the German director who created the first Dracula on the big screen died in a traffic accident in the USA and was buried in his native Germany, 20 km from Berlin. As a homossexual, he was partial to gay actors. When he had to travel from L. Angeles to New York for the premiere of "Tabú," he was devoted to esotericism and a fortune teller had told him not to take a car because a catastrophe would happen to him. Murnau listened and decided to go by yacht to New York, what he could not avoid was going to the dock place by car. He was the co-pilot, with his young Filipino lover driving the car. Near Santa Monica, the car left the road and crashed into a tree. After the appropriate investigations, the cause of the accident became clear: traveling at 120 km/h, Murnau was performing oral sex on the driver, his lover, completely reckless at that speed. Murnau was decapitated by an iron from the car, leaving his head in the crotch of the young driver and he also died instantly. This head was stolen in Germany in 2015 after a desecration. ( )

Silent classic lacks a bit of continuity, and the acting is overdone (except Schreck as the rat-like vampire), but the settings (the outdoor ones) are superb, the reconstructed music score of this 2006 German restoration is excellent, and the vampire himself is unforgettable. Also, take a look at the consistently wild hairstyles almost all the characters have--even those who are supposed to be normal. I'm glad I watched this after reading about it and seeing its classic images for most of my life. Not as good as the Bela Lugosi Dracula film--but at least better than Stoker's novel, since Nosferatu omits all the silliness and the infuriatingly stupid Van Helping (whose counterpart here is not a major character at all.) ( )

Il capolavoro del cinema espressionista, firmato da Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Il diabolico conte Orlok riesce a farsi trasportare nella città di Wisborg, dove semina morte e pestilenze. (fonte: Wikipedia)

A vampire moves to Germany.

When I saw this before, it was some public domain copy from Netflix, and it was awful. This time I saw the Kino version on Amazon, and there is a world of difference. It is a different movie. I'm still hesitant to say I liked it, though. It has nothing in the way of characters, the cast is awful (except for Schreck, who, let's be honest, just stands around in a cool costume), and there's a lot of mediocrity to sit through to get to the good parts.

Concept: A
Story: C
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: B
Acting: D
Music: B

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.4/4 ( )