Nosferatu the Vampyre

"Harker" (Bruno Ganz) travels to remote Transylvania where he is to help "Count Dracula" (Klaus Kinski) buy a new home in his hometown of Wismar. Why? Well that's because he has fallen in love with a photograph of his beautiful wife "Lucy" (Isabelle Adjani) and has determined to make her his immortal bride. "Harker" had been warned by the locals of the dangers of visiting the "Count" but he pressed on regardless, so ought not to have been surprised when his host absconds from his castle on a schooner laden with coffins, soil and a deadly plague of rats so he can ensnare his innocent young wife. Can he race back home in time to thwart this evil? There's nothing especially new about the chronology of the story here, it's the characterisation ...

The visuals in Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu the Vampyre" are luscious, hauntingly beautiful in ways that make you wonder: where did Herzog find these set pieces? The plague-ridden streets, the Gothic architecture, the rats flooding through medieval townsit all feels discovered rather than constructed. This is Herzog's trademark style at its finest. You never feel like you're watching a movie. Instead, you're observing a documentary about a particular vampire, as though this is simply everyday experience captured on film.

Klaus Kinski's interpretation is 180 degrees from Bram Stoker's Dracula. He plays the count not as aristocratic predator but as a pathetic, misunderstood child: lonely, cursed, suffering his immortality. It's a brilliant t...