Silence (in Film) is Golden

A funny thing happened on Hal¬loween night. No, this may not be as exciting as most people’s stories from October 31st, however it still serves as an important bookend on a persistent childhood fear of mine. “Nosferatu”, or at least the monster featured in the film, has creeped the beejeezus out of me for as long as my memory allows.
After coming across a clip from the silent film on T.V., the visage of Max Schreck’s Count Orlock scared me like no other horror icon could. Blood and guts could never be as scary as the otherworldly mist that pervaded the screen.
The black and white, grainy tex¬ture may have limited film making at the time but now it gives the film an eerie and nightmare-like quality that modern films can’t achieve, even when imitating the past.
The wide-eyed dead stare of Schrek’s orlock and his rigid stature only accentuate the creepiness and the fact that we never hear Orlock speak (or any other character for that matter it is a “silent” movie, after all) heightens the uneasiness of the character. He could be anywhere, and you don’t even know what sounds to listen for. His inhuman silhouette sends chills down the spine, and I’m not the only one, considering that there is an entire urban legend com¬mitted to the belief that Schreck was an actual vampire, a story so popular that there was even a movie made about it, 2000’s “Shadow of the Vampire” (starring Willem Dafoe, of course).
Long tangent short, Nosferatu has always been creepy to me, and his appearance on that one episode of Spongebob Square Pants didn’t help. This all of course leads to last Thursday night at the Flying Monkey, when a Halloween night screening of “Nosferatu” accompanied by live music was held.
You of course would hopefully already know this if you’ve been keeping track of the A&E section, but either way I figured what better a night than Halloween to have as a prequel to my Halloween shenani¬gans; Face my fears and trek down to main street with some friends to experience what has long been con¬sidered one of the first horror films.
After watching the film in its entirety, I not only had a renewed view on the movie, but a new per¬spective on film going in general. We typically don’t think much about silent films, and I’m just as guilty of this as the next person.
Film has moved so far from the era of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin that it’s easy to ignore and forget. However one of the best aspects of going to a silent film is one I somehow never considered: the live music. With the film’s audio accompaniment being live and happening in the moment, it sucked me in more than I thought it would.
Either way, after watching “Nos¬feratu” I, a self-proclaimed film buff, had discovered another area of movies that I always knew was there, but never paid much atten¬tion to.
This of course isn’t me using my column to shill the Flying Monkey to you guys. If I had a terrible time I would surely say so. However that was not the case and if the screen¬ing of silent films becomes a regular occurrence there you should take a chance and venture outside your movie comfort zone.