Summary
We open on a title card with an epigraph with the header "Nosferatu." This title card doesn't tell us anything about the story to come, but sets the stage by inciting dread with talk of a "death bed at midnight" and "ghostly dreams." In the next card, we learn of young married couple in the town of Wisborg, Hutter and Ellen. It speaks of a "great death," and we know this will not end well.
The first actual shot of the film shows a steeple in Wisborg, with ant-sized citizens walking around. This is the peace that will be disturbed. Next we meet Hutter as he fastens his bow tie in a mirror, exhibiting the vigor of a young man in his prime. He peers out the window at his wife Ellen, who is playing with a kitten by some flowers in a window sill. Naturally, Hutter goes to pick her more flowers. He rushes into their parlor with the flowers behind his back and they embrace—this is innocent, charming puppy love.
Look at this couple, each well-dressed in Victorian garb, living a well-appointed life in their home, in love with each other like a couple of teenagers. Ellen beholds the bouquet of flowers with melancholy. Ellen, an innocent and hopeless romantic, asks why Hutter would kill the flowers. He embraces her and radiates bliss.
But he doesn't stay with her too long. We cut to him strolling down the street, stopped by a man who tells him not to hurry, "nobody can escape his destiny." Quickly comes that destiny.
Through a title card, we learn of a real estate agent named Knock. "Many rumors were circulated about him. Only one thing was certain, he paid his people well." We meet the disheveled Knock reading some message written in cryptic text. He is maniacal. In walks Hutter, and Knock explains to him that a certain Count Orlok would like to buy property in Wisborg.
First Knock says that Orlok would like a nice home in their small town. Hutter glows when Knock says there's good money in it, and doesn't seem to notice when Knock says it will take a little bit of blood. After Hutter has sufficiently bought into the plan, Knock changes his tune a bit. Actually, Orlok wants an abandoned building, just like the one across from Hutter's own home. Hutter doesn't seem to find this strange at all.
Hutter returns home to tell Ellen he will travel far away, to the land of thieves and ghosts, and Ellen does not seem pleased. He decides to leave Ellen with friends of theirs, a rich shopkeeper named Harding and his sister. We see Ellen visibly distraught when Hutter drops her off. Is this a simply concerned wife or a woman who knows something?
Analysis
In what would become a classic horror movie trope, Murnau opens this film with depictions of a blissful life in a quiet small town. This trope would become a staple of the '80s slasher film—often revolving around naughty high school students—but in this film, the set-up looks like something out of a fairy tale. We have domestic bliss so saccharine that the wife can't bear the fact that her own husband killed flowers for her!
Early on, we get tastes of themes that Murnau will explore in much grimmer ways later on in the film. One, indeed, is this theme of death, but Ellen should hardly be one to talk. After all, we're introduced to her dangling a toy over a cats head. This idea that there are characters in this film who can be lured to play with a little piece of tackle dangling just in front of them will appear again and again.
First and foremost, this applies to Hutter. The prospect of a quick buck and a thrilling adventure to some land of "thieves and ghosts" is all it takes for him to jeopardize his happy marriage. Of course, this early in the film we don't know the specifics of the couple's fate. The title cards suggests, though, that their future is not a bright one.
The money and adventure are tempting to the young Hutter, and temptation is another one of those classic tropes. This time, though, that trope is unique to the vampire story. Seduction is key in vampire stories, with the creature luring his victim into his clutches. Here, Count Orlok's first seduction comes in the form of a healthy payout.
Again, there's little hint of the misfortune to come aside from those title cards. The only hint comes with our introduction to Knock, clearly a maniac, hunched over a bizarre letter written in cryptic text. This is our first taste of the occult in the film, and perhaps Murnau uses those insert shots of the strange text to tempt us, the viewer. It's hard not to be seduced by the occult, looking at that strange text.
On the topic of Murnau, little of his signature style or even the hallmarks of German Expressionism have yet to come into play this early in the movie, but we do get some beautiful compositions, such as the young Ellen framed by the flowers, or the sweeping shots of the young couple in love. If anything, the opening sequence of the film is an exercise in restraint, as Murnau starts the film on a muted tone to lure us into a false sense of comfort, before horror descends on this young couple and their idyllic town.
