Friedrick Wilhelm Murnau was one of the most important directors in the silent era, having been behind the camera for some of the first true masterpieces of cinema in the 1920s before his early death at just 31 years of age - and now, more than 80 years after his passing, F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" status is cemented after a disturbing body snatching episode.
In something that seems right out of a creepy horror movie, F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" grave at the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery near Berlin was desecrated in what authorities claim could have been an occultist ritual, and that's not even the creepiest part of it: they actually stole the remains of the director's head.
According to The Huffington Post, cemetery authorities discovered that F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" grave had been meddled with last Monday, when they noticed there was damage to the gravesite and that his skull had been removed from the iron coffin.
German police found wax drippings around F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" grave, which suggests some sort of occultist ritual before the filmmaker's head was removed from the place it had been kept in since 1931.
"There was a candle," Olaf Ihlefeldt, the cemetary's manager, told The Washington Post "... A photo session or a celebration or whatever in the night. It really isn't clear."
The Inquisitr reports this isn't the first time there are attacks to F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" grave, as there have been groups doing this since back in the 1970s, perhaps around the time Werner Herzog directed a remake to the iconic horror classic - and last winter, there was another group disturbing the filmmaker's remains.
Although "Nosferatu" is the filmmaker's most famous film, he directed many other movies now considered major classics in the silent era, including "Sunrise" and "Faust."
Police is currently investigating the events in an attempt to retrieve the skull stolen from F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" grave, while the Stahnsdorf South-Western Cemetery considers sealing the grave to avoid further disturbances.
