This is, currently, the only silent movie I have ever seen, and I was unsure how I'd take it. I had heard a lot about this movie and was expecting big things, and I must say I was impressed.
The only major complain I have is that, as with many older classics, I read a review of it prior to buying in which the reviewer gave WAY too much away (the ending sequence, namely).. this has happened to me far too many times. I really wish reviewers wouldn't assume that everyone has already seen the movies they are reviewing, just because they are 'classics'. It really dampened my experience with the ending of both this movie, and The Man with X-Ray Eyes, just to name a few.
Anywho, the version I saw (the Kino remaster) was great. The picture quality was about as good as you could expect from a film more than 80 years old. The score was very good, maybe a tad repetitive, but it suit the film. The acting is quite good, very reminiscant of the acting style from the mid-to-early 20th century.
The scare factor? Well, probably not much these days. The Jewish ghetto is very well constructed, and really suits the setting. The golem himself is not so scary, more goofy to me, but to people in 1920, I can imagine he could have been quite scary. This is more of an 'interest' movie, than an all-out scare fest. You can really see where so many of the great horror/scare films over the years got their ideas from after seeing early films such as this.
I would definately recommend everyone who is interested in horror to track it down. Don't be put off by the fact that it's a silent film, it took all of 20 seconds for me to forget that completely, and to just enjoy the film.
