#17 - Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)
(dir. Werner Herzog)
Herzog is one of my favorite directors, so maybe it's no surprise that this is my favorite Dracula movie. It is a remake of F.W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu, a film that Herzog adores, and I think that he does the original justice here. Despite changing the character's names back to the ones from the novel (swapping Lucy and Mina for some reason), he keeps the story close to the original film. He also keeps the look of the Count, played here brilliantly by Klaus Kinski. Kinski adds an air of melancholy to the character, who envies the ability of the living to love and to die.
In typical Herzog fashion, this is a slow and contemplative film. It is mostly a meditation on death, its cruelty and inevitability. It begins with shots of a series of actual mummified bodies of all ages, setting a grim mood. Herzog uses music by Wagner for much of the score, and one of my favorite moments is a shot where thousands of plague rats swarm off of an abandoned ship, set to the prelude to Das Rheingold. Despite the lack of action, this version of the Dracula story may have more deaths in it than any other - the Count's legion of rats bring the plague to Wismar, wiping out most of the town.
If you are a fan of the original Nosferatu, Herzog and/or Kinski, or just great cinema in general, I can't recommend this one enough.
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