1922 was met with the release of what is one of the greatest Vampire films of all time, F. Beautifully acted and placed so perfectly in its scenery it is no wonder that it has been copied in nearly every vampire film there after. Enter 1994, when a semi-well known novel becomes the latest blockbuster, Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles. Directed by Neil Jordan this movie is also well acted and has incredible scenery. How does one compare to the other, we"ll soon find out. .
Murnau's creature, the infamous Count Orlok, was designed not only to give light to the plague that was Germany's politics in 1922, but also to scare the bricks out of you with not but a creepy look. Max Schreck, the Count, pulls it off well. In contrast, Rice's hideous creatures are Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise oOooOoOooo scary. Both movies however have things in common, such as plague references. In Nosferatu the plague is portrayed as a side effect of the Counts arrival, or that maybe he was the plague. In Interview however it is the vampires that are using the plague like cover. Both movies show vampires as parasitic creatures, although it is much more prominent an observation in Nosferatu. .
Interview glamorizes vampires makes them desirable, romantic even. Nosferatu on the other hand shows them as rat-like beings monsters. Interview gives them souls and feelings; it makes them out to be a step up in the food chain. Again this is in contrast to Nosferatu, which shows the vampire as a parasite, its home in ruins its only goal is to quell the hunger. Lestat de Lioncourt, Tom Cruise, boast in the movie about having nice things and that Louis de Pointe du Lac, Brad Pitt, was going to ruin everything all that they own. .
Nosferatu is an example of the expressionistic style of filmmaking; every movement and every scene is exaggerated to give the whole of the movie an ominous feel. Interview on the other hand while dealing with fanciful characters is set more in a realistic setting or at least as realistic as a movie about vampires can be.