Nosferatu (1922) **1/2

F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) is an influential and iconic picture that still manages to captivate with its images and emotions. It's my favorite silent movie and one of my Top 100 Films. It's a 5-star film.

The version we watched tonight at Weirdo Wednesday (to celebrate WW500!) was...something (hence the 2.5-star rating I'm awarding it). Clearly it was one of the many (many) DVDs of the film that was cheaply put together due to the copyright status. The soundtrack was wildly (and hilariously) anachronistic (and shrill, holy shit!), there were (amusingly bad) spliced-in shots and intertitles, and many scenes were shortened or missing (I'm not even sure what the runtime was).

All that said, it was a fun way to view the picture with the WW crowd and felt oddly appropriate (though I do hope first-time viewers of the film will revisit it and seek out better versions to watch if they do).