Many a moon ago, as I'm sure you recall because you hang on my every word, I posted a bit about vampires and my feelings on them. The short of it is: I'm not that into 'em, but I like the scary-looking ones because...umm...they scare me. Piper over at Lazy Eye Theatre touched on this same notion yesterday, and I'm pretty much in the same boat he is: the look of Nosferatu scares me, but the idea doesn't. Having said that, though, there's not much imagery out there that terrifies me more than Max Schreck as Count Orlok in Murnau's Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror). This guy is straight outta
There's one other on-screen vampire that's made me cower in fear, and his look is based on Murnau's leading man (yes, I'm sure you know what film I'm talking about, and yes, I'll be posting about it later this month); nearly 100 years on and Orlok still rules. However did Murnau do it without CGI?
Nosferatu almost vanished from the face of the Earth forever as the courts ruled in favor of Bram Stoker's widow, Florence, when she sued for copyright infringement: all existing prints of the film were ordered to be destroyed. The movie was already making its way around the world, however, and several copies survived. As the film has long since been in the public domain, it's readily available- often of the poor quality you'd expect to find in a movie anyone can distribute for a buck. There are restored fancy-pants editions out there, but you can even catch a version in its entirety on YouTube (it's a...uh, Stokerized version, as the character names are all pulled directly from Dracula, which is cited as source material).
So what flavor of vampire floats your boat? The debonair, nicely-coiffed romantic type who sneaks into your bedroom, seduces you, and turns you into a vampire? Or the grotesque rodent-like monster who brings on da plague and only bites to kill kill kill? One I'd rather meet, given the choice...but as for watching, bring on the ugly!
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