Nosferatu

Even people like me, who are only vaguely aware of vampire mythology, know a few of the classic vampire traits: no reflection, sleep in coffins, held at bay by garlic and crosses, killed by a stake through the heart, etc.

Various incarnations add their own distinguishing characteristics — I've heard, but not seen, that the vampires in "Twilight" glitter in the sun, instead of being incinerated by it, as happens in the original vampire movie, 1922's "Nosferatu."

One key element of "Nosferatu," however, that never made it into the vampire lore is the idea that a vampire has to carry around a large quantity of the dirt that he was buried in. This concept was taken directly from the Bram Stoker novel that the film brazenly ripped off, but it's utterly comic in practice.

I was trying to find a YouTube clip of the sequence, but you'll just have to imagine two minutes of this:




Hmm... good thing there's no one around in the middle of the afternoon, to see me walking around with a coffin under my arm! Me, the undead, who can walk through walls, defy gravity, astrally project myself, and subdue men's minds ... nothing much I can do about this dirt but lug it halfway across town in real time. I'm so scaaaaarrry.

Edit: this is funny only to me.