Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), assistant to an estate agent, lives a carefree life with his young wife Ellen (Greta Schröder) in Wisborg, a small German port town. One day his boss Knock (Alexander Granach) decides to send him to Transylvania to sell a house in Hutter’s hometown to one Count Orlok (Max Schreck). Hutter’s wife bids her husband a worried farewell.
At the destination of his journey, Hutter first encounters the strange lord of the castle at night. Count Orlok signs the contract of sale for the abandoned warehouse without hesitation. The next morning, Hutter discovers two small red marks on his neck, apparently caused by a nocturnal visit from the bloodsucking count. Full of dark forebodings, Hutter sets out on his way home to forestall the vampire, who brings a plague and its attendant death and destruction down upon Wisborg, and who can only be defeated by a sacrifice made for true love. Hutter fears for his wife...
Loosely based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” novel, with a brilliant cast – first and foremost leading actor Max Schreck – and nightmarish images that have lost none of their impact even today, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s expressionist masterpiece is regarded as the mother of all horror films. The UFA Film Nights showed Murnau’s classic on the occasion of the centenary of its creation.
