Nosferatu the Vampyre |  |
Director: Werner Herzog
Actors: Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, Roland Topor, Walter Ladengast
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 214242
Format: Ntsc
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
UPC: 013131206593
EAN: 0013131206593
ASIN: B00005YR6R
Theatrical Release Date: 1979
Release Date: December 4, 2001
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Werner Herzog's remake of F.W. Murnau's original vampire classic is at once a generous tribute to the great German director and a distinctly unique vision by one of cinema's most idiosyncratic filmmakers. Though Murnau's Nosferatu was actually an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Herzog based his film largely on Murnau's conceptions--at times directly quoting Murnau's images--but manages to slip in a few references to Tod Browning's famous version (at one point the vampire comments on the howling wolves: "Listen, the children of the night make their music."). Longtime Herzog star Klaus Kinski is both hideous and melancholy as Nosferatu (renamed Count Dracula in the English language version). As in Murnau's film, he's a veritable gargoyle with his bald pate and sunken eyes, and his talon-like fingernails and two snaggly fangs give him a distinctly feral quality. But Kinski's haunting eyes also communicate a gloomy loneliness--the curse of his undead immortality--and his yearning for Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) becomes a melancholy desire for love. Bruno Ganz's sincere but foolish Jonathan is doomed to the vampire's will and his wife, Lucy, a holy innocent whose deathly pallor and nocturnal visions link her with the ghoulish Nosferatu, becomes the only hope against the monster's plague-like curse. Herzog's dreamy, delicate images and languid pacing create a stunningly beautiful film of otherworldly mood, a faithful reinterpretation that by the conclusion has been shaped into a quintessentially Herzog vision. --Sean Axmaker
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| Customer Reviews: Read 117 more reviews...
 When a horror film isn't a horror film July 26, 2008
Viewers who pick up this film expecting a good old Hollywood vampire horror flick will be utterly disappointed, because Herzog's "Nosferatu" just isn't intended as a scary movie. Herzog uses the Dracula legend, as did the expressionist film maker Murnau, as a vehicle for a film with a non-horror genred message.
In the commentary accompanying the disk, Herzog says that he wants to establish continuity with the greatest period of German cinema, the expressionist era. The themes that preoccupied the early expressionists (in addition to innovative cinematic technique) are the cultural ones explored here by Herzog: the limits of human knowledge, the dark, wild side of humans, the arrogance of the Enlightenment, the loneliness of life, chaos, the certainty of death. As poor Nosferatu says at one point in the film, "The absence of love is the most abject pain." Exploring claims like this, not scaring an audience with gore, is what Herzog is up to.
The plague (la peste) plays a larger role in Herzog's version than in Murnau's. Like Camus, perhaps Herzog wants to suggest the ubiquity of death and decay, and the different ways in which people respond to mortality. Some, like Lucy (played by Isabelle Adjani, who wonderfully vamps and at times overacts to match the cinematic style of Greta Schroder in Murnau's 1922 "Nosferatu"), defy it with loving self-sacrifice. Others, like van Helsing (played by Walter Landengast, who also features in Herzog's "Caspar Hauser"), deny it out of scientific hubris; others, like the anonymous people in the doomed town square who in Brueghel-like style make antic revel in the face of death, throw themselves into diversions. But in the end, everyone shares the same fate, as Herzog suggests in that wonderful and terrifying scene in which columns of coffins, held aloft by an army of black-clothed undertakers, converge on the empty town square. This scene, by the way, is as perfect a one as Herzog has ever choreographed.
Herzog's film is loaded with irony, which is probably his way of saying that there are no happy endings to life. Lucy sacrifices herself to slay Nosferatu (played by Kinski, who--thankfully--doesn't get a lot of screentime in the film), but the threat of death continues, because Jonathan (played by Bruno Ganz), emerges at film's end as one of the undead. Van Helsing's arrogant refusal to admit that any corner of reality isn't absolutely open to scientific explanation is finally defeated by Lucy's example. Liberating himself from his small scientific worldview, he quite heroically drives a stake through Nosferatu's heart--only to be arrested as a murderer. The one guarantee in life is that there are no guarantees, and that life is painful. In fact, as Herzog explains in the accompanying documentary, all his films are born from pain.
One of Herzog's finest experiments in film. My only regret is that apparently a great deal of the antic revels in the town square wound up on the cutting room floor (some of the deleted scenes are shown in the documentary). They would've made Brueghel proud.
 Hauntingly beautiful July 21, 2008
This is the first Werner Herzog movie I've seen and now I'm interested in seeing his other movies. As a big Dracula fan I can tell you this DVD rates in my top three list of the best Dracula movies. For those who do not like subtitles there are two versions here. I think the German version is superior. Enjoy!
 Clever parody full of dark humor, hides its true nature well. April 26, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Werner Herzog is one of those self-proclaimed cinematic geniuses who writes, produces, directs, takes the tickets ... all that. Some years ago he undertook to remake the 1922 silent classic, "Nosferatu". The result is the 1979 flick, "Nosferatu the Vampyre". The last word isn't exactly a misspelling: they often spelled it that way in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Nowadays it's an affectation, and this little anachronism ought to give us a clue as to the film's (apparent) true intent. This isn't so much a remake as a parody ... it's not "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" (alas), but rather an almost-humorless Teutonic parody.
Now, I have no proof of this, other than the evidence. One correspondent assures me that Werner Herzog hasn't got a "parody" bone in his body and that his comments on the DVD version of the film doesn't begin to speculate about the merest suspicion of a contemplation of the containing of even a hint of such a thing.
But consider the evidence. Although this is a remake of the original Nosferatu, some things have been done to bring it closer to the traditional "Dracula" story -- primarily the introduction of Dr. Van Helsing. There's a big clue -- in this film Van Helsing absolutely doesn't believe in vampires until the very last few minutes. And then he takes it into his head to drive a stake into Dracula, who has already been killed by sunlight. The overkill is a nice parody touch.
The relationships between the basic characters has changed. Lucy is Mrs. Harker, and Harker works for Renfield. The last, although he apparently has never laid eyes on Dracula, is (also apparently) under his spell -- he giggles at lot for no good reason: a manic Dr. Hibbert. In fact, the only character in the film who believes (a) in vampires and (b) that Dracula is one is Lucy. Van Helsing is a local doctor who has decided that local victims of the vampire have died of plague. It's true that the ship that brought Dracula also brought a bunch of rats ... scads and slathers of white (!!) rats, or perhaps oversize lab mice. Whenever they appear, they are shown in exaggerated piles and clumps, like hundreds of malformed puppies.
It parody is in the little details. Draculas chiming clock, with a prominent skull on top and a skeleton going in and out doors below, is a great bit of guignol, but wonderfully out of place otherwise. And of course the music. Most of it is by Popul Vuh (often oddly folksy but usually appropriately creepy), but some is by Wagner -- specifically a few moments from the prelude to Rheingold. It's music related to the Rhein and the creation of the world. The music appears in 2 scenes, for both of which it is wholly inappropriate due both to the general character of the music and to its meaning in the Wagnerian universe. The scenes are: Harker travelling through a mountain pass to Dracula's castle and Dracula moving his coffins off-ship to his new home. Such use of this music is -- as Hertzog would well know -- laughable.
There is also the question of black-suited, black-hatted morticians/pallbearers. There seems to be quite a population of these people in Wismar (a canal-laced ancient city in Mecklenburg, near the Baltic Sea). At one point a whole parade of them bring out the coffins of the dead in an hysterically funny ballet. It appears that everyone in Wismar is dying except these macabre individuals. Their march-with-coffins is a masterpiece of dark humor.
Finally, there is Klaus Kinsky's performance of Dracula. Critics have minced no words about how wonderful it is, how creepy, how appropriate. It seems to me that Kinsky isn't so much creepy as somnolent, as if he had a really bad case of weltschmerz. A vampire is one of the great powers of the supernatural world: a shape-shifter, preternaturally strong, a powerful mesmeriser. Kinsky seems more meserized. As a vampire he is diffident and shy, almost apologetic about being what he is. This isn't playing type but playing against it. And that, friends, is parody.
Stunning, disturbing, diabolic: The most creepy and accomplished atmosphere of the curse of Nosferatu. April 14, 2008
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
Werner Herzog's 1979 german remake of the F.W. Murnau's 1922 classic silent-horror epic masterpiece, is also the most gothic, cruel, lavish and intensely dark and creepy revision of the classic novel of Bram Stoker. Klaus Kinski's arrogant, sickly, and tubercular looks gives life to a Nosferatu that tracends the limits of disturbing charisma and maniac-agressiveness, turning the infamous classic character into an eerie and sympathetic vampire, consumed with sadness and melancholy and corroded by the terrible curse of inmortality. Turned into a self-aware ghoulish and almost spectral vision, his pain over his own malediction is shown in such a dramatic fiber in the film, a tangible reality of shame and fear: hidding behind his long nails, the facial expressions of Kinki's Nosferatu reflects a whole world of suffering and affliction never acomplished before, and never matched until today. A pain that the monster wants to inflict back to humanity for the decaying life-in-death curse that's devouring his agonizing existence. In the present days, the mythology, the sense and deepness of the curse of vampirism, the sadness and loneliness of the ghoul are almost dissapeared, giving total space and importance to the horror imagery and graphic aesthetics of the colosal strenght of the night creature made of fangs, wings and the lust of the insatiable blood-thirst, regardless of the monster's condition of victim or devoted killer.
This masterpiece in horror cinema and artistic quality gem, was the last great raw portrayal of the real and hellish myth of the vampire within the cursed character. Without spilling a single drop of blood and exclusively based on costumes with no special effects, and not being excessively scary but dramatic, this dark and atmospheric universe is so intense and creepy, that it invades our very primal fears, thanks to the awesome performance of the disturbing Kinski and a haunting, electronic and powerful score that turns the ambient into an actual nightmare. Another factor worth mention is the innocent and luminous aura of the often under-written character of Lucy, played by a young and beautiful Isabelle Adjani, as the perfect counter for the nasty and opaque count.
Herzog's Nosferatu is still an evil dark force who terrorizes a small german village with diabolic cruelty in the form of a plague that can't be forgiven, but we can't help to feel sorry for this lost and derranged remain of a soul. The surrealist creepiness of the plague itself, with wandering sheep and goats in the town square, and the aesthetics of the vampire based on the original B&W silent classic, turn this movie into a must see for fans of gothic horror, nightmare ambients, and extremely disturbing characters.
This is one of the best accomplished and most deep and artistical vampire movies ever made, and one of the most succesful colaborations between Werner Hezrog and Klaus Kinski, after the monumental epic drama "Aguirre, the wrath of god", another masterful portrayal of madness and lost humanity. Few movies at the time had the courage to let aside the bloody and expected violence of the vampire as a hidden monster behind a gentleman's cape and fine charms, to focus with such visceral greatness and deepness in the exploration of the creature as a true, honest, unique and evil "whole". This unique and final landmark in horror filmaking destroyed and buried the previous collective "vintage" imagery and feel of the Christopher Lee-like standard character, those classic movies seemed like children's fairytales compared to this monument of cold fear.
A truly outstanding masterpiece that you can find in this great DVD edition, wich contains the two known versions: English dubbed, that loses a bit of agresiveness but has better sound quality , and the original German version with 11 extra minutes and definetly the choice to behold. This gothic and ancient-looks work of art deserves to be considered a classic not only in horror, but in cinema in general.
Kinski Remake of Silent Classic March 5, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This Klaus Kinski remake of the silent classic nosferatu is even better than its source and wasn't a straight ripoff. Instead, the lead vampire was used as a metaphor for the rise of fascism. The nosferatu kindred here do not take their effects on other creatures such as myself. Me am Tzismce, can pass for being normal. Aside from the film's techincal merits, it marked a renewed interest in vampires and other dark culture as the vampire became an icon and began getting coverage in mainstream media. From Batman to Tzimsce to Dahmer, the night kind are no longer feared and even hold good paying jobs in mortal society. SELL OUT.
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