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I paused the shot on the page Knock was reading at the beginning and the script looked like the Wing-Dings font family on Windows, plus several alchemical spells and a couple of snake doodles with skull and cross bones. Perhaps that page is how Orlock took control of Knock. Perhaps Orlock needed Hutter alive to square away his deal to ship himself and his coffins to the city. My favorite scenes are the close up on the venus fly trap and the tall shadows at the end. Also check out Shadow of the Vampire (2000) a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu. Willem Dafoe plays Orlock.

Great thumbnail! Perfect choice for October 1!

Great movie choice. Someone didn't recognize Captain Kirk.

When it's still fresh in your memory, watch Shadow of the Vampire (2000). It's an almost totally made up story of how the movie was made. John Malkovich plays FW Murnau and Willem Dafoe plays Max Schreck.

I'm not sure why but most reactors don't pick up on the fact that it is Joe who is dead in the pool at the beginning & that a dead man is narrating the movie. Maybe it's because you're watching it on a small screen & can't really make out his features very well (which you could if you were watching it in a theatre as was originally intended). Knowing that Joe is going to die at the end really does change how you watch the movie. It makes Norma a lot more sinister & a lot creepier. Anyway, great job!

The movie was directed in Wismar, a small town in the North-East of Germany. Last year, they celebrated the 100th anniversary of this movie with exhibitions and theatre performances. By the way, your pronunciation of "Ich liebe dich." was spot on. Do you speak some German? Greetings from Germany

Lovely reaction, Henry, thank you! Like a couple of people below, I saw this in the 1970s, on PBS, I believe, and later on VHS. Scenes like Nosferatu rising from his coffin on the ship were truly impressive to me. As for Ellen and her plan: With a little reaching, I can pull this together to sort of make sense: from the start of Hutter's visit at the castle, we see there's a sort of telepathic link between what's happening there and Ellen; we know Orlock is attracted to Ellen. That expression as he leaves the window and goes to her may indicate that, though she isn't his first innocent maiden, all these weird undercurrents should be a red flag to him that he goes toward rather than be warned off by. Most important, she's not being hunted by him, or resisting him: she's offering herself, which is, surely, a new experience for him and one that he seems to savor until, as the writing says, it's too late for him ... and her. We may also be missing footage that would have cleared up plot points and such. The last person whose reaction to this I enjoyed pointed out all the rat imagery and it made me reflect that, Orlock is associated with them. Ellen is first seen playing with a cat. So the cat has caught and killed the rat...

There is a reason THIS film set the stage for 'everything else'. We'll never see "every" film between NOSERATU and, say, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925). I know prints of this film were making American college rounds in the early '70s, often being matched with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD as part of Halloween festivals.

It is the primitive effects and Max Schrek's terrifying count that makes this film so effective. I remember watching this on late night TV back in the 70s or 80s and I found this film positively nightmarish. Even back then, pretty much everyone associated with the film was dead. That alone added a veneer of creepiness to the film. The one shot where he rises from his coffin is beyond creepy. It helps to watch a film through the eyes of a 1922 audience, but I think the atmosphere and Schrek's performance in this film pretty much make that filter unnecessary. It is my favorite version of Dracula, authorized or not.

The 1979 version written and directed by Werner Herzog is a great example of a remake that is a faithful homage. One of the best aspects of it is the musical score which is haunting and evocative, and the locations set an atmosphere that is chilling. There is a strong focus on the Plague.

F.W. Murnau was an amazing director!! Great reaction!!

Most films concerning Bram Stoker's Dracula do a lot of variations on the tale. This one I find very atmospheric and occasionally eerie, but more expeessionistic than horrific, but even so F. W. Murnau is a great filmmaker. I have a great print of it which has the correct speed - silents were filmed at 18 frames per second while sound films were filmed at 24 frames per second and the print I have is projected at 18 which allows the images to be natural and not speeded up like a lot of silents projected with 24 fps projectors so it looks more natural with less flicker. Do you have more Dracula films on your docket? My faves are 1959's Horror of Dracula and the BBC miniseries Count Dracula from 1977 which is the closest to the excellent novel. Very fun reaction as usual Henry. ☝️Best wishes.

One of the greatest Films, much less Horror, ever made. I saw this one on a big screen years ago, and was blown away. I felt Orlok was way scarier than any regular Dracula presentation. Here we have an evil character, bent on possessing what he wants, at all costs. This is not portrayed well enough since this movie. Maybe the remake this year will try to capture it again. Long live Max Schreck! Great stuff!

I agree that it is not scary today. And yep, the ending was meh. But, my goodness, I love that shadow work.

"Your wife has such a beautiful neck..." Fun Fact: The film is included on the late Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list. Location Location Fact: After 85 years, virtually all of the exteriors are left intact in the cities of Wismar and Lübeck. Lost In Adaptation Fact: The concept in popular culture that sunlight is lethal to vampires is based on this film, which depicted such a death for the very first time in film history. F.W. Murnau knew that he would be sued for borrowing heavily from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1897) without permission, so he changed the ending in order that he could say that this film and Dracula (1897) were not exactly the same. However that would not pass the legal smell test. All known prints and negatives were destroyed under the terms of settlement of a lawsuit by Bram Stoker's widow. Thankfully, the film would subsequently surface through second-generation reels in other countries.

They made a made-for-tv movie sequel in 1976 starring Patty Duke that was so bad, it made 'Valley of the Dolls" look like a masterpiece of cinematic art by comparison. It was stupidly called, 'Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby." You might get a kick out of it.

I certainly don't think "comedy" when I think of Kurosawa's films. But this film had a lot of comedic moments. Of course from the two main characters but also from the princess pretending to be mute. Usually Kurosawa films have a bitter sweet ending but here everything works out for our two main characters and this story has a happy ending.

Awesome channel, just watched some of your older vids. Learned trivia about movies i've seen a hundred times. Suggestions "go for broke"(1951) In 1942 after the us government took extreme measures against Japanese Americans, they ran in to an unexpected problem. Thousands of young Americans of Japanese decent wanting to enlist. The army created the 442 regiment, an all Japanese group. The movie "go for broke" tells their story. Free on youtube

Ha ha, I was wondering if you would notice the prime ribs of celery sign lol.

love seeing you get more into kurosawa. Akira is my favourite director and Toshiro is my favourite actor, thanks for the video.

Dr Hill is NOT in on it, he just thinks Ro is mentally ill. Dr Hill knows Saperstein is her regular doctor and informs Sapersteen of his patients condition. (A professional courtesy)

Hidden Fortress right on! Tahei and Matashichi inspired R2-D2 & 3CP0 in Star Wars. The opening twenty minutes with the two of them getting tossed from battle to work crew to battle and beyond reminded me of Onibaba (1964), a stunningly memorable historical drama and horror film directed by Kaneto Shindo. I don't know how they stored the gold in the wooden sticks. My guess is that they bored out the interior of the stick and then poured molten gold into the bore hole and then plunged the stick into cold water to prevent the wood from catching fire or something along those lines. The first movie I ever saw with Toshiro Mifune in it was Hell in the Pacific (1968), a film set in World War II about an American soldier, played by Lee Marvin, and a Japanese soldier, played by Toshiro Mifune, marooned on a desert island who after antagonizing each other for a week or so come to recognize that they will have to work together if they want to survive.

Mifune is my undisputed king of Jidaigeki/Chanbara films. And given the high level of talent of his competition, that is saying something. As to Akira's films, I highly recommend 'After the Rain' from 1999. Akira wrote it but was unable to direct it because he broke his back and died not long after. But his assistant director picked up the project and it won a ton of awards. It is a pretty simple story, almost a slice of life, about an affable and highly skilled ronin and his wife traveling while he looks for work. They stay an inn because they cannot cross the river due to the rain. Again, I sound like a broken record at this point, but great reaction. tyvm.

That glimmer of hope... you should be seeing Yojimbo soon!

The film on which Star Wars is based is undoubtedly its great inspiration, and it is also a very difficult film to find and see, which is appreciated!

Rokurota Makabe is a wise general. There were many times they were going to be found out (no thanks to the peasants), but he managed to salvage the situation each time.

It's going to be great seeing this so close to watching Welles' "Macbeth"! ((That's his next film after "The Stranger"!) Love both films, I think both directors did some of the very best Shakespeare adaptations on film.

Fantastic commentary, as always. I can't believe I just saw a reaction to Throne Of Blood! :D

I always say to those in this movie the final duel scene was too long. I say how fast would you make the first move in a draw where someone is going to die in exactly one half a heartbeat, including maybe yourself?

how can you ask why he would marry her, just look at her.. spooktacular

Would love to see a whole video of you and your familiy's paranormal experiences.

You should should react to ridley scott's directorial debut. 1977's The Duellists. Good reacting, dude. Alien is a classic sci-fi horror movie.

_Ran_ (1985) is the companion Kurosawa classic. It was based upon Shakespeare's _King_ _Lear_ with some variations, as in this film. It contains some of the most beautiful, stylized battle scenes on film.

MACBETH "Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, \ I cannot taint with fear." I wonder if the Japanese translations used in the film preserved the sense of poetry in the lines. Japanese ghost stories operate differently than British ghost stories. Add Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) to your list of great films to watch, if you haven't already, for another example of a Japanese ghost story. Kenji Mizoguchi director.

If Ran were described as an oil painting, Throne of Blood is one made either with Charcoal or Ink.

“The famous arrow scene near the end was, in fact, done with real arrows. That is, the arrows hitting the wooden planks were not done with special effects, but rather choreographed with archers. Toshirô Mifune waves his arms to brush away the arrows sticking from the planks, indicating to them that he wanted to go in that particular direction. The real arrows were included to get Mifune's facial expressions of real-life fear, which is exceptionally hard to imitate. Of course, the arrows that hit the Mifune character were bamboo fakes.”

“The film combines Shakespeare's play with the Noh style of drama. Akira Kurosawa was an admirer of Noh, which he preferred over Kabuki. In particular, he wished to incorporate Noh-style body movements and set design. Noh also makes use of masks, and the evil spirit is seen, in different parts of the film, wearing faces reminiscent of these masks, starting with yaseonna (old lady). Noh often stresses the Buddhist doctrine of impermanence. This is connected to Washizu being denied salvation, with the chorus singing that his ghost is still in the world. The film score's use of flute and drum are also drawn from Noh.”

Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” has been set in so many different cultures, time periods and focused on various sub-themes. This is a powerful version.

Hi, Henry. I really enjoyed this reaction to one of film's most classic "noir" movies. Since you mentioned Fritz Lang, have you done _M_ yet (from 1931)? I didn't see it but may have missed it. If not, it might be a good option to release in October - it's not "spooky" in the sense that so many reactors normally define "spooky season" here in the US, but I think it's psychologically haunting with the questions it asks the audience to consider. (It's also a brilliant film, which goes without saying.) Keep up the great choices!

I spend some 18 years translating Japanese films and television programs into English but I must say the translation in Throne of Blood is topnotch.

Ohhh... Kurosawa's Macbeth. Two treats in one! I have been collecting different versions of Macbeth. You have reminded me that I need this one.

If you enjoyed the "creepiness" of this wonderful film you definitely need to watch "UGETSU" (1953) by Kenji Mizoguchi. Considered one of the best Japanese films by a highly respected filmmaker. Part moral tale, part ghost story and as with "Throne of Blood" a tale of men's greed and ambition and how it leads to ruin. Please consider watching it. It's a masterpiece. PS: I don't know if you plan to watch every Kurosawa film but I can't wait for "High and Low" (1963)! Another overlooked Kurosawa film is "I Live in Fear" (1955) about a wealthy old man who is crippled by his fear of the atomic bomb.

I think the spookiness of Miki's ghost is so much more effective when it's not necessarily a real ghost, but perhaps just a symptom of Washizu's mental decay. I've mentioned this before; a really scary ghost scene that scared me stiff as a child is one in the 1933 Fritz Lang movie The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse). I bet it will give you goosebumps as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the spirit of the forest and Miki's ghost was inspired by the Mabuse ghost.