Nosferatu Screening to Recreate Silent Movie Era

Valparaiso University organ students will host a Dec. 7 screening of the classic vampire movie “Nosferatu” as the silent film was originally seen by audiences in the 1920s – to the accompaniment of live organ music.

Valpo’s chapter of the American Guild of Organists will present the screening at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel of the Resurrection on campus. The event is free and open to the public.

“Nosferatu,” the 1922 masterpiece by German filmmaker F. W. Murnau, stars Max Schreck as Graf Orlok (Dracula) and is the earliest surviving screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula.”

Accompanying the movie on the chapel’s renowned Reddel Memorial Organ will be Mathias Rehfeldt, an exchange student from the Hochschule fur Kirchenmusik (University for Church Music) in Rottenburg am Neckar, Germany. Valparaiso University established an exchange agreement with the Hochschule last year and Rehfeldt is the first student from the German institution to study at Valpo.

Rehfeldt studies organ improvisation with organist Peter Böttinger and has taken improvisation courses with German organist Ingo Bredenbach and former Vienna Cathedral organist Peter Planyavsky.

Emily German, a senior German and church music major, said the “Nosferatu” screening will be a fun opportunity for people to experience a silent movie accompanied by Valpo’s Reddel Memorial Organ.

“The film has been significant and is considered one of the first – and best – horror films ever made as well as a forerunner of the modern-day psychic thriller,” said German, who earlier this year was the first Valpo student to study at the Hochschule.