| Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht Released: 1979 MPAA Rating: PG Genre: Vampire Nuts and Bolts: The rat king Count Dracula arrives in the small village of Wismar to spread his evil plague across the land. But his journey takes an unexpected turn when he meets the ravishing Lucy Harker! Summary: Well there's this bloke named Jonathan. Jonathan Harker to be precise. Maybe you've heard of him? Anyway, Johnny is married to this ravishing seductress named Lucy. Yeah…yeah I know what you're thinking. The ole Headhunter has gone completely sack of hammers. EVERYBODY knows that Jonathan Harker is married to Mina Murray, right? Well not in this case. In this particular version of the Dracula story, Johnny is in fact married to Lucy. Not only that, but Lucy seems to have a bit of an issue with prophetic dreams. She awakens from a nightmare concerning bats and mummies. But Jonathan can't be bothered with all of this. Rather than staying home and fucking his wife, he decides to go to work. Johnny boy works for a squirrelly little numbskull named Renfield. The two are solicitors and Renfield has brokered a deal to sell an old abandoned abbey to a Transylvanian nobleman named Dracula. He sends Johnny into the mountains beyond the Borgo Pass to complete the deal. Now along his way, Johnny decides to stop and hobnob with some greasy little gypsies at the local tavern. He makes the same mistake that he always makes in these films and mentions that he is en route to castle Dracula. Naturally everyone stops dead in their tracks and gives Johnny the evil eye. Well…not the REAL evil eye, but you know what I mean. An old lady tries to dissuade him from pursuing this course of action but he merely brushes her off like the superstitious deluded old bitch that she is. She even goes so far as to bring him a book detailing the dangers of vampires. Apparently these gypsy folk think that Dracula is some sort of a vampire (If you can believe that). The following day, Jonathan bids adieu to those wacky little Romanians and continues on his way. He eventually arrives at Castle Dracula fully prepared to meet a well-dressed gentleman with a thick Hungarian accent and a wicked widow's peak. Instead, he meets a pasty faced, bald headed, buck-toothed bastard smelly flowing black robes. Baldy introduces himself as Count Dracula and invites Jonathan inside. He has a full spread prepared for him and invites him to eat as they discuss business matters. Now Johnny has the perfect poker face, as he doesn't even gasp in horror at the count's gruesome visage. Well, not completely anyway. What he does manage to do however is slice his own thumb open while trying to cut some bread. This prick does this every goddamn time! For once I'd like to see Jonathan Harker get through a friggin meal without slicing open one appendage or another. Anyway, the Count sees Johnny's blood and is on him like stink on a monkey. Johnny pushes the count away and is rather put off by the fact that this freakazoid just tried to drink his goddamn blood. Obviously they haven't heard of sexually transmitted diseases in Transylvania. Johnny needs to start wearing a thumb condom. Now despite the count's strange and somewhat rude behavior, John doesn't even consider the fact that this guy could be a vampire. Hell, how stupid do you have to be? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math here folks. Let's see, pointy ears? Check. Gloomy abandoned castle? Check. Fucked up accent? Check. Unexplainable overbite? Check. Put it all together and that spells VAMPIRE! Hell, even LUCY knows something is up because she is having these fucked up dreams the whole time Jonathan is gone. I guess they don't breed em too bright in Wismar. So the following evening, Dracula and Jonathan resume their affairs. Drac signs a few contracts agreeing to move in to the afore mentioned abbey. He even takes notice of a photograph of Jonathan's lovely wife Lucy. Dracula concludes the deal by putting the full-on bite to Jonathan's neck. After which, he prepares for a voyage across the Baltic Sea. He sets up several coffins for the trip. The coffins are filled with rats and native soil. Apparently these vampire types can't walk five feet without bringing some goddamn dirt with them. Maybe it's a Transylvanian thing. Jonathan now realizes that Dracula is definitely a bit more than he bargained for. He rummages about the castle and even manages to catch Drac napping. Drac locks the boy in his room, but Jonathan manages to escape by tying a bunch of bed sheets together and scaling the outside wall of the castle. But by this point, Dracula has already set sail on the Demeter and is halfway to Wismar by now. Jonathan is feeling horribly ill. Strangely enough, his illness is being psychosomatically transferred to Lucy. Lucy falls gravely ill even as she suffers from more fever dreams. Doctor Van Helsing is called in to take care of her. Lucy expresses her concern for Jonathan. Some time later, Jonathan manages to stumble his sick ass back to the old gypsy pub. The Rom give him a stern finger-wagging and more than a few "I told you so's". He speaks to a nun and warns her that they must stop Dracula and his black coffins. Mother Superior nurses Jonathan but his illness doesn't seem to be improving. He leaves shortly thereafter. Now remember that little booger I mentioned Renfield? Well, as it turns out Renny has gone completely nutso and has to be locked up in the goofy house. He has a cage full of bugs that he likes to nibble at, and he has some problem with uncontrollable laughter. Lucy visits him in his room and asks him about Jonathan. She hasn't heard from him and is readying herself to travel to Transylvania in search of him. But Renfield discourages her by telling her that the 'Master' will be here shortly. Meanwhile back on the Demeter; Dracula is having a go at all of the husky muscular sailors. No he's not fucking them; he's just picking them off one by one. The Captain and his men try to ferret out who is doing all of this. But upon investigating Dracula's coffins they discover nothing more than a horde of rats. They fear the plague has been released upon them and many of the seamen (heh. I love that word) take their own lives. The Captain ties himself to the wheel and lets the Demeter coast in to port. As the town officials converge on the abandoned ship they find the Captain dead. They read his journal and become convinced that the plague has now infested the village. Rats begin appearing everywhere. The villagers' fears bear fruit as people begin dropping off one by one. By this point, Jonathan has finally returned home. He is deathly ill and Doctor Van Helsing diagnoses him with having brain fever (Whatever the fuck that is). Jonathan remarks about how the sunlight hurts him. Lucy is glad that he is back home but is also greatly concerned for his health. As everyone convenes at the Harker residence, Dracula skulks about outside peering into the windows. He eventually glides his way inside the house and accosts Lucy as she is preparing for bed. He confesses that he is in love with her but Lucy is adamant in proclaiming her love for Jonathan. Although she is scared of this mysterious creature, she holds her ground and stands up to Dracula's advances. Meanwhile across town, Renfield escapes from the Happy Home. He finds his master, but Dracula rejects the little nimrods sycophantic advances. He only has eyes for Lucy now. Lucy returns to taking care of Jonathan. His condition is getting worse and he doesn't even recognize his wife any longer. Lucy finds the book that Jonathan had been carrying with him all the way from Transylvania. Upon reading it, she discovers that a woman who is 'pure of heart' can deter a vampire. She realizes now that Dracula and she were destined to cross paths and she is the only chance the town has of stopping him. The rest of the town is falling deeper into depravity. Rats have completely taken over and nearly everyone has dropped dead of the plague. Those still alive are holding festivals in the streets as a means of providing their own Last Supper. Even Lucy's dear friend Mina has fallen over dead (Mina actually dies from Dracula's bite, not the plague). At last night falls upon the town yet again and Lucy prepares for her final confrontation with Baldy. She sits Jonathan in a chair in the corner and places communion wafers on the floor in a pattern designed to lock him into place. She then retires to the bedroom and waits for Dracula. Dracula of course arrives late at night and begins fondling Lucy's sleeping form. He bites into her neck and finds himself lost in the embrace. He is so consumed by this pure-hearted woman that he neglects the time. As he rises he finds that dawn has come and the rays of the sun are shining through the window. Dracula falls over dead. Yes…he FALLS OVER DEAD. He doesn't disintegrate or burst into flame or explode or anything like that. Doctor Van Helsing bursts into the room and finds the dead vampire helpless on the floor. He finishes him off by pounding a stake through his heart. A couple of town officials try to arrest Van Helsing but since all of the local police officers and prison guards are dead from plague they have no choice but to let him go. A chambermaid sweeps the communion wafers away from Jonathan allowing him mobility once again. We now discover that Jonathan is on his way towards becoming a vampire. His eyes are dilated, his face is pale and he has grown fangs. Jonathan leaves the house and heads off into the town in search of a new home. Lucy's final fate is unknown. Acting/Dialogue: Klaus Kinski plays the part of Dracula this time around. It is difficult to watch this movie and not compare it to the original silent classic Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. Now Kinski does a fairly commendable job overall but he has none of the ethereal qualities that Max Schreck brought to role in the original 1922 version. What made Schreck so magnetic was not only did he know what to do with the character in question, but he also knew what NOT to do. Schreck didn't give us flamboyant hand gestures or contorted facial expressions. His movements were stiff and rigid as if he really were one of the walking dead. Kinski just comes across as another guy wearing bat ears and false teeth. There is nothing really intimidating about him and if the truth be known, he is probably one of the wimpier Dracula's I've seen yet. There is nothing in this movie to make you believe that Lucy couldn't kick the shit out of him if she really wanted to. But speaking of Lucy…let's discuss her for a minute. Isabelle Adjani is without a doubt the sexiest little French babe I've seen in a while. She rules every scene she is in. It actually gets to the point where you ignore Dracula in favor of concentrating on Lucy. Her eyes draw you in and keep you rooted to the spot. She may as well be a vampire herself. It's easy to see why Dracula was so taken in with her. Three cheers for this remarkable actress. Hell, she's the only thing that makes that piece of shit remake of Diabolique even worth watching. And of course we come to poor old Jonathan. I guess there is a rule in horror cinema that stipulates that every version of Jonathan Harker ever put to film must be the blandest inane and pretentiously boring character of all time. No film has ever gotten this guy right. Just for once, I'd like to see a movie starring Samuel L Jackson as the ass-kicking take no prisoners Jonathan Harker from Hell. Ahhh I can see it now. Dracula's thick accent would echo throughout the chamber only to be silenced by Harker's machismo rebuttal of, "English motherfucker! Do you speak it!" Dracula would look at him confused as if to say "Vat?" And of course Johnny would snap back "Say vat again! Say vat one more goddamn time. I dare you! I double you!" That would be worth the price of admission alone. Anyway, back to Nosferatu. Uhhh…the rest of the cast sucks. The dialogue isn't incredibly impressive but there's a really awesome exchange towards the end between Dracula and Lucy. Both actors handle the part tremendously and it flows with its own preternatural cadence as if it were a poem. Gore: Ixnay on the ore-gay. Or in other words, there is none. The only blood we see is a drip on Jonathan's thumb and some stains on Van Helsing's wooden stake. I've seen more blood on the t-bone I ate at Longhorn Steakhouse last night. Guilty Pleasures: This is a PG film, so of course there's no nudity. There's an amusing little scene where the semi-aroused Dracula begins surreptitiously hiking up Lucy's dress. But he only goes so far as mid thigh. Later on we catch him squeezing Lucy's tit as he bends down to drink from her. I'm surprised the horny little vampire didn't start playing with himself right there on the set. The Good: As mentioned before, this movie, directed by Werner Herzog is a remake of the Friedrich Murnau silent classic Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Try saying THAT five times real fast). Now when it comes to genre films there are really only three different types of remakes. There are the types, which are nothing more than uninspired frame-by-frame colorized copies of the originals (Psycho). And there are also those that are so completely different from the original material that they are damn near unrecognizable (Godzilla). Then there are those that fall perfectly in the middle; those that maintain the spirit of the original while providing something new for audiences to consider as well. This is where Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht can be found. It is obvious that Herzog has tremendous respect for Murnau's work, as there are many parallels between his version and the original. The story structure is practically identical and many of the same camera angles and character poses are repeated here. Herzog basically takes what Murnau began and elevates it to the next level. He fills in a lot of the blanks and cements over a number of the sundry plot holes that were not feasibly addressed in the Murnau work. He strengthens many of the movie's elements with a glue not easily accessible to Murnau's crew. He concentrates a lot more energy on Lucy's character and makes her as mythic and memorable as the Nosferatu himself. Murnau tried this but it didn't translate as well. He also fattens Van Helsing's part up a little bit. He gives him more to do and justifies his existence by tweaking with the story's climax. In Murnau's film Van Helsing is damned near absent. He still stumbles about with the Renfield character, but I guess there's not really much one can do with this loser. He puts more emphasis on the grisly theme of pestilence and goes to greater strides to show the effects of Dracula's rat infestation upon the town. I always found this to be a great parallel to the parasitic vampire conundrum and I'm surprised that Murnau and Herzog are the only directors that really tackled this quirky little detail. Most times rats are only used for a sense of atmosphere and they rarely become part of the story. I also like the liberties he took with both the silent movie and the novel. This is probably the first and only time in horror movie history that a vampire hasn't completely blown the fuck up when exposed to daylight. Even in Murnau's film, the pathetic creature merely disappeared. But in Herzog's version, the vamp just keels over dead. I actually found this to be particularly humorous. What do you do with a dead vampire? Why, stab the fuck out of it of course! And this is exactly what Van Helsing does. But the comedic aspect to this closing scene only become more comical as the town alderman has no earthly idea what to do with Van Helsing. He orders an antiquated town council member to arrest him, but the guy barely has the strength to stand on his own two feet let alone forcibly take down the able bodied professor. He doesn't even have a gun. They can't take him to jail, as there are no guards left to watch over him. Everyone is dead. Quite the predicament I must say. I don't know if ending the movie on such a campy note was the best way for Herzog to go, but I didn't really find any great fault with it. There are two remaining scenes, which really stand out in my mind. The first is the opening sequence. Herzog grabs his audience right away by showing us warm neutral tones mixed in with a collage of rotting desiccated mummified corpses. Haunting music pipes around in the background as we see body after body piled up inside of a large mausoleum. The grainy earth colors dissolve into a slate of indigo blue as a hulking vampire bat slowly flaps his wings into full view of the camera. The audience is locked in from this point on. Another scene I fell in love with was Dracula and Lucy's head-to-head in the bathroom. Lucy is standing in front of the mirror and all we see is the door behind slowly creaking open. We don't see Drac obviously as his body casts no reflection. But we see his eerie shadow playing along the wall as outstretched fingers reach around to probe and prod at poor Lucy. The scene only gets better as the two trade dramatic philosophical quips with one another concerning love, immortality and of course death. This was a truly artistic moment for this film. I wouldn't recommend watching Phantom der Nacht without first viewing Murnau's film. Apart, they both offer some rather tantalizing spectacles but fall short in a few primary areas. But together the two almost mystically merge together to forge a truly definitive Dracula epic. The Bad: Herzog does a halfway decent job at bringing this time-honored tale to life, but as heartfelt as his work is, it just doesn't maintain the mastery that Murnau gave it. Klaus Kinski's Dracula can NEVER be adequately compared to the eerie malnourished Max Schreck. Herzog also doesn't play with light and shadows to his fullest potential either. Murnau's movie definitely benefited from being filmed in black and white and every frame succeeds in sending shivers of ice down your back. Herzog's movie doesn't do much in the way of atmosphere beyond the first opening scenes. The music he uses to underscore the drama is nice enough but doesn't pack quite the punch that one would expect. In short…it's not scary. Not in the slightest. At no point do you feel that any of these characters are really in any danger. Truthfully, I probably could have kicked Klaus Kinski's punk ass. I also had a big problem with Renfield. This guy just irritated the living shit out of me. I hated his stupid smile and I really hated his annoying fricking cackle. He reminds me of those retarded kids from grade school whose only retort to anything you say is "I know you are but what am I". You just want to jump up and punch the shit out of this guy. I swear if I ever meet the actor in real life I may be inclined to curb stomp his simple ass on general principle. In total however, this movie just doesn't do a lot to get the juices flowing. The bulk of the cast (aside from Adjani) are deadpan and uninteresting. The producers take the safe way out and don't really make any attempt to break new ground. To use my earlier analogy; they adequately cement over the plot holes, but would it have killed them to repave the asphalt as well? I'm not going to bash the movie because there is nothing really wrong with it. But in order to justify my rating, I think its important to stress that it is a visually lackluster film and we really don't have enough here to secure our interest beyond that of a few key sequences. It's a well-done remake but in the grand tradition of vampire lore, it is entirely forgettable. It's so forgettable in fact that…I don't even remember what fucking movie I'm talking about! Great Lines: "Death is overwhelming. Eventually we all heed it." -Lucy. "Stars spin and reel in confusion. Time passes in blindness. Rivers flow without knowing their course. Only death is cruelly sure." --Lucy "Dying is cruelty against the unsuspecting. But death is not everything. It's more cruel not to be able to die." -Dracula "I wish I could partake of the love which is between you and Jonathan." --Dracula "The absence of love is the most abject pain." --Dracula "Salvation comes from ourselves alone." --Lucy Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 severed heads. (Actually, its probably worthy of a 5.9 but I can't say that it is deserving of a 6, which is what I gave Todd Browning's version of Dracula. |
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