Nosferatu at 90: Florence Stoker, Vampire Hunter

The year is 1912. Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, has passed away. Some attribute the cause to syphilis. Left behind is his beautiful wife, Florence Anne Lemon Stoker, née Balcombe, a demure and striking stage actress when she married the Irish theatrical agent in 1878 at the age of 20. Now a widow in her 50s, with one grown son starting a family of his own, Florence finds herself struggling financially--a sad burden compounded no doubt by the rumors surrounding her husband's death. Ironically, the one thing that remained to her as far as financial means was the copyright to her late husband's famous vampire novel.

Fast forward a decade. A relatively new entertainment medium, cinema, is finally hitting its full stride and one of the epicenters of the explosion is Germany, where an Expressionist movement is taking the country by storm. A small art collective known as Prana Films, spearheaded by artist and spiritualist Albin Grau, produces a vampire film called Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens, whose screenplay, penned by Henrik Galeen, has taken for its direct inspiration Stoker's Dracula. However, to avoid having to pay anything for intellectual rights, Prana Films never seeks permission from Florence Stoker, still alive and well in Britain. The names and places in the silent film are all changed from the novel in a naive attempt to avoid infringement. Count Dracula becomes Count Orlock.

Florence Balcombe, sketched by her former
love interest, Oscar Wilde.

On March 4, 1922, Nosferatu enjoys a lavish premiere at Marble Hall of the Berlin Zoological Gardens, complete with live musical accompaniment and sound effects. The following month, Florence Stoker receives an anonymous letter from Berlin, containing a program from the premiere. The program directly states that Nosferatu has been "freely adapted from Bram Stoker's Dracula". Having received no permission requests, nor even being aware of the film's existence up to this point, the 62-year-old widow, still depending on whatever income she can get from the novel's copyright, is outraged.

What follows is a one-woman crusade the likes of which has never been seen in film history, before or since. Represented by the British Incorporated Society of Authors, Florence Stoker, as literary executor for the estate of her late husband, files a sweeping lawsuit against Prana Films which calls not only for financial compensation for the use of her intellectual property, but also the complete and total destruction of the film itself.

The legal battle would rage for over three years. Prana Films declared bankruptcy due to legal costs, and also in an attempt to avoid making payments to Mrs. Stoker.  Meanwhile, the company's lone production, Nosferatu, continued to play throughout Germany and Hungary, but nowhere else, its international distribution halted by the litigious ruckus. Ironically, the success of the film in its homeland had made Stoker's copyright even more valuable than before. Prana would even try to make a deal with her, offering to cut her in on the film's profits if she would allow them to expand the release and use the Dracula name. She refused, insisting again on the torching of the film.

Hamilton Deane

While the suit took its course, Stoker was simultaneously negotiating with producer and Dublin neighbor Hamilton Deane, who sought to bring the novel to the stage. His officially licensed theatrical production of Dracula would premiere in Derby in 1924. It was an immediate hit, and its success helped boost the fortunes of Florence Stoker, who was also on the verge of winning her lawsuit with the doomed Prana Films.

In July 1925, the court ruled that Prana Films was in direct copyright infringement of the intellectual property of Florence Stoker. Financial reparations were ordered, but the failed company was unable to pay. The court also ordered that the negative of Nosferatu, as well as all known prints, be rounded up and promptly destroyed--the only known case of a "capital punishment" ruling on a major motion picture. It would be the only movie ever made by Prana, and had not been seen by anyone outside of Germany and Hungary--including Florence Stoker.

With Nosferatu seemingly destroyed, Stoker continued to reap the rewards of Deane's official stage adaptation. In fact, she granted the American stage rights to producer Horace Liveright in 1927 and Liveright hired John L. Balderston to adapt the play for U.S. audiences. It premiered on Broadway with virtually unknown Hungarian actor (had he seen Nosferatu during its release?) Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, and ran for a year on Broadway and two more on tour. However, in another case of intellectual property shenanigans, it turned out that Bram Stoker had never properly seen to the U.S. rights for his novel, and so it was in the public domain. This meant that Florence Stoker never received her full payment for the American production from Liveright, who was no longer even alive by the end of the play's run.

Meanwhile, it turned out that much like a vampire itself, Nosferatu the film was not exactly dead. Somehow, there were prints that survived the court-ordered obliteration. One of these made it to America in 1929, and it was then that the film finally made its US debut, against Stoker's direct wishes, screening in New York and Detroit. And when budding Hollywood movie studio Universal, nearly a decade after the film's release, sought to make their own talkie adaptation of Dracula based on the stage play, they also studied Nosferatu closely, and the influence can be seen in their 1931 film version, also starring Lugosi.

Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe Stoker died in London on May 25, 1937 at the age of 78, survived by her son Irving Noel, granddaughter Ann Elizabeth, and newborn great-grandson Richard Noel. In her later years, she no doubt enjoyed greater financial prosperity thanks to the stage production of Dracula, as well as other licensed properties like Universal's film and it's 1936 sequel, Dracula's Daughter. It's unknown whether she was aware of Nosferatu's survival, or how she felt about it if she did know.

The film remained an obscurity for decades, playing here and there, but never being fully embraced by audiences. It finally reached a wider audience in the 1960s, when it found its way to late-night television, along with whatever other public domain films were available at the time. Renewed interest in the film finally led to the resurfacing in 1984 of a complete print--the first found since its attempted destruction nearly 60 years prior. The uncut version played at Berlin's Film Festival that year, a stone's throw from where it had debuted in 1922. Free at last from the shadow of Florence Stoker's wrath, Nosferatu took its rightful place as the seminal vampire film that it is. It was released to home video for the first time in 1992, and the 2007 DVD release is the very first home video version to include the original music, all original scenes, plus the original color film tints.

Florence Stoker and son Noel,
circa 1882.

Whatever its merits, justification, or lack thereof, Florence Stoker's crusade had failed in the end. Nosferatu the film, in true Dracula fashion, could not be completely destroyed. And it's thankful for us that it wasn't--for as horror scholar David J. Skal wrote in his 1990 book Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen, "Nosferatu mined Dracula's metaphors and focused its meaning into visual poetry. It had achieved for the material what Florence Stoker herself would never achieve: artistic legitimacy."

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Nosferatu at 90: Who Was Max Schreck?

His very name is the German word for "terror". Perhaps this was one of the reasons why many believed it to be a pseudonym--surely no actor known for playing such a terrifying role could really have a name like that. Or perhaps it was not a pseudonym after all--perhaps, as some fancied for years, the man himself was no mere actor at all, but actually was what he portrayed onscreen--a bloodsucking member of the undead.

The legend of his mysterious nature was so persistent that it even formed the basis of the 2000 mock biopic Shadow of the Vampire, in which director E. Elias Merhige postulates that the man who played Count Orlock, a.k.a. Nosferatu--truly was a vampire himself. A testament, if nothing else, to his iconic, thoroughly convincing performance as the silver screen's first such creature.

Schreck sans vamp makeup...

But nevertheless, to the disappointment of goths everywhere, Max Schreck was a mere mortal after all.

He was born Friedrich Gustav Max Schreck on September 6, 1879 in the Friedenau section of Berlin, Germany--although the details of his early life are admittedly sparse, we know this much is true. And he was most certainly an actor--one, in fact, who was quite passionate about his calling, heading directly to the State Theatre of Berlin for instruction as soon as his regular schooling was complete.

It was in 1902 that a 22-year-old Schreck finished his training and emerged on to the German dramatic scene during a time when motion pictures were still in their earliest infancy and the stage was still really the only place for a young performer to make his name. Seeking to learn his craft, he toured his native country for a few years with various troupes until finally settling in with the highly prestigious company of Max Reinhardt--then one of the world's leading stage impresarios and a producer responsible for launching the careers of many of a future film star.

Schreck would turn out to be one of these, as the actor approached the prime of his career just at the moment that Germany was exploding onto the cinematic scene as one of the leaders in the burgeoning technological art form. Expressionism was taking root in a big way, and in the wake of the first World War, Germany was reestablishing itself as a hotbed for the new medium.

It was while appearing in the Drums in the Night, the debut production of soon-to-be acclaimed German playwright Bertolt Brecht, that Schreck was approached to be in his first motion picture--Der Richter von Zalamea. The gaunt, almost otherwordly actor was a natural for the movies, especially during the silent era, when the face was everything. This was doubly true of the Expressionist era, during which stage histrionics of the sort used by Schreck and others were all the more grandiose when projected on to a giant screen.

The role that immortalized him...

That first role would lead to the part that would eventually make him famous--or infamous--throughout the world. F.W. Murnau, one of the leaders of the German Expressionist film movement, was busy adapting--unofficially--Bram Stoker's novel Dracula into the world's first feature-length vampire film, and Schreck seemed the perfect fit for the lead role of the monster. Specifically in Murnau's vision of the story, the Count--here called Orlock to avoid a lawsuit from Stoker's widow that would come anyway--was to be vastly different from the furry aristocrat the Irish author had envisioned.

Rather, in line with Expressionistic aesthetics, Murnau wanted a hideous, demonic-looking vampire--one who closely resembled the rodents he carted across Europe with him. We'll never know if Schreck was insulted the director wanted him for the part, but we do know that he took it, and it would go on to become the single thing he would become known for, to the exclusion of all else.

So thorough was his immersion in the part that, combined with the relatively nothing that was known about him by the world at large, it came to be assumed by some that he might actually be the thing they saw on screen. Even for those too well-grounded to believe in such stuff, there was no denying the man's thick aura of mystery. Here was this strange German actor, who seemed to just appear out of the blue to play this nightmarish villain on screen, and then promptly return to obscurity afterward.

Add to that the notoriously tortuous path the film took to the general public--getting banned by a German court due to copyright infringement, and having nearly all copies destroyed to the point that it would take decades for the silent gem to finally emerge as a rare cult classic--and it's easy to understand why Schreck became such a fascinating character to movie buffs.

A totally un-Nosferatu-like role in 1927's Dona Juana...

But despite the fact that the world at large would only know him decades later as the first filmic vampire, Max Schreck did not actually vanish into a puff of smoke following the release of Nosferatu in 1922. Rather, he continued to have a busy career in the German cinema. He did some slapstick comedy work for Brecht in the playwright's own one-reeler short, Mysteries of a Barbershop. He rejoined Murnau for the 1924 comedy The Grand Duke's Finances, and appeared in many other films such as The Street and Dona Juana. His career even survived the advent of talkies, as Schreck continued to appear in movies well into the 1930s, and well into his 50s.

After making a return to the stage at the age of 56 to play the Grand Inquisitor in the play Don Carlos, Schreck was taken to the hospital on February 19, 1936. He died early the next morning of a heart attack--a most un-vampiric way to go if ever there was one. He was buried March 14, 1936 in an unmarked grave at the Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof cemetery in Berlin, and as far as we know, has remained there ever since.

The actor late in life...

There's no denying Schreck was a strange fellow, and even his own contemporaries described him as such. A born loner with a reportedly unique sense of humor, he didn't do much to endear anyone to him, except perhaps his wife, fellow German silent film performer Fanny Normann (the couple had no children). He was said to enjoy walking through dark forests alone, and lived metaphorically in a "remote, strange world", according to his 2008 biography, Max Schreck: Ghost Theatre.

He was also an actor of great skill and versatility, who never quite got his due, especially outside of his home country. Not even Nosferatu made him a star, as that film was all but lost to the moviegoing public for many years after its release. Today, his name is literally synonymous with cinematic horror, and deservedly so. He gave us one of the first great movie monsters--and perhaps still the most frightening.

He may have been just a man after all--but thanks to Nosferatu, his legacy is now as undying as the rumors once held him to be.

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Nosferatu at 90: Still the Greatest Vampire Film Ever Made

Greetings, and welcome to the first edition of a brand new year-long series here in The Vault of Horror. For me, dear readers, the year 2012 means only one thing--and that's the 90th anniversary of one of horror cinema's true unassailable classics, F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu. It's hard to fathom that this film is almost a century old, and even more impressive is its continued ability to shock and terrify no matter how much time passes. Just as I did in years past with A Nightmare on Elm Street, Psycho and An American Werewolf in London, I'll be posting throughout the next 12 months on this, the first and greatest of all Dracula adaptations.

How is it that this film still can effect us so profoundly, when so much of horror's power is drawn from the unexpected? One would think that age would be the death knell of a great horror movie, and yet films like Nosferatu prove this to be dead wrong. Whether you're discovering it for the first time all these decades later, or watching it for the 90th time, Nosferatu has the power to utterly creep you out. Personally, I credit it to the merits of German Expressionism.

And Murnau was undoubtedly one of the pioneers of this form of cinema, cutting edge for its time and a far cry from the American, Hollywood style that would soon dominate filmmaking in the years to come. Make no mistake, the silent era of film belonged to the Europeans, and the Germans, in particular, in addition to the Russians and the French, certainly left their mark. Like the best of his peers, Murnau achieved that defining goal of Expressionism in all its forms, namely to evoke pure emotion through the visual medium. Expressionistic works are in a sense dreams brought to life, and in the case of Nosferatu, that dream is most decidedly a nightmare.

The film oozes atmosphere from beginning to end, and is jam-packed with iconic imagery that has stood the test of time for a reason. Interestingly enough, it also set a standard for vampire films, and Dracula adaptations in particular, that was not really followed (at least not for many years). Nosferatu stands out on its own as a unique and truly cinematic retelling of the Dracula story, with liberal license taken, of course. It is vastly different from the Hamilton Deane and John Balderston play that would first be staged two years after its release--the version which inspired Universal's famous talkie version with Bela Lugosi at the start of the next decade.

Nosferatu chooses a different path, eschewing the nascent sex appeal of the vampire to take a more traditional, folkloric approach. The vampire here is still in his repulsive, pre-modern form--there is nothing at all sexy or alluring about Count Orlok (Unless you're into that sort of thing. Who am I to judge?) If anything, the vampire here is a metaphor for plague, and even possesses certain undeniable anti-Semitic overtones (but that's a post for another day).

Still, the story is undeniably Bram Stoker's. So much so that Stoker's widow and her crack legal team nearly had the film eradicated from the face of the earth (another post for a later day). Thankfully for film lovers everywhere, Ms. Stoker was not successful in her efforts, and the movie remains extant to this day for new generations of horror fans to discover and relish. There are many horror classics that stand the test of time, but few are as truly timeless as this one, defying changing filmmaking styles and changing filmgoing tastes to remain a favorite of genre fans. It is just as fresh now as it was when it emerged from a Germany still reeling from the First World War.

In addition to its Expressionistic roots, or perhaps in connection to them, I have always found that the film retains so much power largely because it is so visual in nature. Of course, this was very much necessary due to the limitations (or some might say advantages) of silent cinema, in that the visual was the easiest and most effective way to get your message across. Later versions of Dracula--and indeed horror films in general of the next couple of decades--would rely less on imagery and more on dialogue and cerebral scares. This is not to say that Nosferatu is not a psychologically frightening film, but I would submit that more of the terror it inspires is derived from the direct impact of what we see on screen. It is not so much suspenseful as it is downright terrifying to look at.

As has been the case throughout most of film history, America has been resistant to foreign films, and so this film did not even have a chance to be released here when it first was made in 1922. In fact, it wasn't until the 1960s, many years after a single surviving print had made its way to these shores in defiance of a court order, that it began to attain the cult following in the U.S. that it now enjoys. I have had the privilege of witnessing Nosferatu on the big screen with live musical accompaniment not once, but twice. And although I had my gripes with both viewings (an ironic, snarky crowd the first time out; and wholly inappropriate music the second time), I still consider myself fortunate to have had the experience.

At the time, Nosferatu was largely overshadowed by the Universal Dracula, and later the Hammer Dracula of the 1950s-70s, and yet its interesting to note that nowadays, most horror fans would place Max Schreck right alongside Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as one of the screen's iconic Counts. In fact, many vampire aficionados--including this one--will still argue that Nosferatu, the original vampire film, remains the very best to this day. A puzzling notion maybe, in that nobody has been able to top it in 90 years; and yet instead of bemoaning the state of vampire cinema for the past century, I will choose instead to celebrate the fact of Nosferatu's existence. And if it so pleases you, I invite you to join me in doing so for the remainder of 2012.

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A Trip Back in Time for NOSFERATU at Lyric Hall

There are a few horror films which have particularly shaped me into the fan that I am today. And on the short list of these would certainly be F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, which has long been one of my favorites, and also among my picks for the most frightening motion pictures ever made. And this weekend, the Captain and myself were blessed with the opportunity to witness it as it was meant to be seen--on a big screen in a theater, with a live musical accompaniment.

I first discovered Nosferatu as a college student back in the early 1990s, having come across an old VHS copy at a street fair in Brooklyn. I'd heard a lot about it, but it wasn't until I saw it that I truly became mesmerized by this German Expressionistic masterpiece. I instantly became a champion for the film, publicly exhibiting it on my college campus during my time in the English Club (hey, it was based on Bram Stoker's novel, right?) and showing it to everyone I could. I even had a rare opportunity to head to Greenwich Village with some of my college pals to actually see the movie in a proper theater, with a live piano accompaniment. It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but little did I know I'd have the chance to revisit it.

Fast-forward some 15 or so years later, and there we were, converging on New Haven's historic Lyric Hall for a unique exhibition of Nosferatu, this time with a live jazz ensemble accompaniment, no less. And it truly was a thrill to witness one of the most powerful horror films ever made, in such a way.

The venue alone made it worth the trip. Lyric Hall was an old vaudeville house going back a hundred years, and exactly the kind of intimate theatrical setting in which the movie might have originally been seen in 1922. Decorated with ornate chandeliers, elaborate moldings and gorgeous paintings, it was the ideal place to immerse oneself in such an experience. Sure, they were using a projection of the 2007 Kino DVD special edition release, but so what? That's the version with the remastered picture and restored tint, which only made it all the better.

The Lyric Hall Theater Orchestra, a small ensemble made up of guitar, tuba, accordion, saxophone, drums and assorted bizarre electronic noisemakers, put together an eccentric and engaging score for the film, which was especially effective during its more original portions. The droning, accordion-led music helped paint a nightmarish picture of dread that made me see the picture in a way I never had before.

That said, if I had to gripe about anything, it would be the noticeably inappropriate musical choices that peppered the score at periodic intervals. For instance, what would possess them to employ the theme to the movie Ben during the rats scene on the ship? Or "Happy Trails" as we watch Hutter gallop toward Count Orlock's castle? Or the Motown hit "Please Mr. Postman" at the moment he sends off his letter to his wife? While amusing, such post-modern, ironic touches only served to undermine the power of the film, and turn it into something to snicker at, rather than be terrified by. Much of the music actually worked against the film, which a good score should never do. Unless it was their intention to turn it into a comedy, which was not clear from the advertising at all.

Nevertheless, the music was, by and large, quite ingenious and suitably foreboding, in an unorthodox fashion. I can honestly say, that even after all these years, I've managed to see Nosferatu in a new light, taking away from it something I never did before. So you can imagine my delight when it was announced that in the fall, Lyric Hall will be presenting John Barrymore's 1920 Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. If only they can restrain themselves from the snarky musical interjections, that should be a lot of fun--and you can bet that the Captain and I will be on-hand with proverbial bells on.

Nosferatu has meant a lot to me through the years. I've shared it with close friends, with my children, and now, with my dear Captain Cruella. And I'm honored to have seen it not once, but twice on a big screen with live music. 2012 will mark the 90th anniversary of the film, and I'm already gearing up for a year-long celebration here in The Vault of Horror. So as I see it, this weekend's screening was the perfect warmup...

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The Tuesday Top 10: Favorite Horror Movies of the 1920s

Although there certainly were a handful of fine horror films made prior to 1920, this list can essentially also be called, "My Favorite Silent Horror Movies". The problem with the 1920s, however, is that there is such a significantly smaller amount of movies surviving than in later decades, which results in this becoming more of a "usual suspects" list than anything else, since there is a more limited selection from which to choose.

Did you know that 90% of all the movies made in the silent era are lost? Yes, I was shocked to learn this statistic as well. What's also telling about this list is that a full six of the ten come from non-English speaking countries, demonstrating that the U.S. had not yet established itself as the center of the cinematic world. Anyway, take it for what it is, and behold the finest horrors the silent era had to offer...

10. The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Based on the Victor Hugo novel, this is not quite horror per se, but the classic Jack Pierce makeup from this early Universal gem still inspires terror. In fact, as most probably know, it was Bill Finger's inspiration for the creation of Batman's archnemesis the Joker a dozen years later.

9. Dr. Mabuse (1922)
The original Dr. Mabuse film, this tense crime thriller from Metropolis-director Fritz Lang contains elements of mystery, fantasy and suspense, all set in a bizarre gangland environment. An often copied film--in fact, the latest version of Dr. Mabuse is set to come out next year.

8. Haxan (1922)
Arguably the finest horror-themed documentary ever made, chronicling the "history of witchcraft through the ages". This history is depicted via illustration, as well as a series of dramatizations, resulting in some truly indelible images. A 1960s re-issue was narrated by William S. Burroughs.

7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Another genre-bending entry from the pen of Victor Hugo, and although it is not a horror film in the true sense, the involvement of the great Lon Chaney, and that unforgettable makeup, make it difficult to omit. Easily one of the most underrated movie "monsters" of them all. The whipping scene in particular is something that stays with you.

6. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Considered by some to be the finest horror film ever made, this classic early piece of German expressionism features some of the most mind-bending set design you'll ever see--reminiscent of some of the best of '30s Universal. It also has a young Conrad Veidt (the Nazi from Casablanca) as the uber-creepy Cesare.

5. Faust (1926)
Otherwise known as F.W. Murnau's other horror classic, Faust is his adaptation of Goethe's play, itself based on much older tales of the epic war between God and Satan over the soul of a powerful alchemist. Amazing visuals, particularly for its time. Expressionism at its best.

4. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Perhaps the silent horror flick best known by mainstream audiences and casual fans, this is also the finest hour for Chaney, the genre's first megastar. As Erik the Phantom, he is an icon, and the makeup he created for himself will live forever in horror immortality.

3. The Golem (1920)
A take on the classic bit of folklore about a rabbi in 16th century Europe who conjures up a creature to exact his vengeance, this is quite simply a gothic masterpiece, dripping with atmosphere.

2. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)
I've recently come to appreciate this as the finest adaptation of Robert Louis Stephenson's famous novella--better even than the revered 1931 version starring Fredrich March. Barrymore is jaw-dropping, conjuring up the evil Hyde with minimal makup and maximum acting chops. Put plainly, the finest American silent horror film.

1. Nosferatu (1922)
Not only the greatest horror film of the 1920s, but I believe an argument could be made that it might be the finest horror film ever (although I personally will not make that argument). Pure joy for any true horror fan, from beginning to end, Max Schrek's exploits as the demonic Count Orlock make up an almost transcendent experience of movie viewing. It might be easy and predictable to choose this as number one, but I choose it for a reason--it is the most frightening movie of its era, and still the most rewarding to watch. Not to mention the best screen adaptation of Dracula.

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Why My Kids Are Cooler Than Yours

I was quite thrilled recently to finally get my hands on the ultimate 2-disc collector's edition of Nosferatu. It came out almost two years ago, but for one reason or another, I had only gotten around to snagging it now. I was looking forward to finally watching my favorite German Expressionistic horror film the way it was meant to be seen--original score, tinted frames and all. And of course, I was also looking forward to taking my kids along for the ride. Cause that's just how I roll.

My seven-year-old daughter, a budding vampire aficionado (I'm watching out for goth tendencies from now) was pretty damn psyched, and insisted we watch it together. Pretty sweet, right? Well, the catch is that she is still, after all, a seven-year-old girl, and on this particular night it just so happened that the allure of androgynous boys and painfully bad comedy on what passes for the Disney Channel these days was just too strong.

But that's what I have a son for, right?

I somehow managed to pry the boy away from his precious Nintendo Wii with the promise of monsters and mayhem. As dedicated as he is to the classic movie monsters, silent fare had proven to be a hurdle even he could not get over, what with his 21st century attention span and all. And yet, I had a feeling that the restored soundtrack and colored filters would provide just enough bells and whistles to keep his addled little brain in check.

And so, the boy, myself, and my dad sat down to enjoy F.W. Murnau's masterpiece--a trifecta of multi-generational horror fans doing what we do best. And it was indeed awesome for a time. The little dude sat in rapt attention as I melodramatically read the translated dialogue cards, and jumped at all the right moments: Count Orlock entering Hutter's room, stalking the deck of the ship, rising stiff as a board out of that coffin. That thrill that is my greatest reward every time I introduce him to a new horror flick.

But then, my poor darling girl, who must've heard us from her position upstairs soaking in the tween pablum that passes for young adult entertainment, stomped downstairs in a serious huff. The jig was up.

"You put on Nosferatu without me?" she asked incredulously, daggers in her big blue eyes...

I tried to explain to the girl that we owned this DVD and could watch it whenever we liked. That just because she didn't feel like watching it, didn't mean I couldn't. And of course, like a good daddy, that I would be happy to watch it with her from beginning to end tomorrow night. That seemed to allay some of the feelings of betrayal that had caused those tiny tears to well up.

And then it was time to put both of them to bed, which of course, led to a full-scale hissy fit on the part of the boy, who was just on the verge of witnessing Orlock making his iconic climb up the stairs to Ellen's bedroom for his final feasting.

Imagine that. A seven-year-old and a four-year-old vying passionately for the opportunity to watch Nosferatu. There may be hope for the future of America yet...

* Special thanks to BJ-C, who never seems to tire of reveling in the horrific exploits of me and my little ones... Hope you like!

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Dr. Caligari Never Sounded Like This

All I can say is, I never thought I'd be jealous of people who live in Ohio (sorry Ohioans, you know I love you). But if you happen to be anywhere near the Springfield area, you would do well to get yourself to the State Theater for tonight's one-time-only screening of 1919 German Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
with musical accompaniment by the unorthodox trio known as Equinox.

Tickets are only five bucks, and you can't beat that with a bat, to quote the Black Sheep. Equinox has previously accompanied State screenings of two other silent gems, Nosferatu and Metropolis. Next October, they will travel to Dayton for a reprise of Nosferatu, as well as a ballet interpretation of Dracula. When it comes to horror as art, it would appear that the Buckeye State is the place to be.

I realize this is a very localized item, but it captures my imagination simply because it's such a rare treat in the year 2008 to be able to view a silent film the way it was intended to be viewed--with a live score. Hopefully we see more of this kind of thing. I'll never forget attending a similar showing of Nosferatu in NYC about 15 years ago. It was an amazing experience, in spite of a too-hip-for-the-room audience that laughed throughout the picture. Hey, that's New York, folks--you take the good with the bad.

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The Silent Dead: A History of Horror Movies, Part 1

For as long as humans have been sophisticated enough to desire entertainment, we've had an innate fascination with being horrified. Perhaps the last vestigal remants of the "fight or flight" instinct give us this visceral thrill, which we can enjoy freely with the knowledge that what we are seeing is not real.
As ingrained as the love of being scared is in the human psyche, it's suprising that horror took a while to establish itself as a major genre in the motion picture business. In the earliest days of the movies, they were not very common, particularly in America, where religious groups still held great sway over public opinion.
At the beginning of the industry, it was in Europe that horror films first took root. Pioneering French filmmaker Georges Melies (best known for 1902's A Trip to the Moon) is credited with creating the earliest examples with his two short films, The House of the Devil (1896) and The Cave of the Demons (1898).
At the start of the 20th century, the epicenter of the motion picture biz was in Germany, and horror pictures were no different. A wave of Expressionistic films emerged there in the '10s and '20s, the impact of which continues to be felt to this day. Chief among them were Paul Wegener's The Golem (1920), Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and of course, F.W. Murnau's 1922 masterpiece, Nosferatu--the first of countless Dracula adaptations.
Meanwhile, in the States, it was actually Thomas Edison, who had invented motion picture technology in the first place, whose production company put out what may be America's first horror movie and the first in another long tradition, 1910's short film Frankenstein.
In Hollywood, the 1920s produced the first horror movie megastar, the one and only Lon Chaney. Known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces," Chaney achieved notoriety in large part due to his uncanny ability to transform himself through make-up. Chief among his notable roles are The Monster (1925), lost film London After Midnight (1927) and his iconic turn in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), which gave rise to Universal's classic monster movie series the following decade.
The end of the 1920s saw the rise of a revolution in filmmaking thanks to arguably the greatest innovation the industry has ever seen: sound. The effects would be profound, and horror movies would lead the way.
Other major releases:

• Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

Soon to come: Part 2 - Gods and Monsters

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