Nosferatu: Shadows and Sound: A Live Performance

Presented in partnership with the Central Florida Composers Forum. Featuring a live performance from the Fernwood String Quartet!

One hundred years after it first crept from the shadows, F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu remains one of the most haunting and influential films ever made.

Released in 1922, this unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula transformed the vampire from a charismatic aristocrat into a nightmare figure, giving cinema one of its most unforgettable monsters in the form of Count Orlok, portrayed by the eerily unforgettable Max Schreck. Directed during the height of the German Expressionism movement, Nosferatu follows the doomed real-estate agent Thomas Hutter as he travels to Transylvania and unwittingly unleashes an ancient evil upon his hometown. Through distorted architecture, ghostly imagery, and groundbreaking visual effects, Murnau crafted a work that still feels unsettling a century later.

Despite nearly being destroyed following a copyright lawsuit brought by Stoker’s estate, surviving prints allowed Nosferatu to endure, inspiring generations of filmmakers from Werner Herzog to Tobe Hooper ( Salem’s Lot ) and Robert Eggers and helping establish the visual language of horror films. Count Orlok’s elongated shadow, skeletal features, and rat-like teeth remains of the most instantly recognizable images of the silent era.

With an all-new original new score created by 14 members of the Central Florida Composers Forum (CF2), we welcome you to join Enzian Theater and the Fernwood String Quartet as we celebrate a landmark of silent cinema, a masterpiece of horror, and a chilling celebration of the power of pairing sight and sound!