Invincible Czars provides soundtrack to silent ‘Nosferatu’ at The Grand Cinema

There’s nothing better than a good vampire flick — except, maybe, a vampire flick with live music. Eclectic Austin, Texas, band The Invincible Czars comes Sunday to Tacoma’s Grand Cinema for a performance alongside classic 1922 silent film “Nosferatu,” complete with creepy crypt noises and gypsy violin.

Now onto their seventh film score, The Invincible Czars are making a name for themselves in Texas, playing at museums and arthouse cinemas with classic silent movies. Just four people playing a menagerie of around a dozen instruments (keyboards, sampler, bass, guitar, electric violin, clarinet and something intriguingly called “rooster”), the band began life 13 years ago playing rock shows in nightclubs and creating soundtracks at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. Now they’re on a West Coast tour with “Nosferatu,” including Tacoma, Seattle and Portland.

The 80-minute silent directed by F.W. Murnau, and based loosely on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” tells of a real estate agent who discovers his client is actually a vampire. Naturally, it features plenty of nasty silhouettes hovering on the stairs and screaming heroines. The score goes from an eerie bass clarinet tune in the crypt, countered by a violin weaving over minor thirds and half-tones, to vintage-y banjo pickings and suspenseful glockenspiel plinks, to arrangements of Bartòk’s “Roumanian Dances” for extra vampire cred.

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 9:49 AM with the headline "Invincible Czars provides soundtrack to silent ‘Nosferatu’ at The Grand Cinema."