23. Nosferatu (1922), dir. F. W. Murnau

I rewatched Nosferatu in May ahead of the World Dracula Day lecture I gave (LJ / DW), because this year marks the centenary of its release and I’d themed my talk around a series of such vampire-related anniversaries. I’d wanted to watch it at some point this year anyway, as I will be going to Slovakia with DracSoc at the end of August on a primarily Nosferatu-themed trip which will encompass Orava Castle (the location used for Orlok’s castle), so that killed two birds with one stone. Many of the thoughts and responses I had on watching it went into my lecture, but it’s a very rich film, so the process of watching it and reading up on it to prepare the lecture left me a bunch of surplus thoughts which didn’t have a place in the lecture. This post is mainly about capturing those.

( The film's survival history )

( Echoes of epistolarity )

( Ellen )

( Editorial cuts )

( Antisemitism )

( Influence on Hammer )

Right then, I think I might finally have written down everything I wanted to say about Nosferatu – for the time being, anyway! Next stop Orava Castle! 😍😍😍

24.-28. A multi-film catch-up

Having finally written up that long post about Nosferatu, I now want to plough through as many of the other films I've seen since then as possible, before they all get entirely forgotten. Some are ones I tweeted about at the time, so I'm handling those by copying and pasting the tweets here. Others are another new phenomenon - films I've watched with Joel. To be honest, there are some films we've nominally 'watched' together which I'm not including here at all, because we just weren't really paying attention to the screen half the time. But there are a few which we legitimately watched right through, plus one which he lent me to watch properly on my own afterwards. I don't have any notes from the time on any of them, but I may as well get down what I remember, just as a record that I saw them really.

( 24. Vampyr (1932), dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer, seen 25 May 2022 )

( 25. Crucible of Terror (1971), dir. Ted Hooker, broadcast 27 May 2022 )

( 26. Vlad (2003), dir. Michael D. Sellers )

( 27. The Monster Club (1981), dir. Roy Ward Baker )

( 28. Detroit Rock City (1999), dir. Adam Rifkin )

OK, that's five done, which I think is enough for one evening. There's currently another five in the queue, which I hope to cover as soon as possible, and then I'll be up to date again. 😊