Review of Nosferatu (1922) by Kendall I — 01 Oct 2012

The wait is over.

PLOT:Hutter is asked by his creepy boss, Knock to go and show pictures and such of the abandoned house across the street to Count Orlok (Max Shreck) so he'll buy. When he finally arrives there, he finds out that the Count isn't all that right. Simple plot for our time, strong plot for this time. Either way, it's VERY well executed.

ACTING:There was no dialogue considering this was a silent film, which draws up the question: is it easier or harder to act? I believe it's harder because the audience has to read the cast's facial features to figure out how they feel and what's going on. Some people because of this may consider it to be overacting! Well, this was NOT overacted. It was just right for the time and atmosphere of the movie. The best performance in the movie, I believe, was Gustav von Wangenheim as Hutter, not Max Schrek as Nosferatu. I felt every emotion he felt RIGHT when he felt it.

SCORE:Lots. The whole movie is scored with an unnsettling organ theme. After a while it gets annoying and seems to not fit into the scene, but at the scariest parts, it fits perfectly.

CAMERAWORK:It may be old, poppy, and discolored, but they still got some nice, ominous shots as a young Kubrick would, ESPECIALLY toward the end.

EFFECTS:Make-up only. Back then, the make-up effects probably made people wet their pants, considering the time of release. Nowadays, it would STILL do that to many people. Not me, though. They were creepy, vicious, and shocking! I appreciate that the most of the whole movie.

OTHER CONTENT:The movie may not have had jumps around every corner, but the atmosphere was so creepy and forboding that tit makes up for it perfectly. You may be wondering as a horror fan why I did not give this a top rating, besides the somewhat annoying score. Well, though it was a good horror, it just wasn't really my type. Why? I have no clue. It just didn't feel like it. On a lighter note, the first-person title cards and readings of that book were pure poetry in the eyes of a horror fan. In my eyes. I also liked how this added an unexpected twist to the plague times.

OVERALL, it's a great horror with a nostalgic plot, great acting for a silent film, nice camerawork, unbelievable effects, and all the good stuff I mentioned in the above paragraph. The cons include annoying-at-times score and that fact that it JUST didn't seem to be my type.