History YMMV / Nosferatu

* MoralEventHorizon: Orlok letting his plauge-bearing rats roam through Wisborg and cause hundreds of innocents to be infected with certainly deadly results just to detatch attention from his vampire attacks.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it was only his third movie and is certainly his most well-known today. This myth remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, due to a variety of conflicting information dating back to the film's initial release. The German press spread a rumor that Schreck was actually a pseudonym for Alfred Abel, who had previously worked with Creator/FWMurnau on ''Phantom'' and later starred in ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'', a claim repeated in some books into the 1970s;[[note]]this despite Schreck appearing at promotional events for ''Nosferatu'', and even costarring with Abel in Murnau's ''The Grand Duke's Finances''[[/note]] other sources went further, claiming that Orlok was an unknown actor using Schreck's name. Greek film historian Adonis Kyru [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joked]] in an essay on the movie that Schreck's performance was so convincing that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok, an idea which later inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''. Schreck himself was an eccentric loner who rarely granted interviews or socialized with collaborators, which did nothing to dispel the rumors.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it was only his third movie and is certainly his most well-known today. This myth remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, where Schreck's background is easily researchable, due to a variety of conflicting information dating back to the film's initial release. The German press spread a rumor that Schreck was actually a pseudonym for Alfred Abel, who had previously worked with Creator/FWMurnau on ''Phantom'' and later starred in ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'', a claim repeated in some books into the 1970s; other sources went further, claiming that Orlok was an unknown actor using Schreck's name. Greek film historian Adonis Kyru [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joked]] in an essay on the movie that Schreck's performance was so convincing that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok, an idea which later inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''. Schreck himself was an eccentric loner who rarely granted interviews or socialized with collaborators, which did nothing to dispel the rumors.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it's certainly his most well-known today. This myth remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, where Schreck's background is easily researchable, due to a variety of conflicting information dating back to the film's initial release. The German press spread a rumor, perhaps encouraged by the studio, that Schreck was actually a pseudonym for Alfred Abel, who had previously worked with Creator/FWMurnau and later starred in ''Film/{{Metropolis}}''; other sources claimed Orlok was an unknown actor using Schreck's name.[[note]]In fairness, ''Nosferatu'' '''was''' one of Schreck's earliest movie roles; he was little-known outside of his theater work beforehand.[[/note]] Later, a Greek film historian [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joked]] that Schreck's performance was so convincing that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok, an idea which later inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''. Schreck himself was an eccentric loner who rarely granted interviews or socialized with collaborators, which did nothing to dispel the rumors.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it's certainly his most well-known today. This myth remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, where Schreck's background is easily researchable, due to a variety of conflicting information dating back to the film's initial release. The German press spread a rumor, perhaps encouraged by the studio, that Schreck was actually a pseudonym for Alfred Abel, who had previously worked with Creator/FWMurnau and later starred in ''Film/{{Metropolis}}''; other sources claimed Orlok was an unknown actor using Schreck's name.[[note]]German filmgoers may have found this plausible, since Schreck was known as a character actor who usually appeared in comedies and period films; a lead role in a horror movie would have been doubly PlayingAgainstType.[[/note]] Later, a Greek film historian [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joked]] that Schreck's performance was so convincing that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok, an idea which later inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''. Schreck himself was an eccentric loner who rarely granted interviews or socialized with collaborators, which did nothing to dispel the rumors.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it's certainly his most well-known today. This myth remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, where Schreck's background is easily researchable, to the point where some writers have posited a ConspiracyTheory that Murnau falsely credited Schreck in place of an unknown actor. It's unclear how the rumor started, though it may be because of Schreck's eccentric personality (he was reportedly a loner with a bizarre, unsettling sense of humor), a [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joke]] by a Greek film historian that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok,[[note]]which inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''[[/note]] or perhaps his performance is just that good.

* 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.

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

* MoralEventHorizon: Orlok letting his plauge-bearing rats by roaming through Wisborg and causing hundred of innocents to be infected with certainly deadly results just to detatch attention from his vampire attacks.

* CompleteMonster: [[LooksLikeOrlok Count Orlok]], the titular "[[AntagonistTitle 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.

* 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''.

** 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}}: [[CultureClash In Mexico]] the intro scene with the mummies was rendered completely ineffective as most viewers in the country recognized they are the famous ''Momias de Guanajuato''. Yes, the same ones [[Wrestling/ElSanto El Santo]] fought that one time.

** If you go to film schoo, prepare to watch the shot of [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/NosferatuShadow.jpg Orlok's shadow on the wall]] many, many times.

** 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.

* CommonKnowledge: ''Nosferatu'' wasn't the first adaptation of ''Dracula''; a now-lost Hungarian film, Karoly Lajthay's ''Dracula's Death'', came out a year earlier. From [[http://mentalfloss.com/article/84080/11-nightmarish-facts-about-nosferatu surviving descriptions]], Lajthay took [[InNameOnly far greater liberties]] with the source material than Murnau.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it's certainly his most well-known today. This rumor remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, where Schreck's background is easily researchable, to the point where some writers have posited a ConspiracyTheory that Murnau falsely credited Schreck in place of an unknown actor. It's unclear how the rumor started, though it may be because of Schreck's eccentric personality (he was reportedly a loner with a bizarre, unsettling sense of humor), a [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joke]] by a Greek film historian that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok,[[note]]which inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''[[/note]] or perhaps his performance is just that good.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it's certainly his most well-known today. This rumor remains strangely persistent even in the Internet era, where Schreck's background is easily researchable, to the point where some writers have posited a ConspiracyTheory that Murnau falsely credited Schreck in place of an unknown actor really playing Orlok. It's unclear how the rumor started, though it may be because of Schreck's eccentric personality (he was reportedly a loner with a bizarre, unsettling sense of humor), a [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joke]] by a Greek film historian that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok,[[note]]which inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''[[/note]] or perhaps his performance is just that good.

** Max Schreck was a prolific stage and screen actor; ''Nosferatu'' was far from his only role, though it's certainly his most well-known today. It's unclear how the rumor started, though it may be because of Schreck's eccentric personality (he was reportedly a loner with a bizarre, unsettling sense of humor), a [[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-books-dracula-schreck/book-lifts-lid-on-star-of-eerie-first-dracula-film-idUSL0983779720080509 joke]] by a Greek film historian that Murnau must have cast a ''real'' vampire as Orlok,[[note]]which inspired the film ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire''[[/note]] or perhaps his performance is just that good.

** In order to make the carriage seem "Supernaturally fast," they just {{undercrank}}ed the camera. In 1922 this certainly ''looked'' spooky, but today? [[http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=BoBu2C5PS8w Brings Benny Hill to mind]].
** 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 until it's spelled out for him.

** 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 falls flat on its face due to having the werewolf being played by a striped hyena.

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

** 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]].

** The "plague rats" might have been frightening if they weren't obviously pet rats.

* 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. Part of the reason it worked is because of the greater realism. It's often neglected that this poster-child of GermanExpressionism made extensive use of location shooting.

* BetterThanSource: More than a few feel that Murnau's film is better than the novel, with ''Nosferatu'' being a cooler name than Dracula and being less disparaging of [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler 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.

* 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 less disparaging of [[UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler 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.