History YMMV / Nosferatu

* CompleteMonster: Count Orlok, the eponymous "Nosferatu," is one of the earliest examples of vampires in cinema and one of the most terrifying. When Thomas Hutter arrives in the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains, the locals speak Orlok's name in hushed whispers and don't dare to venture out at dark. Upon meeting Orlok, Hutter is attacked and the count tries to feed from him fatally before being repulsed. Hutter witnesses Orlok loading up several coffins to be transported across the sea, and Orlok later kills the crew of the schooner transporting him. The other coffins are revealed to also contain plague-bearing rats, and Orlok's arrival spreads a deathly plague all over Europe. He uses the plague as cover to feed on the people of Hutter's home village of Wisborg without suspicion before Hutter's innocent wife Ellen catches his eye. Orlok attacks Ellen, draining her to death in her HeroicSacrifice to keep him distracted before the sun rises to destroy him. Orlok had spawned a legion of imitators and while later vampires were portrayed as sophisticated, urbane and charming, Orlok is nothing more than a cunning, evil and ravenous beast that can barely pass as a human being.

* BetterThanCanon: More than a few feel that Murnau's film is better than the novel, with ''Nosferatu'' being a cooler name than Dracula and being [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler less disparaging of Romanian nationalist sentiments]], the setting in some vague German land partially mitigates a famous Headscratcher as to why the modernity-hating Dracula goes to such effort to come to Victorian London and of course the Rat Vampire look is scarier than the opera cape and tux look that became de rigeur later on. Among cinephiles the Murnau original is definitely considered the greatest and most artistic film adaptation of the novel.

* AssPull: One of the most famous in movie history; Creator/FWMurnau couldn't figure out how to kill Orlock, so he finally just said "Uh, sunlight? Yeah, that works..." [[LostInImitation Since then, every vampire in fiction has been]] [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to it]]. Incidentally, the effect can also utterly fail if you see the silent film in a version without the tints, since in plain black-and-white, the orthochromatic film stock doesn't distinguish between day and night, and the tints (dark blue for night, amber for day) do the job better to distinguish both.

* CompleteMonster: [[LooksLikeOrlok Count Orlok]], the eponymous "Nosferatu," is one of the earliest examples of vampires in cinema and one of the most terrifying. When Thomas Hutter arrives in the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains, the locals [[TheDreaded speak Orlok's name in hushed whispers]] and don't dare to venture out at dark. Upon meeting Orlok, Hutter is attacked and the count tries to feed from him fatally before being repulsed. Hutter witnesses Orlok loading up several coffins to be transported across the sea, and Orlok later kills the crew of the schooner transporting him. The other coffins are revealed to also contain plague-bearing rats, and Orlok's arrival spreads a deathly plague all over Europe. He uses the plague as cover to feed on the people of Hutter's home village of Wisborg without suspicion before Hutter's innocent wife Ellen catches his eye. Orlok attacks Ellen, draining her to death in her HeroicSacrifice to keep him distracted before the sun rises to destroy him. Orlok had spawned a legion of imitators and while later vampires were portrayed as sophisticated, urbane and charming, Orlok is nothing more than a cunning, evil and ravenous beast that can barely pass as a human being.

* WatchItForTheMeme
** Some younger viewers watch the film just to find out who was the guy flickering the lights in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** In the case of Creator/WernerHerzog's ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'', there's another collaboration and brilliant soundtrack by [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} German]] group Music/PopolVuh.
** As well as Music/RichardWagner's Rheingold, used when darkness falls during Harker's walk to the castle, culminating in him (and the audience) seeing the vampire for the first time.

* MemeticMutation: [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/NosferatuShadow.jpg Count Orlok's menacing shadow on the wall as he climbs the staircase]] is not only a legendary image in GermanExpressionism, but is one of the single most famous images in all of cinema.

* BetterThanCanon: More than a few feel that Murnau's film is better than the novel, with ''Nosferatu'' being a cooler name than Dracula and being [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler less disparaging of Romanian nationalist sentiments]], the location of the novel in some vague German land is also more historically accurate (since Central and Eastern Europe is where vampire legends first came from) than UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain and of course the Rat Vampire look is scarier than the opera cape and tux look that became de rigeur later on. Among cinephiles the Murnau original is definitely considered the greatest and most artistic film adaptation of the novel.

** If you went to a visual art school, chances are you've seen the shot of [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/NosferatuShadow.jpg Orlok's shadow on the wall]] many, many times.

* CompleteMonster: Count Orlok, the eponymous "Nosferatu," is one of the earliest examples of vampires in cinema and one of the most terrifying. When Thomas Hutter arrives in the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains, the locals [[TheDreaded speak Orlok's name in hushed whispers]] and don't dare to venture out at dark. Upon meeting Orlok, Hutter is attacked and the count tries to feed from him fatally before being repulsed. Hutter witnesses Orlok loading up several coffins to be transported across the sea, and Orlok later kills the crew of the schooner transporting him. The other coffins are revealed to also contain plague-bearing rats, and Orlok's arrival spreads a deathly plague all over Europe. He uses the plague as cover to feed on the people of Hutter's home village of Wisborg without suspicion before Hutter's innocent wife Ellen catches his eye. Orlok attacks Ellen, draining her to death in her HeroicSacrifice to keep him distracted before the sun rises to destroy him. Orlok had spawned a legion of imitators and while later vampires were portrayed as sophisticated, urbane and charming, Orlok is nothing more than a cunning, evil and ravenous beast that can barely pass as a human being.

* IAmNotShazam: "Nosferatu" is not actually Orlok's name. In fact [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign we don't even know what "nosferatu" actually means]] other than a garbled way to say "plaguebearer."

* BetterThanCanon: More than a few feel that Murnau's film is better than the novel, with ''Nosferatu'' being a cooler name than Dracula and being [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler less disparaging of Romanian nationalist sentiments]], the location of the novel in some vague German land is also more historically accurate (since Central and Eastern Europe is where vampire legends first came from) than VictorianBritain and of course the Rat Vampire look is scarier than the opera cape and tux look that became de rigeur later on. Among cinephiles the Murnau original is definitely considered the greatest and most artistic film adaptation of the novel.

* CompleteMonster: [[LooksLikeOrlok Count Orlok]], the eponymous "Nosferatu," is one of the earliest examples of vampires in cinema and one of the most terrifying. When Thomas Hutter arrives in the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains, the locals [[TheDreaded speak Orlok's name in hushed whispers]] and don't dare to venture out at dark. Upon meeting Orlok, Hutter is attacked and the count tries to feed from him fatally before being repulsed. Hutter witnesses Orlok loading up several coffins to be transported across the sea, and Orlok later kills the crew of the schooner transporting him. The other coffins are revealed to also contain plague-bearing rats, and Orlok's arrival spreads a deathly plague all over Europe. He uses the plague as cover to feed on the people of Hutter's home village of Wisborg without suspicion before Hutter's innocent wife Ellen catches his eye. Orlok attacks Ellen, draining her to death in her HeroicSacrifice to keep him distracted before the sun rises to destroy him. Orlok had spawned a legion of imitators and while later vampires were portrayed as sophisticated, urbane and charming, Orlok is nothing more than a cunning, evil and ravenous beast that can barely pass as a human being.
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome:
** In the case of Creator/WernerHerzog's ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'', there's another collaboration and brilliant soundtrack by [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} German]] group Music/PopolVuh.
** As well as Music/RichardWagner's Rheingold, used when darkness falls during Harker's walk to the castle, culminating in him (and the audience) seeing the vampire for the first time.

* AssPull: One of the most famous in movie history; Creator/FWMurnau couldn't figure out how to kill Orlock, so he finally just said "Uh, sunlight? Yeah, that works..." [[LostInImitation Since then, every vampire in fiction has been]] [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to it]]. Incidentally, the effect can also utterly fail if you see the silent film in a version without the tints, since in plain black-and-white, the orthochromatic film shoot doesn't distinguish between day and night, and the tints (dark blue for night, amber for day) do the job better to distinguish both.

* AssPull: One of the most famous in movie history; Creator/FWMurnau couldn't figure out how to kill Orlock, so he finally just said "Uh, sunlight? Yeah, that works..." [[LostInImitation Since then, every vampire in fiction has been]] [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to it]].

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Max Schreck looks absolutely ''phenomenal'' in his Count Orlok attire, genuinely looking like a hideous monster of the night. Especially impressive for the time it was produced.

** In the opening scenes the villagers claim a werewolf roams through the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it's clearly not a wolf, let alone a werewolf, but a striped hyena! And it's strange to downright ridiculous that this animal walks around in Transylvania, UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}.

* MemeticMutation: [[http://images.popmatters.com/misc_art/d/dvd-nosferatu-650.jpg Count Orlok's menacing shadow on the wall as he climbs the staircase]] is not only a legendary image in GermanExpressionism, but is one of the single most famous images in all of cinema.

** If you went to a visual art school, chances are you've seen the shot of [[http://images.popmatters.com/misc_art/d/dvd-nosferatu-650.jpg Orlok's shadow on the wall]] many, many times.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The reason this movie still exists. According to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu The Other Wiki]], the film's creating studio was sued by the estate of Creator/BramStoker, and the courts ordered all copies of the film to be ''burned''. Somehow, one copy slipped through the cracks, and this copy was then duplicated and spread throughout the world. The 'crack' was the United States, which didn't recognize most foreign copyright claims until decades later, by which time the original book was public domain and the claim against the film moot.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Orlok? Orlock? Both spellings have been used frequently, though the former ''seems'' to be the correct one.

* CompleteMonster: [[LooksLikeOrlok Count Orlok]], the eponymous "Nosferatu," is one of the earliest examples of vampires in cinema and one of the most terrifying. When Thomas Hutter arrives in the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains, the locals speak Orlok's name in hushed whispers and don't dare to venture out at dark. Upon meeting Orlok, Hutter is attacked and the count tries to feed from him fatally before being repulsed. Hutter witnesses Orlok loading up several coffins to be transported across the sea, and Orlok later kills the crew of the schooner transporting him. The other coffins are revealed to also contain plague-bearing rats, and Orlok's arrival spreads a deathly plague all over Europe. He uses the plague as cover to feed on the people of Hutter's home village of Wisborg without suspicion before Hutter's innocent wife Ellen catches his eye. Orlok attacks Ellen, draining her to death in her HeroicSacrifice to keep him distracted before the sun rises to destroy him. Orlok had spawned a legion of imitators and while later vampires were portrayed as sophisticated, urbane and charming, Orlok is nothing more than a cunning, evil and ravenous beast that can barely pass as a human being.

* AssPull: One of the most famous in movie history; Creator/FWMurnau couldn't figure out how to kill Orlock, so he finally just said "Uh, sunlight? Yeah, that works..." Since then, every vampire in fiction has been [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to it]].

* WatchItForTheMeme: Some younger viewers watch the film just to find out who was the guy flickering the lights in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: In the case of Creator/WernerHerzog's ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'', there's another collaboration and brilliant soundtrack by [[UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} German]] group Music/PopolVuh.

* {{Narm}}: In order to make the carriage seem "Supernaturally fast," they just sped up the camera. In 1922 this certainly ''looked'' spooky, but today? [[http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=BoBu2C5PS8w Brings Benny Hill to mind]].

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The reason this movie still exists. According to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu The Other Wiki]], the film's creating studio was sued by the estate of Creator/BramStoker, and the courts ordered all copies of the film to be ''burned''. Somehow, one copy slipped through the cracks, and this copy was then duplicated and spread throughout the world.
** The 'crack' was the United States, which didn't recognize most foreign copyright claims until decades later, by which time the original book was public domain and the claim against the film moot.
* NightmareRetardant: In the opening scenes the villagers claim a werewolf roams through the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it's clearly not a wolf, let alone a werewolf, but a striped hyena! And it's strange to downright ridiculous that this animal walks around in Transylvania, UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}.

* NightmareRetardant: In the opening scenes the villagers claim a werewolf roams through the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it's clearly not a wolf, left alone a werewolf, but a striped hyena! And it's strange to downright ridiculous that this animal walks around in Transylvania, UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}.

* NightmareRetardant: in the opening scenes the villagers claim a werewolf roams through the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it's clearly not a wolf, left alone a werewolf, but a striped hyena! And it's strange to downright ridiculous that this animal walks around in Transylvania, UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}.

* NightmareRetardant: in the opening scenes the villagers claim a werewolf roams through the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it's clearly not a wolf, left alone a werewolf, but a striped hyena! And it's strange to downright ridiculous that this animal walks around in Transylvania, [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}}.

** The scene where Hutter/Harker and Orlok/Dracula are commiserating together before Orlok is revealed to be a vampire comes across as kind of hilarious given how incredibly obvious it is the guy is clearly an inhuman monster who reacts very suspiciously to the sight of blood yet Hutter never seems to think too hard on it.

* AssPull: One of the most famous in movie history; Murnau couldn't figure out how to kill Orlock, so he finally just said "Uh, sunlight? Yeah, that works..." Since then, every vampire in fiction has been [[WeakenedByTheLight vulnerable to it]].

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: In the case of Werner Herzog's ''Nosferatu The Vampyre'', there's another collaboration and brilliant soundtrack by German group Popol Vuh.
** As well as Wagner's Rheingold, used when darkness falls during Harker's walk to the castle, culminating in him (and the audience) seeing the vampire for the first time.
* IAmNotShazam: "Nosferatu" is not actually Orlok's name. In fact [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign we don't even know what "nosferatu" actually means]] other than a garbled way to say "plaguebearer".
* {{Narm}}: In order to make the carriage seem "Supernaturally fast," they just sped up the camera. In 1922 this certainly ''looked'' spooky, but today? [[http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=BoBu2C5PS8w Brings Benny Hill to mind.]]
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The reason this movie still exists. According to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosferatu The Other Wiki]], the film's creating studio was sued by the estate of Bram Stoker, and the courts ordered all copies of the film to be ''burned''. Somehow, one copy slipped through the cracks, and this copy was then duplicated and spread throughout the world.

* NightmareRetardant: in the opening scenes the villagers claim a werewolf roams thru the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it's clearly not a wolf, left alone a werewolf, but a striped hyena! And it's strange to downright ridiculous that this animal walks around in Transylvania, Romania.

* WatchItForTheMeme: Some younger viewers watch the film just to find out who was the guy flickering the lights in an episode of ''SpongebobSquarepants''.

** The remake attempts to subvert this categorization by conveying a sense of pathos regarding Dracula's condition as one consigned to a predatory existence, doomed to be despised by those he wants to love and, absent that, to destroy those who return his affection. However, Dracula remains just as repugnant here as Orlok is in the source material, and it is clear that he is compelled to spread contagion and misery wherever he goes.

* IAmNotShazam: "Nosferatu" is another word for "vampire", but some seem to believe that it's actually Orlok's name.