Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

English title: Nosferatu the Vampyre 

Also known as: Nosferatu: fantôme de la nuit

Genre: horror movie

With: Klaus Kinski (Count Dracula), Isabelle Adjani (Lucy Harker), Bruno Ganz (Jonathan Harker, Lucy’s husband), Roland Topor (Renfield, Jonathan’s boss), Walter Ladengast (Dr. Van Helsing), Dan van Husen (the Warden)

Director: Werner Herzog

Screenplay: Werner Herzog (based on Bram Stoker’s novel)

Release: 1979

Studio: Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, Gaumont, Zweiten Deutschen Fernsehen

Rating: PG

MBiS score: 8.7/10 

 

The Drinks Are On Me 

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Story-line: despite his wife’s frightful premonition, a real estate agent travels to Transylvania to meet an aristocrat interested in buying property in his area of Germany. Oddly enough, the aristocrat’s name is… uh… Dracula… count Dracula.

Pluses: fine acting by an obsessed Klaus Kinski (with bald head, eyes wide open, toothy grin and visible fangs), Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz and Roland Topor, a screenplay spare in dialogues but generous in spooky sights and disturbing events, Werner Herzog’s calm and unhurried direction, pretty cinematography that lingers on its subjects, judicious production values (Old World sets and costumes, ghastly sound effects, competent makeup work) and an eclectic score combining opera, spaced-out electro and choral music.

Minuses: none I can think of.

Comments: Werner Herzog may have gone against conventions in conceiving a quiet and artistically-minded vampire movie but his NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE delivers as many chills − if not more − than typical horror fare. Although less striking than Dreyer’s VAMPYR, this adventure in terror, which borrows elements from Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, is disturbing and convincing enough to satisfy any movie buff. When I heard the nefarious one say ‟There are things more horrible than death”, I didn’t doubt him and neither will you. 

 

MBiS 

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