In his Great Movies list, Roger Ebert called Nosferatu (1922) “the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in clichés, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films. The film is in awe of its material. It seems to really believe in vampires.”

Modern vampires are categorically different. The film industry uses them as concentrations of sex and gore, a cultural shift recently defined by the Twilight films and True Blood (2008) which pushed an edgy, modern image on an ages-old construct. Before vampires became a prop everyone wants to have sex with, they were inhabitants of nightmarish environments founded upon the recesses of the human psyche. They have become the polar opposite of their origin—where Nosferatu’s Count Orlok stemmed from Victorian values of sexual repression and served as a predatorial metaphor of sexual danger, modern vampires are the picture of lustful desire wherein providing one’s own flesh to feed their urges is an act of unequivocal erotica.

Nosferatu is not horror in the modern sense. It values creepiness over fright, building an atmosphere of terror as opposed to sudden moments of shock. In the fashion of German Expressionism, the film relies on distorted style, bizarre sets and locations, heavy makeup and emotion, and unrealistic visuals to convey an inner turmoil. The narrative is driven by themes of madness, fantasy, psychology, and a focus on inner fears as opposed to outer fears. Expressionism by definition focuses on the feeling of a thing over the literal, and Nosferatu is a pristine example of that approach in action. F.W. Murnau’s excellent use of shadow and angles, coupled with Max Schreck (whose last name means “terror” in German) and his portrayal of the grotesque Count Orlok certainly make for creepy mood-centric material that has contributed heavily to the grammar of filmmaking we now take for granted.

Orlok’s image of a vampire is a far cry from Alexander Skarsgård’s dreamy Eric Northman or Robert Pattinson’s sparkle-in-the-sun Edward Cullen. TCM writes, “Schreck is certainly a nightmarish apparition with his bulbous head, pointed batlike ears and long, talonlike fingers and fangs. His ratlike facial features also associate him with the rodents who spread the plague across Europe. And Schreck’s eerie, stammering, zombielike walk has since become a feature of numerous screen monsters, from the stammering gait of Frankenstein to the deliberate, determined pace of the killer Michael in Halloween (1978). This inspired interpretation of Stoker’s monster suggests, in an almost subconscious way, the world of death and parasitism and decay created in Stoker’s novel. Schreck’s vampire was a thoroughly original creation, a monster far from the bloodsucking playboys of later Draculas.”

Classic Art Films adds, “The character of Dracula has always been a fascination with society and is a staple of horror in our culture alongside Todd Browning’s 1931 version, Terence Fisher’s 1958 version and even Werner Herzog’s wonderful remake in 1979. The themes of vampires have now become a trend in popular culture and once in a while you get something new and fresh that really enriches the legends of the vampire story like the great 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In.”

As different in composition, narrative structure and vampire depiction Nosferatu might be from modern vampire stories, certain elements have remained. The simple expressionist devices that build an atmosphere of unease—shadows creeping across the frame, Orlok slowly rising to his feet and moving around in an inhuman manner—remain staples in modern films. Special effects have evolved by leagues, but the basic filmmaking tricks employed in Nosferatu still work to keep the viewer on the edge of discomfort.

Art is traditionally defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form. By that criteria, Nosferatu’s portrayal of the vampire is artistic and emotional. Nosferatu isn’t scary and he isn’t sexy. Instead, he haunts the viewer as a reflection of their own fears and stresses. Staring at the vampire is to stare into a mirror of torment, reflecting back the ugliest form of the self and offering a visualization of the things that manifest as madness in the psyche of a human being.