Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horrors (BFI) DVD

This film shouldn't exist. Bram Stoker's widow tried to have all copies of this unlicensed Dracula destroyed, and various butchered versions circulated after the legal... Read on

This film shouldn't exist. Bram Stoker's widow tried to have all copies of this unlicensed Dracula destroyed, and various butchered versions circulated after the legal wrangles, damaging the film's reputation. Like any good vampire though it just wouldn't stay dead. Surely the peak of German gothicism with images that shock even today, and undertones of both political and social corruption. Its weak heroes and courageous heroine, who sacrifices herself to destroy the vampire precisely because she realises a part of her doesn't want to resist him, make you realise just how anaemic Coppola's version was. Championed by the surrealists, it is indisputedly a great work of art, and Schreck's vampiric monster has never been equalled in terms of supernatural otherness. Hide

A brief comparison of the two versions. The Eureka version is an excellent print - a nice sepia version as well as a black and white, but unfortunately has a dire soun... Read on

A brief comparison of the two versions. The Eureka version is an excellent print - a nice sepia version as well as a black and white, but unfortunately has a dire soundtrack. It's hard to imagine a less appropriate score being played less sympathetically. The 'surround sound' effect is also unnecessarily anachronistic. As it's a silent it doesn't matter overly - turn the sound down and put something else on! The Eureka version does have some good extras though. One final point is that some of the intertitles seem to be for the American market (for the worse) - 'It's creepy over there' is particularly out of place.

The BFI is also a good print, tinted for preference if you like and has a better score, which, if a little thrusting and repetetive, is at least fitting to the film. The intertitles on the BFI version are new and plainer though. Now, if the bronze/sepia Eureka print could somehow be combined with the late 50s jazz score that the BFI has on one of its prints, that would be really interesting! Hide

Review: A fascinating film. Whether oner approaches it from the purely historical point of view of the development of the "vampire" sub-genre with allusions to Coppola... Read on

Review: A fascinating film. Whether oner approaches it from the purely historical point of view of the development of the "vampire" sub-genre with allusions to Coppola's version 70 years later, or by exploring intertextuality and film knowledge being regurgitated obscurely through the Fast Show (BBC), this is a worthwhile film to introduce to film and media students. Cinematically, and, through narrative, the film explores Stoker's book with a clear "central european" flavour - missing in Tod Browning's genre defining film (except for Lugosi' accent!!)and the in the very Englishness of Terence Fisher's Hammer classic. Hide