Retrospective Film Review

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) • 45 Years Later — pale vampire flick lacks bite

Count Dracula moves from Transylvania to Wismar, spreading the Black Plague across the land. Only a woman pure of heart can bring an end to his reign of horror.

A horror film should ideally terrify. Failing that, one might at least hope for a few light scares or intriguing themes that provide food for thought after the credits roll. Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre has none of these things. The titular vampire’s teeth may be sharp, but this vampire flick is unforgivably dull.

The film is a remake of the classic from German Expressionist cinema, Nosferatu (1922), a blatant rip-off of Bram Stoker’s seminal 1897 novel Dracula, itself a sensational work of Gothic horror that made the mythological ghoul a staple of the genre. In Herzog’s 1979 adaptation, Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) ventures off to Transylvania, where he intends to sell Count Dracula (Klaus Kinski) a house in his hometown.