Once upon a time, the very architecture of movie palaces bespoke spiritual authority and magic-and, yes, more than a little, open hokum. The modern cineplex is happy to give us all the hokum, thinking one out of three ain't bad, and is content to forfeit both its magic and spiritual authority. Shadow has the admirable audacity to ask the audience to reclaim them. As the credits continue, additional drawings show the doors of a theatre opening. We see tapestry-like backgrounds which evoke medieval struggles between knights.
More tapestries call up modern, German expressionism.
Then there are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It gets difficult to track where art begins and reality ends. The wonderful scene of Orlock rising stiff-bodied from his coffin is shown to be made possible by a simple wooden plank hidden in the darkness. Schreck suddenly grabs a bat out of midair and sucks its blood. The participants themselves aren't sure of the rules.