Oh, the horror of it all

GERMANY

‘Satanists’ suspected in theft of famed fright director's skull from grave

WASHINGTON POST

            WASHINGTON — Olaf Ihlefeldt lives a life filled with mixed blessings. On one hand, he's manager of one of Western Europe's premier resting places — the idyllic Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery outside Berlin.

            But Ihlefeldt has a problem. He's responsible for the body of acclaimed German director F.W. Murnau (1888-1931) — the mastermind behind the horror classic Nosferatu — and somebody keeps messing with it. Murnau's tomb was first broken into in the 1970s, and his iron coffin damaged; in February, the grave was disturbed again.

            And now, someone has stolen Murnau's head — or, more accurately, his skull.

Ihlefeldt said he discovered the tomb had been broken into on Monday. A candle left at the scene led to speculation that Murnau's corpse was part of a ceremony staged by "Satanists" or those practicing "black magic," as Ihlefeldt put it.

            "There was a candle," Ihlefeldt said. "A photo session or a celebration or whatever in the night. It really isn't clear."

            Though Murnau rests among luminaries — sharing real estate with composer Engelbert Humperdinck (not to be confused with the 1960s pop singer Engelbert Humperdinck) and architect Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus school of art — Ihlefeldt said Murnau's' tomb and his legacy are something, well, superlative. It's not clear whether Murnau, who died after a car accident in California in 1931, was specifically targeted. The whereabouts of his skull are unknown. What is known is that Murnau's legacy as a German expressionist seems to have grown during the eight decades since his death. The past century has seen terrifying films such as Night of the Living Dead, The Fly and The Ring — to name but a few. Some were made with sophisticated special effects; some spawned franchises of films now numbering in the double-digits; some were uber-violent.

            But none of them really has anything on a silent takeoff on Gram Stoker's Dracula shot on film and released in 1922.

            "Few characters in cinema have proved as indomitably influential as Max Schreck's Count Orlok in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu," John Oursler of Pop Matters wrote in 2013.

            Given the lasting power of Murnau's creation, it's not hard to understand why an errant Satanist would want to make off with his skull — which is little comfort to Ihlefeldt.

            "It's an absolute scandal here," he said.

---Article from The Vancouver Sun