F.W. Murnau's unauthorized, unlicensed adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula reimagines the vampire as Count Orlok, played by Max Schreck with a rat-like, inhumanly gaunt physicality that remains one of horror cinema's most unsettling images a century later. Summoned to Transylvania to finalize a real-estate deal, a young clerk unwittingly awakens the ancient creature, who then travels to the clerk's hometown, bringing plague and death in his wake. Murnau's expressionist use of shadow — Orlok's clawed silhouette creeping up a staircase remains iconic — established a visual language that horror cinema still draws on today. A legal battle with Stoker's estate nearly resulted in every print being destroyed, making the film's survival as influential as its content.