“Thomas Hutter, a clerk for a real estate agent in Wisborg, travels to Transylvania to negotiate a property purchase with Count Orlok. The castle owner turns out to be a vampire who brings plague and death back to Wisborg. Only through the selfless devotion of Hutter’s young wife can the disaster be averted. A masterpiece of German silent film expressionism, based on motifs from Bram Stoker’s romantic gothic novel; a brilliant precursor and benchmark for later ‘Dracula’ adaptations. Murnau masterfully employs the technical, poetic, and emotional possibilities of the medium, and—by portraying the incursion of the demonic into bourgeois idyll—creates a dark mirror of collective fears in the Weimar Republic.” (Lexicon of International Films)