I Watch Films: Nosferatu The Vampyre

Nosfertau the Vampyre

Werner Herzog’s 1979 adaption of the 1922 Nosferatu, itself an adaption of Dracula which tried (and failed) to avoid copyright problems. Jonathan Harker is sent by his boss Renfield to Transylvania to arrange the sale of a house in Wismar (his home). There the extraordinary looking Count Dracula sucks his blood and is generally weird, and Harker falls ill. Meanwhile at home his wife Lucy has visions of a bat.

Dracula travels by ship, everyone aboard falling ill, the ship drifting up the canal to stop outside Harker’s home. Aboard are coffins of soil, and also lots and lots of rats. The plague arrives at Wismar and everything goes bonkers. This is good for Renfield who has been locked up in a mental asylum; he escapes.

Lucy tries to discover the cause of Jonathan’s disease, reading his journal and the book about vampires he was given in Transylvania. No one believes her to begin with and later they are either barred in their houses because of plague, or out in the street, dancing and feasting with their furniture, celebrating the end of the world. Lucy does find an answer, a woman pure of heart can distract the vampyre so he forgets the cock crow.

Watch This: For a cool, stylish and good-looking horror film
Don’t Watch This: Too many rats, some blood, madness and the count looks very weird.