NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE
Rating 15 | Published 1979 | 107 minutes
Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 gothic horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. It is set primarily in 19th-century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, and was conceived as a stylistic remake of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 German Dracula adaptation Nosferatu. The picture stars Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker, and French artist-writer Roland Topor as Renfield.
Jonathan Harker is sent away to Count Dracula’s castle to sell him a house in Virna, where he lives. But Count Dracula is a vampire, an undead ghoul living off men’s blood. Inspired by a photograph of Lucy Harker, Jonathan’s wife, Dracula moves to Virna, bringing with him death and plague… An unusually contemplative version of Dracula, in which the vampire bears the cross of not being able to get old and die.
Herzog’s production of Nosferatu was very well received by critics and enjoyed a comfortable degree of commercial success. The film had 1,000,000 admissions in West Germany.
