"Schloß Vogelöd" or "The Haunted Castle" is a German silent film from 1921, so this one will soon have its 100th anniversary. Of course, it is still black-and-white too. It runs for slightly over 80 minutes, at least in the version I saw, and I cannot say I am familiar really with any of the actors and crew here. That is, of course, with the exception of director F.W. Murnau, who is considered one of the great silent filmmakers, not only from Germany, but in general. And looking at his other works, the genres listed here (Crime, Drama, Horror) should not be a surprise to anybody as comedy was never his field of choice.
Sadly, I cannot say I was too scared or well-entertained watching this one. It is not among Murnau's most famous, but also far from his lesser known works, something in the middle. The story was just never too interesting or edge-of-the-seat stuff in my opinion. The good thing about it was probably the very frequent use of subtitles, something that should have been a lot more common in silent films as they simply did not have the audible measures yet so we could easily understand what is going on. And I am not only talking about the dialogs here, but also about soundtracks for example. Anyway, "Schloß Vogelöd" was not a good watch to me and I only recommend it to the most hardcore silent film fans. Thumbs down.
Sadly, I cannot say I was too scared or well-entertained watching this one. It is not among Murnau's most famous, but also far from his lesser known works, something in the middle. The story was just never too interesting or edge-of-the-seat stuff in my opinion. The good thing about it was probably the very frequent use of subtitles, something that should have been a lot more common in silent films as they simply did not have the audible measures yet so we could easily understand what is going on. And I am not only talking about the dialogs here, but also about soundtracks for example. Anyway, "Schloß Vogelöd" was not a good watch to me and I only recommend it to the most hardcore silent film fans. Thumbs down.