Nosferatu!

 Nosferatu (1 Point)

I have to admit upfront that this film was not my first encounter with the death bird Nosferatu. I actually first saw the being in the Nickelodeon children's television show "Spongebob" and for those who saw the episode, this character became a childhood legend in comedy. I'll leave a link to a youtube clip of the episode here. 

This fond memory along with this week's exploration into vampires ultimately spurned me to watch the film with a few friends, and it was a fun evening event. I found myself very impressed with a film of such age to still be able to frighten me and my friends based on his appearance alone, which was then enhanced by his slow movements and fun film effects. I was genuinely unnerved by Count Orlok's demeanor, expressions, and strange vampiric abilities, and even though we found much of the film to feel rather silly and overdramatic at points; most of us were very much enthralled in the plot of the film and wanted to know the ending. Though I'm not found that the film could be interpreted as antisemitic propaganda, I found much of it history to be really fun and intriguing. Especially how there was a wild theory that Max Schreck (who plays Count Orlok in the film) was an actual vampire, and how this film brought Bram Stoker's Dracula back into the limelight on account of plagiarism.

A few highlights of the film that I wanted to share was that, due to the odd choice of fonts, we thought the main character was called "Butter" for about half of the movie. Once we learned that he was actually called Hutter, things felt far less silly, at least until he threw his small vampire booklet down as hard as possible in an earlier sequence, causing me to flinch on account of that poor book's spine. Suffice to say that the acting was very enhancing and delightful. I was also very puzzled to find that this vampire played by a few new rules, such as having to be transported and sleeping in special dirt in order to survive, as well as his ability to telepathically communicate/control/ or influence others even at great distances and move through walls and doors without having to open them.

All in all, a very fun romp into a more grotesque and less human version of the vampire that I was very happy to have had the opportunity to view it.