HALLOWEEN HORROR DAYS ~ DAY 23: NOSFERATU PHANTOM DER NACHT

 Dracula is perhaps the greatest horror character in existence. He has appeared in countless incarnations and varying guises. Perhaps the most frightening of all his incarnations is in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu: eine Symphony des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror) directed by F.W. Murnau starring the mysterious Max Schreck. Today out of all the film renditions I still find this film the most disturbing and it is wildly considered to be one of the greatest if not the greatest film to come out of Germany. In 1979 director Werner Herzog remade this classic film and it is nearly equally unnerving.

I'm going to skip the plot synopsis under the assumption that you all know the story of Dracula. If you don't know it I doubt you'll be reading this or anything else found herein. If you at least watch the equally praised and maligned Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker's Dracula you'll at least have a frame of reference (Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder along with several strange directing choices ruin the film in my opinion). I'll save that film for another time.

Werner Herzog's film opens with a haunting choral chant set to images of mummified corpses of men, women, and children each with gnarled limbs and distorted faces. This is the shivering opening credit roll. From the instant the movie starts you're given chills. By the time you meet actor Klaus Kinski you are ready for another scare and his performance delivers exactly that. The way he holds himself, his movements, and the soft seemingly weak voice he uses only enhances this. As he pours Jonathan Harker some wine his eyes never look at the bottle or the glass yet remain fixated on Harker. His performance is terrifyingly nuanced. Kinski takes everything actor Max Schreck brought to the screen in 1922 and builds upon it.

The acting all around is solid. Actor Bruno Ganz, the man portraying Jonathan Harker and one of the finest actors in all Germany, delivers a fantastic performance starting out as a young naive man who by the end of the film transforms into a vampire. Complimenting both Kinski and Ganz is the gorgeous French actress Isabelle Adjani as Lucy. Her eyes alone are striking enough to fill the vampire with lust and exert control over him. And last but not least is Roland Topor as Renfield, a creepy performance nearly as good as Dwight Frye from the 1931 Dracula, arguably the best Renfield portrayal ever.

Then there are the rats. Hundreds of live albino rats were used in the making of this film. Traditionally Dracula has had control over animals and this film showcases that. The rats run loose over the London streets spreading fear of the plague amongst the people. As the death toll mounts, hundreds dead and dying, it's as if the very specter of Death has arrived. The use of rats in this film is more powerful than in any other adaptation. There is a particularly disturbing scene near the end where a group people already resigned to death are out in the street having dinner, hundreds of rats crawling around their feet and on the table while they eat.

Oddly enough in this rendition as in the original 1922 film Professor Van Helsing is utterly useless. He refuses to believe Lucy's ravings about a vampire stalking the streets and forces her to take up the fight against Dracula by herself. These two films are perhaps the only versions of the story where it all falls on one woman's shoulders to end the vampire's evil. Just another aspect of these films that make them unique and special. The original Buffy anyone?

Fun fact, that same year saw the big budget Hollywood remake of the original Dracula starring Frank Langella, Sir Lawrence Olivier, and Donald Pleasence. While that movie should be credited with powerfully incorporating the sexually alluring features of the vampire, this film maintains the frightening monstrous nature of the creature. Both films are fine representations of the character and quality films. I'd take either over the Francis Ford Coppola version. The lighting and set design are also worth noting as I've never seen a film with this good of shadow and light play. The gothic uneasy mood has never been stronger than in this film.

Overall Ranking: 7 out of 10
Nude-O-Meter: 0 out of 10