Of all the many movie adaptations of the Dracula by Bram Stoker that I have seen, this is supposedly the most faithful to Stoker's novel when it comes to the characterization of the vampire. This is of course ironic given that this adaptation changed the names of all the characters and locations from the book in a failed effort to beat the copyright. Still this movie is one of the most enduring example of German Expressionism and one of the few legit scary adaptations of Dracula.
As far as silent movies go, this one is a spooky one. Though labeled "black and white," the film is actually tinted in several different colors based-on location and mood. Max Shreck as Count Orlock (the name-changed Dracula) gives as creepy a performance that you would see in a silent horror film in 1922. The expressionist use of shadow, camera angles, and overall cinematography is amazing and the stand-out scene for me is the one of Orlock entering Thomas Hutter's room to attack him the first time—no one has ever walked through a door with that much menace before or since in the history of film.
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