Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens, 1922) is a silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. Max Schreck plays Count Orlok, a rat-like vampire who moves from Transylvania to a German port town and brings the plague with him. The film was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula. Stoker’s widow sued and won a court order to destroy every copy. Prints survived, and Nosferatu is now considered one of the most influential horror films ever made.
At a glance
| Release date | February 16, 1922 (Netherlands); March 4, 1922 (Berlin premiere) |
| Director | F. W. Murnau |
| Writer | Henrik Galeen (screenplay) |
| Based on | Dracula (1897 novel) by Bram Stoker, adapted without permission |
| Starring | Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Alexander Granach |
| Runtime | 63 to 94 minutes, depending on the version and projection speed |
| Franchise | Remade as Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) and Nosferatu (2024) |
Plot summary
In 1838, in the fictional German town of Wisborg, the young Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) is sent by his strange employer, the estate agent Knock (Alexander Granach), to Transylvania. A Count Orlok wants to buy a run-down house across from Hutter’s own home. At an inn, the locals panic at the mention of Orlok’s name, and Hutter picks up a book about vampires. At the castle in the Carpathians, the gaunt, bald count tries to suck blood from a cut on Hutter’s thumb. When he sees a portrait of Hutter’s wife, Ellen (Greta Schröder), he admires her “lovely neck.”
Hutter finds Orlok sleeping in a coffin in the crypt and escapes from the castle. By then, the count is already on his way to Wisborg by ship, his coffins full of rats. The crew dies, and when the ship arrives, plague spreads through the town.
Spoiler section: the ending
Ellen reads in the vampire book that a vampire can be destroyed if a pure-hearted woman willingly offers him her blood and keeps him with her until dawn. She opens her window to Orlok and sends Hutter away to fetch a doctor. Orlok drinks from her, loses track of time, and vanishes in a puff of smoke when the first rays of sunlight hit him. Ellen lives just long enough for Hutter to hold her one last time. The final image shows Orlok’s castle in ruins.
Production and behind the scenes
Nosferatu was the only film made by Prana Film, a studio founded in 1921 by Enrico Dieckmann and the occultist artist Albin Grau, which went bankrupt soon after its release. Grau shaped the film’s look, designing its sets, costumes and makeup, Orlok’s verminous appearance and the posters. He also filled the count’s contract with Knock with occult and alchemical symbols. Grau told an apocryphal story that a Serbian farmer had told him during World War I that his father was a vampire. Prana never obtained the rights to Dracula. Galeen, who had written The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), moved the story to Wisborg, renamed the characters and added the idea of a vampire who brings plague through rats. Conrad Veidt was offered Orlok but had scheduling conflicts, and the then little-known Max Schreck got the part.
Filming began in July 1921. Wismar and Lübeck stood in for Wisborg, and the Transylvania scenes were shot in what is now northern Slovakia, including Orava Castle and the High Tatras. Interiors were filmed at the JOFA studio in Berlin. Fritz Arno Wagner had only one camera, so there was only one original negative. Murnau worked from Galeen’s script but rewrote 12 pages himself, including the final sacrifice. He planned shots with sketches and used a metronome to set the pace of the actors’ movements.
Release and reception
Prana promoted the film heavily. Its Berlin premiere on March 4, 1922, at the Marmorsaal of the Berlin Zoological Garden was staged as a society event, “Das Fest des Nosferatu,” with guests asked to come in Biedermeier costume. The German press was largely positive. One critic called it a “sensation,” while the Filmkurier found the vampire too solid and brightly lit to be truly scary. Florence Stoker’s lawsuit led to a ruling that all copies be destroyed, but prints had already spread abroad. Many versions with different intertitles survived, including an unauthorized 1930 sound version, and these became the basis for later restorations.
Modern critics are nearly unanimous. The film holds a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus says it “set the template for the horror films that followed.” Roger Ebert added it to his Great Movies list in 1997, writing that “it doesn’t scare us, but it haunts us.” Empire ranked it No. 21 among the best films of world cinema in 2010. It entered the public domain worldwide in 2019. The 2005–2006 restoration reconstructs Hans Erdmann’s original score.
Legacy and influence
Nosferatu was the first film to show a vampire destroyed by sunlight. In Stoker’s novel, sunlight only weakens Dracula, an idea later vampire films widely adopted. Orlok’s shadow climbing the stairs toward Ellen’s room is still one of horror’s defining images. Critics have also examined the film’s fear of the outsider, and some have pointed to possible antisemitic undertones in Orlok’s look and in the story of a foreign invader bringing plague to Germany. Werner Herzog remade it as Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), with Klaus Kinski. Shadow of the Vampire (2000) imagined the shoot with Schreck as a real vampire, and Willem Dafoe was Oscar-nominated for playing him. Robert Eggers‘s Nosferatu (2024) starred Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd as Orlok. Universal’s authorized Dracula (1931) came nine years later.
Trivia
- Although the film is often described as changing names to avoid copyright problems, the original German intertitles credited Dracula as the source.
- The letters exchanged by Orlok and Knock include Enochian, the “angelic” language recorded by John Dee and Edward Kelley in the 16th century.
- Professor Bulwer is named after the occult novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
- Murnau and Schreck both served in World War I. Murnau survived at least eight plane crashes as a pilot.
- In the 1930 sound version, Die zwölfte Stunde, Orlok was renamed Prince Wolkoff and the film was given a lighter ending.
- In 1995, the Vatican included Nosferatu on its list of 45 important films.
Related links
- Count Orlok and Count Dracula (characters)
- Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Shadow of the Vampire (2000) and Nosferatu (2024)
- Dracula (1931), the authorized Universal adaptation
- F. W. Murnau (director) and Henrik Galeen (screenwriter)
- Max Schreck (Count Orlok)
- Bram Stoker (author)
