cards appearing throughout the movie (you could count them on your fingers). They even added something to the story (plague). Nosferatu: People say Count Orlok was one of the scariest vampires ever on film. He's not charming or romantic but rather monstrous and ugly. Big eagle like nose and thick eyebrows are just as described in Dracula. Unlike classic vampires, he doesn't have sharp fangs. His front teeth are long and sharp and he kinda looks like a rat. His hands are big with fingernails like claws. But for me the creepiest thing was his wooden posture and the way he moved. Nosferatu doesn't turn people into vampires when he bites. He simply kills them. Harker got bitten and survived but didn't become a vamp. Original nosferatu played by Max Schreck (btw his last name means "fright" or "terror" in German) is much more scarier than the vampire played by Klaus Kinski in 1979 remake. This makeup (Max Schreck looks creepy even without the makeup lol) will never get old and it will scare you more than any CGI monsters you'll meet on screen today. So Dracula was great but I'm not sure that the guy who played Harker was a right choice. I thought he was a little goofy. Other characters were alright. I thought the movie was much better than the 1979 remake (which I saw first)so my advice is to watch the original. And you have to watch it if you are Dracula fan. Id you decide to watch Nosferatu, definitely see "A Shadow Of A Vampire" too. It's a fictional story about making movie Nosferatu in which Max Schreck was actually a vampire and they hired him to make it more realistic. Have you seen Nosferatu? How about a 1979 remake? Which version did you like most? What's your favorite Dracula movie and who is your favorite vampire?