Why Was The Original Nosferatu Movie Banned In 1922?

When it comes to horror, one of the oldest and the most popular creatures that have been haunting humanity is the Vampire. The most well-known adaptation of this creature has been Count Dracula who is also dubbed to be the Prince of Darkness. In 1922, a silent movie titled Nosferatu was released featuring another version of these blood-sucking entities. However, this adaptation was banned soon after its release and in this article, find out why the original Nosferatu movie was banned.

Nosferatu Was Banned for the Copyright Infringement of Dracula

Albin Grau, the producer of the original Nosferatu got the idea of creating a Dracula movie while he was serving in World War 1 and was stationed in Serbia in 1916. There, he heard the folklore of the locals and was fascinated by it driving him to create something out of this lore. However, there was a problem. Bram Stoker, the author who wrote the original Dracula novel, had already written the bestselling novel, Dracula inspired by these lores back in 1897.

Albin Grau approached the estate of Bram Stoker but they would not sell him the rights to Dracula. Even though the book was already in the Public Domain in the United States due to a faulty copyright notice, in Germany, Grau’s native country. The copyright notice would not lapse till 1962 i.e. fifty years after it was filed. However, Grau didn’t care about this and went forward to make his movie.

Even though it was a bold move, Albin tried to escape an infringement lawsuit by modifying the original story. He changed the name of his work to Nosferatu rather than Dracula and also changed the name of the main character from Count Dracula to Count Orlock. Some major changes were made to the plot as well and some traits of the main character were also tweaked.

Even after these changes, soon after the Nosferatu’s release in 1922, a lawsuit was filed against it. Since the initial versions of Nosferatu featured the term “Dracula” and the movie was made based on the text, Nosferatu was declared illegal or banned by the court for copyright infringement of Dracula and the worst part is that the judge ordered all copies of the movie to be destroyed leaving only one.

That one copy of Nosferatu made its way to the United States and since Dracula was not copyrighted in the US, the movie was re-released there and every existing copy of it right now was made using this one surviving draft. Eventually, Nosferatu became a horror classic and now is making a comeback with a new adaptation whose trailer has just been released.

What Is the Meaning of Nosferatu?

The word Nosferatu originates from the archaic Romanian word “Nesuferitu” which in literal translation is “the offensive one” or “the insufferable one”. However, this word has been synonymous with the term ‘Vampire’ when it comes to the use case and majorly predates the latter. “Nesuferitu” was turned into “Nosferatu” by Albin Grau with his adaptation of Dracula’s tale.