Story: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 silent, German Expressionist, vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent and brings the plague to their town. Nosferatu is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok then finally Nosferatu. Even with several details altered, Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre. Critic and historian Kim Newman declared it as a film that set the template for the genre of horror film.