20 Most Highly Rated Horror Movies On Rotten Tomatoes
3. Nosferatu
Rating: 97%
It wasn’t the first vampire film and it certainly wasn’t the last either, but silent film Nosferatu is arguably the most influential vampire movie in cinema history. Funny then that it’s also one of the earliest cases of cinematic plagiarism and hides quite a controversial history.
Made in the early 1920s by master of German Expressionism F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu was an intentionally loose adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula featuring pretty much the same characters only with altered names (Count Dracula was swapped for Count Orlok, for example).
Apparently it wasn’t loose enough an adaptation because Bram Stoker’s widow sued for copyright infringement and won, a trial which required all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed. Thankfully, a few copies survived and one found its way to the US where Stoker’s novel was in the public domain and the film therefore unaffected by copyright laws giving critics the Nosferatu they know and love today.
Following on from Werner Herzog’s well received 1979 remake Nosferatu the Vampyre, another remake is currently in the works from Robert Eggers, director of critically acclaimed debut The Witch.