Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, Werner Herzog) (Patreon)

67/100

Second viewing, last seen at Film Forum in 1996. It was double-billed with Murnau's original, and for some reason (probably scheduling), I watched this one first; turns out that was even more suboptimal than usual, since much of what's fascinating about Herzog's film is how blatantly he's replicating Murnau's imagery. Despite having reverted the Count's name from Orlok back to Dracula (which I submit was a mistake, given the project's nature), Nosferatu the Vampyre is very much, as titularly promised, a remake of Nosferatu rather than just another adaptation of Stoker's novel. HERESY ALERT: I slightly prefer Herzog's version, even as I acknowledge that it's strongest when leaning hardest upon its source. (My rating for Murnau's canonical classic was a mere 64; reviewed it for the A.V. Club 10 years ago.) Mostly, that's a matter of Herzog dispensing with the '22 film's expository first-act creakiness and getting to Dracula a whole lot faster, plus opening with spectacularly creepy shots of genuine mummified corpses; Vampyre mimics Nosferatu's strengths while avoiding its weaknesses, which is sound strategy. Allows more time for lingering on Klaus Kinski, in his Schreck-inspired makeup, just hovering menacingly over supine bodies with talons outstretched. And while Isabelle Adjani, playing a weird amalgam of Mina and Lucy (named Lucy, though she's much more Mina), does occasionally have lines to speak—in fact, she gets some of the say-what's-a-vampyre? exposition/research, trimmed to the bone and sensibly placed much later in the movie—her performance is heavily and magnificently influenced by actors of the silent era, serving up wide-eyed expressions of petrified horror. Also, there are rats. So many rats. Only Herzog would fixate, without any intention to scare viewers (they're a threat only as potential plague vectors), on the sheer number of rats that disembark from the last voyage of the Demeter. 

And perhaps only Herzog would give us this pathetically ratlike Dracula. Fairly early in the character's screen history, his fangs were localized as his lateral incisors—a look that's scary but also somehow elegant, and visually reminiscent of predatory animals. Kinski's Count, like Orlok, has fangs where his central incisors should be, which makes him look...well, rodential. Didn't much temper Max Schreck's spookiness, but Kinski, who's more restrained in this role than anyone familiar with his wild-man persona would ever imagine, combines the overbite with a mournful air that doesn't connote "undead" or "otherworldly" so much as it does "deeply depressed." This is practically an incel vampire, drinking the lifeblood of women who deny him affection while complaining that he can't end his loveless misery via suicide. He's not the least bit erotic or suave, and his terrifying poses are often literally just that: poses, held for effect long enough that it eventually starts to seem as if maybe he doesn't know what to do next. I might feel sorrier for this incarnation of Dracula than I do for any Frankenstein's monster. It's not clear to me how Herzog means for this unorthodox depiction to dovetail with his revamped, utterly useless Van Helsing, who doesn't believe in vampires and keeps insisting upon the scientific method's primacy (a stance that I may agree with but that the film plainly does not), and the final "twist" involving Bruno Ganz's Harker could almost be setting up an inevitably disappointing sequel. But paying tribute to a formative influence while simultaneously devising something that's uniquely your own is tricky business, and Herzog succeeds well enough in both capacities to justify Vampyre's existence.