The 20^th Century is taking shape.

The old world is dead, gassed in the Ardennes and scarcely mourned by the Lost Generation. New worlds are struggling to be born, rebuilding from the ruins of dynasties in the west and, in the east, emerging from the shadow of European empires that cannot sustain themselves any longer.

Socialist and Fascist ideologies struggle to make order. Art and literature burn with new fire and question the meaning of meaning.

Germany is the center of a dark maelstrom, philosophies brawling in the streets, the Faustian soul of the century at the moment of dark bargain. German film is the shadow of the devil, Caligari and Nosferatu. Fritz Lang spins epic visions of the future, the present, and the mythic past. Carl Dreyer writes poetry with shadows.

In America, Tod Browning and Lon Chaney create a Yankee Guignol of soul-deep horror and pathos. The clown is a killer at heart, and he has cause. At Universal, Chaney becomes a star as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, and the studio takes note.

Everywhere, there is deep and wide public interest in the cinema of dark imagination.

Even in this world of new ideas and new nations, we cherish our demons and we are haunted by the darkness of the past.

 Angela's Pick - Nosferatu (1922)

One of the most timeless images of a film vampire isn’t an image of charismatic virility or exotic words whispered against the throat, but instead a creature truly of evil appearance – Count Orlok, the vampire in the 1922 German silent film, Nosferatu. With his long thin face, buck-toothed fangs and spidery, over-long fingers, he embodies the darkness this early film explores.  

Nosferatu (the term used in the film for vampire) is based heavily on the Bram Stoker novel, Dracula, but with some differences that makes the movie a classic in its own right.

In the opening scenes, we see the over-the-top zeal, arrogance, and blind optimism of the main character, Hutter, as the exaggerated acting found in many silent movies, but in the movies of the German Expressionist era, the extreme acting is also part of the sharply defined meanings that actors and sets embody.  As the dark story of Count Orlok unfolds and Hutter is exposed to the horrors of the Count’s castle and the living nightmare of the vampire’s deadly touch on the hero’s home village, not only does the character of Hutter change, but the actor’s portrayal changes, becomes more subtle and, rightly, more subdued.

I loved watching the transformation of Hutter, the seduction by (and of) Count Orlok, and the odd eroticism and romance of this amazing piece of early cinema.  While I’d not seen a huge library of silent films, Nosferatu gave me the desire to see more of these shadowy movies that explore our darker imaginings. 

And while there is no glossy red trickle of sweet life sliding down an exposed throat or music and spoken dialog to drive our responses, this film evokes emotions and stirs the mind to quest for the answers to what makes us jump at shadows and what tickles our stomach with possibility.  Orlok, while not pleasant to look at, possesses the allure of dark mystery, the seduction of shadows, and the promise of otherworldly power, and the passion and devotion of Hutter’s wife Ellen, and the flawed heroics of Hutter himself give the movie the added punch of a love story with all its complexities and conflicts, and those elements make this story a timeless masterpiece. 

Horror is always better when love is at stake, and Nosferatu is a classic combination of the two.

Drake's Pick - Haxan (1922)

I love the German Expressionists and the Chaney movies, with and without Tod Browning at the helm, but I have to make my choice for the 1920s the surreal Danish oddity, Haxan.

An exorcism of Europe’s old demons, both the fear of witches and the guilt that followed, Haxan is visually stunning, using costumes, stagecraft, stop motion animation, and camera tricks to paint a phantasmagoria of Medieval imagery, iconic devils and demons, Goyan witches, and grim inquisitors. It evokes Gustave Dore, old woodcuts, and the hyperactivity of Melies devils. It is both exploitative and enlightening, establishing a tradition for decades of horror films to come.

Most interestingly, the film is aggressively materialistic in its final chapter, explaining the demonic possessions of the middle ages in terms of “modern” hysteria, kleptomania and somnambulism. Haxan is also resolutely anti-religious, a shocking stance in 1922 and one that would still be problematic today.

Even more interesting are the digressions in the latter part of the film, the introduction of the actress who plays the old witch as a real person, and her confession that she has seen the devil. Another aside is a sweetly kinky anecdote about one of the film’s actresses and a medieval thumbscrew.

 At 86 years old, Haxan is still surprising, funny, and sexy.

May we all be so fortunate, without selling our souls to the devil.