Nosferatu

The classic 1922 horror film with superb atmospheric live music.  ‘Nosferatu’ is one of the silent era’s masterpieces.  Its eerie Gothic feel and chilling performance from Max Schrek as the vampire set the template for many horror films that followed. Darkly humorous and tender too, this is a story of yearning and the search for fulfilment.   It’s presented here just 8 days short of the 100 years since it was premiered in Germany.

The superb live soundtrack group Minima performs an atmospheric and thrilling live score to the classic 1922 version (the first, uncredited and unauthorised) of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, a film which has come to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.

Tracking the film’s powerful drama and extraordinary, enduring imagery, Minima’s enthralling live accompaniment perfectly evokes the film’s dream-like, nightmarish qualities, dark humour and tender yearning.  The Bristol group’s instrumentation includes cello, double bass, baritone guitar, acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, autoharp, dulcimer, synthesizer, glockenspiel and drum kit.   Absolutely magical.

Considered to be one of the best horror films of all time, this silent-era masterpiece still startles and amazes.   It’s essentially a version (the first) of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, with the names changed because the producers hadn’t acquired the rights from Stoker’s widow.The Dracula character, Count Orlok, was played as a hideous walking corpse with a bald head, pointy teeth and long fingernails, putting the fear of god into film fans in the age before sound.  Images of Orlok’s undead shadow ascending a staircase and clawing at his victim’s heart rank among the most haunting (and most parodied) moments in cinema.

‘A superbly sinister live score by the soundtrack group Minima.‘ Financial Times

‘Minima’s unmistakeably spine-tingling music clung to each twist of the movie… spellbinding accompaniment.’  The Guardian

Tickets £13.50.  Available at the Foxlowe, and online at wegottickets.com/event/533261

Presented in association with Live&Local