As I was watching Nosferatu I couldn’t help but think of how my grandparents would have reacted when watching it as children when it first came out in 1922. I kept on wondering if they were actually frightened by the movie and if it actually scared them. To me the lack of speech in the movie made it quite difficult to watch, I am so used to being able to do a million things while watching a movie, but without talking that proved quite difficult. It bothered me that I wasn’t actually scared by something that would have been viewed as a “horror film” when it first came out. I think it proves how perverted our society has become to horrific things. I think these days it is quite difficult to actually scare the audience because they have been so exposed to scary movies and scenes from a very young age. I also found it fascinating how similar Nosferatu was to Dracula, until I found out it was actually an exact copy and they were sued for copyright infringement. I also began thinking of Twilight and Harry Potter, other fictitious and unrealistic tails of our error. When push comes to shove I found Nosferatu a little boring, tedious and slow moving, with that being said I am excited to see Dracula brought to life on Thursday night.
Like you, I also wondered how people back in the day reacted to Noseferatu. I actually talked about that with a director back in my creative writing class. He told my class that what builds up the “scary moment” is a well executed build up of suspense. There were a handful of people who jumped in their seats even when we were watching old clips as examples of what he said. Similarly, I also multitask while watching movies so keeping my attention focused on Noseferatu proved quite challenging to me as well.
The silent part of the film was definitely difficult because, as you said, we are so used to multitasking. We listen with our ears and focus on other things. However, with silent films, we really have to concentrate and watch the gestures and read the text. I guess this goes to show just how much we’ve changed since the 1900s. Adding to that note, I watched it with my mom who rarely watches horror movies and she was a bit freaked whereas I was laughing at some of the gestures.
The horror genre really evolved with time. While people in the 1900s reacted very fearfully at Nosferatu, the majority of viewers from the 21th century finds Nosferatu not scary at all and sometimes even amusing and laughable. Right now, the horror genre uses suspense and surprise to a much greater degree. It would build up the scene with tantalizing atmospheric music, dark lighting, and tentative actions. Then the jump scare! It really messes with the viewer’s head.
I found the silent part to be difficult but got used to it as the movie went on. I wouldn’t want to watch many slow moving silent movies like Noseforatu but it was an experience to me. The horror definitely did not scare me, I just laughed at their intended horror. I guess it’s like what you said; in our day, children are brought up with lots of exposure to horror films making it difficult to scare the audience.
I totally agree with you that since we have callously experienced many forms of scariness, we are numbed in reaction to horror films of the twentieth century. Although our grandparents believed that such movies were scary because they were in the time period when horror films were just developed, they also were afraid of the content of these films because people back then had different values and beliefs. They were more superstitious, and they relied on supernatural forces to explain certain aspects of life. This is probably why they might have found Nosferatu terrifying?