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Film Description
One of the most terrifying and also believable of all the versions of the Dracula story. Klaus Kinski's Count Dracula is far removed from the suave, urbane social vampires of Hollywood lore. Instead, Herzog returns to the original source and renders this Dracula as a bone-white, rodent-like creature whose talons and darkened eye-pits predicate the plague of death his entrance heralds. Kinski is outstanding as the existentially weary vampire.
Interest rekindled by the classic status afforded to F W Murnau's seminal Nosferatu (1922) and the audacious diversity offered more recently by E. Elias Merhige's Sh... more >
Interest rekindled by the classic status afforded to F W Murnau's seminal Nosferatu (1922) and the audacious diversity offered more recently by E. Elias Merhige's Shadow of the Vampire, Werner Herzog's oneiric Nosferatu (1979) emerges from its entombment to stake its place in cinematic immortality. Klaus Kinski's hideous, but pathos-inducing Count Dracula is far removed from the suave, urbane social vampires of Hollywood lore. Instead, Herzog returns to the original source and renders this Dracula as a bone-white, rodent-like creature whose talons and darkened eye-pits predicate the plague of death this entrance heralds. Kinski's pursuit of the doll-like Lucy Harker (Isabelle Adjani) at once reveals the tortured existence of the vampire - denied human love and condemned to the perpetual prison of eternal life. One mesmeric image captures the essence of Herzog here - as the prow of Dracula's boat dissects the tranquil canal waters, not only ripples the surface but shatters the underbelly of bourgeois complacency which lies beneath. Given the distinct lack of de rigueur horror film requirements - there is no sex, no violence, it's a testament to the power of Herzog's vision that it is the exquisite photography, ethereal atmosphere and haunting music that lingers foremost in the mind. In addition, the apocalyptic conclusion as vampirism threatens to proliferate the world via the now infected "hero" Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz), lends an added poignancy to this already lyrical masterpiece. < less
