{"id":99328,"date":"2026-11-15T00:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T07:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=99328"},"modified":"2026-11-15T00:08:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T07:08:44","slug":"revisiting-nosferatu-1922","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=99328","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting “Nosferatu” (1922)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I originally reviewed F.W. Murnau’s silent horror classic Nosferatu<\/em> (1922) back in March 2008<\/a> — two years after starting this blog site, when I was three months pregnant with my oldest child. That daughter is now an 18-year-old adult taking a college class all about vampires (woot!). She asked me today if I would watch this movie with her, and I jumped at the chance. <\/p>\n

(Spoiler alert:<\/strong> She watched Dracula<\/em> [1931]<\/a> last week with her class, and had to write about which adaptation she preferred; she chose that one over this.) <\/p>\n

I first saw Nosferatu<\/em> (1922) many, many years ago — sometime in the 1990s, most likely taped off of AMC<\/a> (prior to the emergence of TCM<\/a>), or perhaps I tried to go out and see it on a big screen somewhere. I can’t recall. At that time, I was frantically busy watching as many of Peary’s GFTFF<\/em> titles as I could, trying to absorb the enormity of film history in a condensed and obsessive manner. I had convinced myself I couldn’t — or shouldn’t — “legitimately” write about movies until I was much more familiar with them vis-a-vis the arc of cinematic history; hence, waiting until 2006 (at the age of 32) to finally start this site. <\/p>\n

Was that wise, or necessary? I’m not sure. But once I did jump into this project, I was committed to finally start recording<\/em> all my reactions, and to engage in ongoing, explicit sensemaking-through-writing about the massive world of Cinema. <\/p>\n

To that end, I’ve always appreciated the concept of recursivity in film viewing — that is, returning to a movie numerous times, and reflecting on how your views on it have changed alongside your own development. Peary seems to be a fan of this, too: his books are based (in part) on the idea of not only watching what’s new-and-exciting but revisiting<\/em> older movies again and again — sometimes obsessively and repeatedly<\/a> as a cult favorite, sometimes out of curiosity for how a childhood favorite has held up<\/a>, sometimes because a film simply keeps showing up on television<\/a>… My distinction here between “recursivity” and “rewatching,” by the way, is that it’s assumed with the former you won’t simply see and experience the same feelings each time; your response may shift. I’ve never had a great memory for details of movies, thus making it incredibly easy to re-enjoy something (or not) time and again; I think my novelty-seeking brain is too interested in seeking out new things to have space to hold on firmly to the old. My “poor” memory is actually one part of why I started this project: to archive my thoughts before they disappear, and have access to an entire trove of my own documented responses. <\/p>\n

Recursivity can be generational as well. As I’ve discussed before on this site, how we view (and re-view) films has continued to evolve in ways that each previous generation may have found unfathomable — and yet, here we are, with my 18-year-old Gen Z daughter and her peers emerging as enthusiastic cinephiles<\/a> (hurra!); maybe there will be a renewed interest in movie sites like this one. There are certainly many more video reviews now available on YouTube, which I enjoy checking out; I tried this myself<\/a> and simply found it too time-consuming. My 16-year-old Gen Z son is fascinated by certain movies — Hundreds of Beavers<\/em> (2022)<\/a> is a title he insisted on going to see with us in the theater — and he’s almost always up to going to see a random classic film with me; for instance, we saw Raw Deal<\/em> (1948)<\/a> when it rolled into town as part of an annual Film Noir festival, and shook hands with host Eddie Mueller<\/a>. My youngest (13-year-old, cusp Gen Z) isn’t (yet) a movie fan; she is obsessed with K-Pop, and that’s what we share during our time together. <\/p>\n

Back to Nosferatu<\/em>, when I re-read my original review, I noticed I hadn’t included too much detail, other than basics described by Peary in his GFTFF<\/em> review (and now widely known about its origin story) — i.e., the film nearly being destroyed into oblivion after a successful law suit by Bram Stoker’s widow. This third visit allowed me to reflect on what it’s like watching a film over 100 years old, with all its actors, even the youngest, long gone. <\/p>\n

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Knowing it celebrated its centenary when COVID-19 was still raging in 2022 made the plague-driven plot elements especially eerie. <\/p>\n

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I talked out loud with my daughter while watching, having a bit of fun with elements of silent films that are undeniably archaic and often laughable — like overly expressive acting styles (though she added that today’s actors could use a bit more of this in their approach!). <\/p>\n

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She commented on the color shifts, and how the directing team clearly struggled to depict night-time (they simply used blue). We laughed when seeing the striped hyena posing as a wolf after Hutter is warned at the inn about the local “werewolf”. <\/p>\n

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She and I both lamented the clear anti-semitic overtones<\/a> in Schreck’s prosthetics. <\/p>\n

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We struggled to discern some of the letters on the original title cards (specifically the capital H): <\/p>\n

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… and we oohed and aahed at the film’s most iconic images — this is the one that got her: “Okay, that’s cool” she said.<\/p>\n

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She talked quite a bit about narrative elements which differed from the novel, which I haven’t read since — well, since I was roughly her age; she pointed out, for instance, that Hutter “should” have been given a cross by the innskeeper to help him ward off Count Orlock. <\/p>\n

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She lamented the sacrifice of Hutter’s wife at the end, asking if I’d heard the term “fridging”<\/a> — I hadn’t. <\/p>\n

A closing side note:<\/strong> Though I try to keep up somewhat with newer cinematic releases (this is part of why I occasionally disappear from here — I’m busy with current titles), I hadn’t realized that Nosferatu<\/em> (2024) was recently remade yet again, which surely has brought younger audiences back to this earlier version. In a lovely instance of recursivity, the cast of the 2024 film includes Willem Dafoe, who played actor Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire<\/em> (2000)<\/a>, itself a “meta-film” about Nosferatu<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Long live vampires — ha, bad pun. Seriously, though, they’re as popular as ever; here is one Letterboxd user’s chronological list of their presence in films<\/a>. (Letterboxd is the latest film fanatics’ online gathering place.) <\/p>\n

Speaking of which – long live obsessive film fanatics! We are here to stay, too.<\/p>\n

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I originally reviewed F.W. Murnau’s silent horror classic Nosferatu (1922) back in March 2008 — two years after starting this blog site, when I was three months pregnant with my oldest child. That daughter is now an 18-year-old adult taking a college class all about vampires (woot!). She asked me today if I would watch this movie with her, and I jumped at the chance. (Spoiler alert: She watched Dracula [1931] last week with her class, and had to write…<\/p>\n

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