Dir. F. W. Murnau
81 Minutes
Germany
1921
Starring: Arnold Korff, Lulu Kyser-Korff, Lothar Mehnert, Paul Hartmann, Paul Bildt, Olga Tschechowa
***1/2/*****
While technically the eighth film he directed, due to six lost films and the inexplicable obscurity of Journey into the Night, The Haunted Castle has an odd function as the typical "earliest" film for those exploring Murnau. And its easy to write the picture off as a hastily cobbled together effort: a chamber drama mystery confined to the titular castle with minimized Expressionism and a rather pedestrian twist (especially while commonly (and unfairly) using Nosferatu as a sort of "base-line" for Murnau's skill). But because of the unfortunate twists of time, it is easy to forget that The Haunted Castle is the work of an experienced film maker, with the surface simplicity of its production purposefully masking some more complexities. Writing the picture off as a "warm-up" for Nosferatu, or even bemoaning the lack of Expressionist horrors often associated with Murnau in it, is, frankly, a lazy way of considering what he may be doing here. After all, as Journey into the Night explicitly shows (because it still exists), and what the advertising, existing stills, and script and script notes of some of his earlier lost films suggest is that Murnau did not just suddenly play his hand with Expressionism in his vampire movie. Rather, it was something he had already been establishing as his stylistic foundation. Audiences seeing a Murnau picture in 1921 would have Veidt's blind painter of Journey and his diagonal movements across slanted environments (from just earlier that year!) or a dream sequence from The Head of Janus the previous year (which sadly only exists as a single still photograph) as a frame of reference. The lack of these elements in abundance here are a choice and one that is built to have a particular effect on the material.
Adapted from an apparently mediocre serialized novel by Rudolph Stratz (still not, and which will probably never be, translated from the original German), The Haunted Castle (a lousy translation of the German Schloss Vogelöd, providing more harm than good with the false expectations provided by the word "haunted", especially for someone moving into Murnau backwards from Nosferatu (which, should be added, did not exist yet)--and while the Castle Vogelöd is indeed "haunted", it is a haunting based not in ghouls or phantoms, but in memory, gossip, and regret) gathers together a group of men in the Castle Vogelöd for a weekend hunt, gobsmacked at the arrival of the Count Johann Oetsch. Oetsch has been essentially ostracized by the rumor that he murdered his brother Peter years prior. Also attending the weekend is Peter's widow, the newly remarried Baroness Safferstätt, who intends on confessing her burdens to expected guest Father Faramund. While Oetsch and the Baroness each accuse the other for Peter's murder, her confession to Faramund is dramatized.
While uncertain how "faithful" the film is to the original source material, Stratz's novel cannot be classified as "high literature", though its final twist built on one character in disguise might work better in text rather than through a visual medium. But this type of "obviousness" almost feels intentional, as if Murnau is trying to push his audience away from the pure escapism of the narrative. Murnau shot the film in just sixteen days in the late winter of 1921 (with a release during the spring), a production timeline that Lotte Eisner's suggests means a highly meticulous pre-production, an easy concept to ignore considering the bulk of the film takes place within castle doors. The narrative is presented with such a surprising lack of interference, the mystery presented so simply that it heightens the small handful of moments where it deviates from the business at hand. Compared with Journey into the Night, where gaps in narrative are commonplace and at times even borderline confusing in how much it resists offering the totality of its possible content, The Haunted Castle is practically insistent on ensuring no such disorientation is possible. Carl Mayer's screenplay is heavy on inter titles, providing plenty of background and explanation that, at times, give the film a bit of a relaxed pace and less suspenseful high stakes, but this is crucial because for this particular narrative, and for the Oetsch character, detail and the need for it is necessary for him to escape from the shroud of gossip that imprisons him. And Murnau uses this detail, and its appearance through both visual means and the literal written word offered by the title card confessional (the films often ignored subtitle The Revelation of a Secret offering a clue as to how to watch it), to explore just how much information is needed to satisfy both character and audience. Unlike a film like Journey, the act of reading as an inherent function of the medium (at this point) becomes an element engaged with rather than hidden, with the need for communication and explanation emphasized and not tucked away. This becomes even more apparent in Eisner's chapter on the film in her book on Murnau, written in 1964. At the time, the film existed but without its titles, with Eisner confessing that the film was somewhat difficult to understand as a result, only reinforcing their essentiality (Eisner points out that the original script contained one hundred and sixty five titles!).
As typical, Murnau utilizes a number of binaries, both visually and narratively, most namely the shifts between the multiple rooms of the interior of the castle and the occasional exterior, a beautifully designed model rather than a real-life structure. This model occupies the first shot of the film: an iris out image of the castle just off center of the frame, the pouring rain landing on the path in front of it, shaking the trees off to the side, with a large mountain looming behind it: no shortage of mysterious scenarios occupying the mind of the viewer. Iris out. There is almost a slight disappointment in the second shot, a fade-in to a large parlor, where a group of men, dry and dressed in suits, find shelter from the ravages of nature and entertaining themselves and each other with a variety of activities. The image is simple, with the set not occupying the same world of mystery offered by the exterior. Rather, it looks the way a castle parlor would look, with an emphasis on squares and angles through hanging paintings, a grandfather clock, a large rug, and a series of square wall panelings that practically shout Murnau's abandonment of Expressionist design for this particular moment. In general, castle interiors are quite drab and movements from the guests quite stilted, a stagy theatrical style with very little drawing one in.
There are two places where the film sheds such a conservative viewpoint: as mentioned, the exterior, soon to be seen again with a beautiful shot of a horse-drawn carriage barreling down a dirt path in the rain, and in memory and dream. But even the outside is only shaped depending on who is viewing it: as the men gather to hunt, it is presented very simply and without much fanfare. The fewer human bodies occupying the outside space, the more open to creepy interpretation it becomes. It takes about a half hour before Murnau shifts the film into a "dreamier" territory, as the Baroness begins her confession to Father Faramund. Clearly haunted by what she is about to say, the Baroness sits dejectedly in a chair with the monk leaning over her, the familiar square shape offered by window panes containing the last look at such an angular existence before we are thrown into the past: a younger and happier girl arranging flowers before running outside to meet her lover, happily jumping into his embrace. Suddenly we are back with Helene in Journey, about to meet Ellen in Nosferatu.
During these scenes of confession, we learn that the marriage between the Baroness and Peter was not particularly harmonious, especially as he becomes increasingly interested in spirituality causing a massive rift between the two. The confession is shown in stages, little bits of the story offered to Faramund over time rather than used as a climactic build (there is something else in mind for that particular moment). The gaps here for suspense are used to nice effect, in particular perhaps the centerpiece of the picture: a dream sequence with an image used often as a selling point for the film, sadly associating the film with the horror genre when it so purposefully resists such classification.
As the guests hang in the suspense of the various dramas, one character (billed solely as "the anxious man" in the opening credits) restlessly sleeps.Tossing and turning he wakes up to find his window thrown open and a ghastly hand making its way towards him before grabbing him and pulling him out the window and into the abyss. Shifting to the objective reality, the anxious man wakes up and turns on the lights and the viewer is back in the angular world of the waking. I will admit, when I first saw this film about ten years ago this image of the hand in the window was the only thing I knew about it going in. And the film never again moving into a territory suggested by this image was a source of disappointment: these earlier bemoaned reviews for the film were once something relatable rather than annoying. Even odder is the scene that follows this: another dream sequence in the sleeping mind of the kitchen boy. He dreams of himself in the kitchen being fed some kind of creamy concoction in a bowl by Faramund while slapping the main chef. This is such a broadly comic interlude, with many criticizing it as an awful shift in tone from the "horror of the hand" just a minute before. But this is only taking the tone of the first dream at face value: there is no terrifying hand reaching through the window, and that sequence is taking place in the mind not of Oetsch or Faramund or the Baroness or anyone given a name or a history: it is "the anxious man", an anonymous entity that borders on stock character. It is a moment not without its comic undertones, especially considering the less stylistic tone that has come before it. Murnau offers such a bland visual style in the present day that scenes of memory becoming ethereal, nostalgia of the past emphasized through a more fanciful visual style, and dreams become absurdities, products of what happens when the imagination gets away with itself.
The final "twist" of the film comes after the Baroness' confession: her new husband murdered Peter, based on a misinterpretation of her depression. Even less surprising to anyone paying even the closest amount of attention: Faramund takes off his wig and facial hair to reveal Oetsch, with the real Faramund arriving in the final shot of the film. Murnau is almost considering the limitations of the visuals that film offers: a twist of this sort can be surprising in a text because it is not confined to the need for visuals towards narrative advancement. After all, the audience needs to see the Baroness confessing to someone. But the film considers these dual natures and disguises in other ways. Oetsch shifts to Faramund and back again the way the narrative shifts from the present to memory, from day to night, from outside to inside, from waking state to dream state. It is a serviceable "plot twist", but also a narrative development that serves to emphasize the visual developments of the previous seventy-five minutes. Presented without these detours and interpolations, this mystery would essentially lumber along to a fairly routine conclusion. With them, it becomes quite pleasurable watching these pieces come together.
Having now seen this film a few times, common criticisms lodged towards it feel more of an unwillingness to engage on the part of the viewer rather than a pitfall of Murnau's direction. Using Nosferatu as a baseline for Murnau becomes harmful to looking at the films around it, but so does forgetting the unfortunately lost films that came before this. In many respects, the critiques lobbed at The Haunted Castle are arguably the things that Murnau both knew about the material and what makes the film, while not major, more than simply a "minor, early work".
Film revisited on August 20th, 2020.
Part of the ongoing F.W Murnau Project.