Last night I watched both Nosferatu movies.\u00a0 I believe they are best reviewed together since Herzog\u2019s remake of the silent film is in many ways an homage.\u00a0 Almost all of the \u201cdialog\u201d of the silent film is reused word for word.\u00a0 The appearance of the Dracula character and even the sets have been constructed to mimic the look of the originals.\u00a0 Mercifully, the science of motion picture imaging had progressed tremendously between 1922 and 1979 so the picture quality of the latter film has none of the pioneering qualities of its predecessor.\u00a0 Night scenes weren\u2019t shot during the day and there is sound so the actors can restrain their pantomime gesturing.\u00a0 But that being said it is essentially the same story.<\/p>\n
In this version of Dracula, Renfield is a \u201cland agent,\u201d sort of a nineteenth century realtor and he employs Jonathon Harker to go to Transylvania to sign papers to buy a house in Bremen, Germany.\u00a0 Jonathon leaves his wife Nina behind fretting about his safety.\u00a0 When he gets to the environs of Castle Dracula the townsfolk warn him about spooky stuff but he goes anyway.\u00a0 Dracula meets him and signs the papers and then feeds off of Harker for a few days, packs his dirt boxes and drives off with horse and wagon.\u00a0 Harker escapes from the castle, and after recuperating for some time in the village heads for home by horse.<\/p>\n
Dracula takes the slow boat across the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea to Bremen.\u00a0 Enroute, he sucks the life out of the crew so that the boat drifts into Bremen with only the captain\u2019s lifeless body tied to the ship\u2019s wheel.\u00a0 Somehow Dracula sneaks off the boat and takes up residence in the house across the street from the Harkers.\u00a0 Dracula also brings a goodly supply of plague rats with him and the town starts dying off of the bubonic plague in droves.<\/p>\n
While Dracula was enroute by ship Renfield is somehow driven mad and starts eating flies and biting animals and people to get blood.\u00a0 He is cast into a mad house but eventually escapes and capers around town awaiting \u201cthe master\u201d and acting like a gibbering idiot.<\/p>\n
All this time Nina has been suffering mentally from the strain of worrying about Jonathon and because she seems to be a clinically depressed heroine.\u00a0 When he arrives, she reads this book on vampires that Jonathon has specifically told her not to read.\u00a0 This disobedience seemed the most realistic detail of the movie.\u00a0 Nina reads that a pure spirited woman who offers her blood freely to the vampire can keeps him drinking until dawn.\u00a0 And at that point the sun will destroy him.\u00a0 Nina feigns illness and sends Jonathon to get a doctor.\u00a0 She invites Dracula to her home and he falls for the trick and is evaporated in a puff of smoke.\u00a0 Jonathon and the Doctor arrive just in time for Nina to greet Jonathon and expire from exsanguination.<\/p>\n
In the 1979 version the ending is less positive.\u00a0 When Nina expires Jonathon, who has been slowly becoming a vampire for the last few days goes full Nosferatu and escapes the town on horseback to start his own reign of death somewhere else.<\/p>\n
So, what about these movies?\u00a0 The silent version is a product of German Expressionism and uses bizarre and unreal imagery to evoke the sense of fear and dread.\u00a0 The Dracula character is a cartoonish figure.\u00a0 He is exaggeratedly tall and gaunt, has a dead white skin color, an elongated hairless head, protruding front teeth and ridiculously long and curved fingernails.\u00a0 The sets at Castle Dracula showcase bizarre architectural details like the odd shaped doors and the monolithic walls in the crypt.\u00a0 Everything is unnatural and bizarre.\u00a0 I would say for a silent film this is a successful visual representation of a horror story.\u00a0 But remember, it\u2019s a silent film.\u00a0 That means the acting is painfully exaggerated to pantomime the meaning.\u00a0 Both of the Harkers are always gesticulating and grimacing to let you know they are emoting something or other.\u00a0 I think very few modern viewers can get past the staginess of silent films to enjoy the story as a story.\u00a0 So, it\u2019s a successful silent horror film but I couldn\u2019t recommend it to the general audience.<\/p>\n
As for Werner Herzog\u2019s 1979 homage, that\u2019s more of something we can discuss in normal movie terms.\u00a0 I\u2019d call it an art film.\u00a0 It goes a long way to provide good cinematography, good (if odd) acting and a rationale for the actions of the primary characters.\u00a0 Dracula even gets to tell of his ennui and his envy for those who can die.\u00a0 And he invests the characters with a reasonable level of personality above what was provided in the silent film.\u00a0 There is even a small amount of humor thrown in, primarily around the character of Renfield but what struck me as funniest was a scene at the very end of the movie. \u00a0Dr. Van Helsing is holding a bloody stake that he has used to permanently kill Dracula.\u00a0 Two town officials arrive on the scene and Jonathon denounces Van Helsing to them stating that the doctor has murdered good old Count Dracula.\u00a0 The magistrate orders his underling to have Van Helsing arrested and jailed for murder but the subordinate argues with him that there are no police left to arrest him, no jailors left to imprison him and no town officials left to charge and try him.<\/p>\n
Herzog has succeeded in making an atmospheric, artistic horror film.\u00a0 It\u2019s not particularly frightening but it attempts to adhere to the spirit of the original Dracula story, a sort of late nineteenth century gothic fairy tale.\u00a0 So, my recommendation is restricted to people who enjoy art films.\u00a0 And it wouldn\u2019t kill a horror fan to watch it.\u00a0 It just might not be completely what he would be hoping for.\u00a0 So, there\u2019s my Halloween day horror review that I promised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night I watched both Nosferatu movies.\u00a0 I believe they are best reviewed together since Herzog\u2019s remake of the silent film is in many ways<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237,243],"tags":[418,354,43,38,1355,1176,3330],"class_list":["post-16431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff-movie-reviews","tag-dracula","tag-horror","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction-and-fantasy","tag-werner-herzog"],"yoast_head":"\n