Funny enough, when I first heard about Nosferatu in this class, I thought of an episode of Spongebob. You can watch this scene here. I then learned it was a story about Dracula, a story of which I’m very familiar. Notably, my uncle, a fan of Dracula, really enjoys the 1992′ “Dracula” movie, featuring Gary Oldman as Dracula. He’s forced my family to watch this movie a few times, claiming it’s “true to the book” – a direct quote from him. You can see a trailer for this movie here. In addition, my cousins, sister, and I enjoy the animated movie “Hotel Transylvania,” starring Adam Sandler as Dracula – although it’s a children’s movie, it’s extremely comical and I highly recommend it.
Like many others, I figured this movie would not entertain me. Horror movies from the ’90s or prior really don’t frighten me, no matter how much persisting my mom and aunt do to tell me “It” is the scariest movie of all time. Hollywood today is all about their special effects and crazy graphics, which makes it understandable that horror movies from before the 2000s seem fake and unrealistic to me. In addition, “Nosferatu” is a silent film, another reason why I thought I would be bored out of my mind. Regardless, I decided to sit down and watch the 90 min film to see if it’d surpass my low expectations.
While this movie did not entertain me as much as I would have liked a scary movie to, it wasn’t bad. The background music added to the suspense and emotions. It’s funny because with the movie “Jaws,” the only thing that gave me any sort of fright from it was the acclaimed John Williams background music (if you’re reading this, it’s probably playing in your head… “duhhh nuhhh.. duuuhhh nuhhhhh”). The graphics and special effects I’m so accustomed to evidently weren’t there, but I wasn’t expecting anything extraordinary knowing how old this movie is.
It’s really interesting to think that Nosferatu was considered scary back in the ’20s. I’m sure I would have enjoyed it much more if I was around back then, however it definitely succeeded my expectations, all thanks to the suspenseful music. It’s also really funny to see how society’s physical image of vampires has changed. Orlok was really strange looking, and today vampires like Edward Cullen and Damon in Vampire Diaries are very attractive looking.
I compared scary movies today to Nosferatu too! I completely agree about how the effects enhance movies today so much so that nothing significantly older can really compare. I also had relatively low expectations, but did think it was interesting, probably because of the combination of music and suspense. I did a similar comparison of Twilight, Vampire Diaries, and Nosferatu because I thought the modern take on the vampire fantasy was interesting in both how it was similar and different. So overall I agree completely and really enjoyed reading something that captured a lot of my views as well.
Excellent post! I also thought of that scene with Spongebob. That scene makes so much sense know and when I think about it, it’s very clever. I agree with you about the music adding to the suspense of the film. As a silent film with no dialogue, I think the music was especially important. The director(s), producer(s) and/or sound director(s) had to effectively communicate throughout the movie through just music more often than not. Although I don’t think that the film was a scary one, so I understand why it did not scare you. As I noted in my post, I thought it was more of a thriller than a scary movie. But again, it is crazy to imagine that this may have been classified as a scary movie at the time. It’s an obvious display of how pop culture and even ideas change over time. What was once seen as scary and mystical (vampires) today is something the young pre-teen girls fawn over (Twilight vampires).