Dinner... is Served - a photo on Flickriver

Directed by F. W. Murnau, Nosferatu (1922) was an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula - actually just a completely illegal ripoff, with a bare minimum of names and plot details changed. Dracula became Orlok, Harker became Hutter, Renfield became Knock, and so on. The filmmakers were sued by Bram Stoker's widow, and lost, and the film was almost lost forever. Now that Dracula is under public domain, it's perfectly legal and fine - note to copyright thieves: Just wait seventy years!

Aside from the theft, Nosferatu is one of the most significant horror movies ever made. I know you've heard this before, but why, you may ask? Well, there are several reasons - it was the first vampire movie, for one, and its creepy cinematography inspired... well, horror movies. If you do get to watch it, pay attention to things like the use of light and shadow, Orlok's explicit relation to rats and the plague, or the fact that this was the very first time sunlight killed a vampire.

Yep! That's it! Traditional vampires - including Dracula - were often inconvenienced by sunlight, or perhaps had their powers lessened, but Orlok is the first to actually die when he sees the sun. The very first. Just him.

Orlok also brought vampires around full-circle - early Eastern European legends had them as ugly, monstrous peasants, but early literature, such as Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre (1819) made them suave, seductive... and a lot like Lord Byron. Varney the Vampyre, as another early novel, had the first truly sympathetic creature of the night. Both Carmilla and Dracula seemingly completed and cemented the vampire's image as a suave, seductive force of raw lust... and then Nosferatu came around and reintroduced the monstrous vampire. Sure, Orlok has a way with people, and spends most of the movie fooling folks into thinking that he's a decent guy, but he's still a horrible, gaunt, shrivelled plague rat. Sure, most of culture has stuck with pretty vampires, but you can still find echoes of Nosferatu all over the place.

Oh yeah, and as an aside - this figure of Orlok is from Aztech Toys's Silent Screamers line. He turns dark/burnt purple in sunlight. Cool!

Featured on Poe Ghostal's Pic of the Day: www.poeghostal.com/2012/06/pic-of-the-day-dinner-is-serve...

Featured on Nerditis's Figure Photo of the Day: nerditis.com/2013/01/11/figure-photo-of-the-day-dinner-is...

Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2013/06/14/life-in-plastic-retro-review-graf...

Taken on: June 2, 2012

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