A SILENT SCREAMS
One of the spookiest horror films ever made was completed before most of today’s audiences were born. Nosferatu, a 1922 German Expressionist horror film about the vampire Count Orlok directed by F. W. Murnau may be far better known for its creepy-ass make-up given to the vampire, but horror buffs understand that the movie remains a regular on the top-twenty list for best horror flicks of all time (it was #14 on Variety’s top 100 this month).. This Halloween night, Thursday October 31 at 8, organist Clark Wilson will provide some scary footwork and pull out all the shrieks for Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror, playing an original score to accompany the 81-minute film at Disney Hall (there is no intermission).
This is the first, and by far the best, of the innumerable movies derived or inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Universal/Bela Lugosi version came out after talkies became the thing in 1931. Since Nosferatu — which is very much the same story — was an unauthorized adaptation, Stoker’s heirs sued over the making of the film (renaming the vampire “Orlok” clearly didn’t help) and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. Fortunately, some survived.
It’s not just a great horror movie. It’s a poem of horror, a symphony of dread, a film so rapt, mysterious and weirdly lovely it haunts the mind long after it’s over. The other night, LA Opera commissioned and all-new score from Gustavo Santaolalla to accompany Dracula in Spanish, but even with great music conducted by Lina González, the film plodded along nearly 30 minutes longer than the English-language version, so the scariest thing about the film was no bathroom break. That won’t happen with Nosferatu.
As unforgettably incarnated by actor Max Schreck, Count Orlok is a truly supernatural and otherworldly being: a spidery, skeletal, moon-eyed, black-clad specter of unimaginable dread; a being not of this earth who dwells more properly in realms of cobweb, shadow, mist and decomposing corpses. With eerie lighting at Disney Hall, and that macabre, menacing music screaming through the most amazing organ in town, this is a guaranteed ghoul party. And by all means, come in costume.
