Nosferatu/YMMV


 * Ass Pull: One of the most famous in movie history; Murnau couldn't figure out how to kill Orlock, so he finally just said "Uh, sunlight? Yeah, that works..." Since then, every vampire in fiction has been vulnerable to it. Incidentally, the effect can also utterly fail if you see the silent film in a version without the tints, since in plain black-and-white, the orthochromatic film stock doesn't distinguish between day and night, and the tints (dark blue for night, amber for day) do the job better to distinguish both.
 * Complete Monster: Orlock himself. Unlike most vampires, there's nothing charming or seductive about him at all.
 * I Am Not Shazam: "Nosferatu" is another word for "vampire", but some seem to believe that it's actually Orlok's name.
 * Nightmare Retardant: In the opening scenes, the villagers claim a werewolf roams thru the forest at night. The atmosphere is really creepy, and the audience wonders what this creature will look like. When the protagonist goes to sleep, the camera shows a wolflike creature walking in the forest, but it falls flat on its face due to having the "werewolf" be played by a striped hyena.
 * Visual Effects of Awesome: Max Schreck looks absolutely phenomenal in his Count Orlok attire, genuinely looking like a hideous monster of the night. Especially impressive for the time it was produced. Part of the reason it worked is because of the greater realism. It's often neglected that this poster-child of German Expressionism made extensive use of location shooting.
 * Watch It for the Meme: Some younger viewers watch the film just to find out who was the guy flickering the lights in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.