About

A shadowy, gothic masterpiece Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror 1922 will screen with live musical score led by musician Robert Davidson.

Nosferatu: does this word not sound like the deathbird calling your name at midnight? – so begins an on-screen warning at the beginning of this spine-chilling icon of horror cinema. One of the first cinematic representations of a vampire, FW Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu is a loose (and unauthorised) adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel ‘Dracula’. The film features the highly stylised, moody lighting of the German Expressionist movement including a vampire’s shadow that stalks across a blank white wall. Actor Max Schreck's creature of the night ‘Count Orlok’ with his elongated fingers, bat-like ears and ghoulish countenance was so convincing that rumours sprung up that Schreck was an actual vampire hired by director Murnau. Featuring a young couple attempting to resist the magnetic power of the eerie count, Nosferatu went on to inspire many generations of vampire films.