Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Its original German title is Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night). 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.
Jonathan Harker working for an estate agency is sent to Transylvania by his boss to meet a client Count Dracula who plans to buy a property. Aft entrusting his wife to his good pal, he embarks on his journey. On his journey, Harker stops at an inn situated in the hilly n desolated area. When the locals come to know about Harker's plan to visit Count Dracula's castle, they warn Harker to stay away from the castle. They tell tales of Dracula's evil n werewolves to prevent Harker from visiting the castle but to no avail. Harker continues his journey aft laughing at the villager's superstitious beliefs and eventually reaches at Dracula's mysterious castle, where he meets the Count. I enjoyed this movie way more than the original from 1922, and every single aspect of this movie is bigger and better than the first. The directing of this movie makes its setting quite literally epic in scale, and there are shots in this movie so damn pretty you would Ridley Scott was behind the camera. Massive Sweeping Mountain ranges, beautiful caves and rivers, real small villages, a band of Gypsy enjoying a campfire, all it beautiful as fuck and hypnotizing to watch. The director has said that setting of this movie is its own character, and it’s not hard to see why. I love the confusing and Claustrophic castle, and it really builds that sense of dream logic and unease. Perhaps my favorite part of this movie is its pacing. The amount of time we get with the characters before the journey to Drac’s pad gives us plenty of time to setup strong characters, and once we get to the castle things slow down and time seems to move differently in the land of spirits. Almost every actor in this movie gives an incredible performance, and more so than ever before I found myself invested in these characters. You know what else I was experiencing more than any other Dracula movie? Just how freaky bats are. No puppets on strings here folks, this movie has quite a few real bats that make the whole bat flying into your window shtick genuinely disturbing even if it isn’t everyone’s favorite count. The only possible complaint I could have about this movie is Klaus Kinski as Dracula. Max Shrek left some pretty big shoes to fill, and I feel this movies count is never as terrifying as the OG. We do get a look into the more philosophical side of things such as the burden of immortality, but no matter how hard I try I can only see him as some dude wearing makeup. He has all the mannerisms and pacing down perfectly, but he is a bit to goofy looking to be taken seriously. More so than any other Dracula movie, this feels like slowly stumbling into a horrible nightmare in the best way possible. And I loved it.
9/10
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