F.W. Murnau

A long time ago in middle Europe, a decrepit, forbidding castle stood. Casting an ominous shadow over the townspeople who dare not look upon it, the unholy dwelling is home to one Count Orlok, an undead night creature with a taste for human blood.

This European fantasy features excellent and surprisingly imaginative clay animation combined with live-action to tell the story of a man who sells his soul to Satan without the benefit of a lawyer.

This film is the bleak fable of an aging door-man whose happiness crumbles when he is relieved of the duties and uniform which had for years been the foundation of his pride and happiness.

An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, but instead of depicting Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok is a nightmarish, spidery creature of bulbous head and taloned claws -- perhaps the most genuinely disturbing incarnation of vampirism yet envisioned.