Dracula December Part 2: Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu
Robert Eggers isn’t the first director to remake the German classic
Did you know that there is a remake of Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers coming out on Christmas Day? If not, then you clearly haven’t been reading my Substack. Shame on you. Anyway, this has been my most anticipated film of 2024 for a litany of reasons: I’m a huge fan of Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse is my personal favorite film), it has a stacked cast (Bill Skarsgard, Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Holt, Willem Dafoe Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Ineson, and Emma Corrin just to name a few), the original Nosferatu is one of the most influential films of all time, and it’s an adaptation of one of the greatest novels ever written (Bram Stoker’s Dracula). What you might not be aware of is that these qualities also apply to another remake of Nosferatu from 1979. It was made by a critically acclaimed director (Werner Herzog), it had a stacked cast (Klaus Kinsky, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, and Roland Topor lead the ensemble), and it also adapts Bram Stoker’s Dracula in an even more obvious way than the original Nosferatu. Despite all of that, it has never seemed to enter the popular consciousness in the same way that many other Dracula adaptations have.
Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre is a very deliberately paced film. It feels less like a traditional horror film than it does a waking nightmare. Herzog’s direction gives the film a surreal and hypnotic vibe that is difficult to properly convey with words. The opening sequence is a perfect example of this. It a slow pan of multiple real life mummified corpses from a cholera outbreak in Mexico in 1833 (they are on display at a museum in Guanajuato, Mexico) while the haunting song “Bruder Des Schattens” by Popol Vuh plays over it. It eventually fades into a slow motion shot of a bat in flight before a hard cut to Lucy Harker (played by Adjani) waking from a nightmare screaming. It sets the tone perfectly for the rest of the film.
You may have noticed that Adjani’s character is not named Ellen Hutter like in the original Nosferatu. Unlike Murnau’s original film, Herzog no longer had to worry about copyright infringement from the Stoker estate since Dracula had fallen into the public domain by 1979. Because of that, Herzog went back to using the names from the novel (kind of). Kinski plays Dracula, Ganz plays Jonathan Harker, Topor plays Renfield, etc. Adjani is essentially playing Mina Harker, but for some reason Herzog calls her Lucy Harker in this film. Fans of the novel (and many other film adaptations) will be aware that Mina’s best friend is named Lucy, so this is a pretty confusing change. This is made even more confusing by Herzog naming a different character Mina. I guess Herzog just really liked the name Lucy and figured that should be the main character’s name.
You may have also noticed that this film is a German production much like the original Nosferatu. Herzog himself is German and shot the film with a German cast and crew (though it was primarily filmed in Czechoslovakia). In order to appeal to both German speaking and English speaking audiences, Herzog filmed most of the scenes in German first and then reshot them in English. That couldn’t have been done very easily considering the film had a crew of only sixteen people and a budget of only $1.4 million. That only becomes more mind boggling when you realize that Herzog also had to wrangle 11,000 live rats for multiple scenes as well as having to direct the mercurial Klaus Kinski in twice as many scenes as was originally intended to get both his German and English line deliveries (Herzog famously said that the rats behaved better than Kinski). Herzog deserves kudos for overcoming so many obstacles.
The movie itself is an incredible artistic achievement. It adheres pretty closely to the original film in terms of plot and story structure. Jonathan Harker (Ganz) is sent to Transylvania by Renfield (Topor who is channeling Dwight Frye with his unhinged performance) to finalize a real estate deal with Dracula. The major story beats are hit. Dracula creeps Harker out while ultimately making him a prisoner in his castle.
Meanwhile, Lucy is plagued by nightmares and visions of Dracula. Dracula eventually travels to Wismar, Germany aboard the Demeter, and he brings with him an army of rats. He acts as a pestilence on the city as the populace begins dying off from what people assume is the plague (spoiler alert: it’s actually Dracula). Dracula himself becomes obsessed with Lucy and is determined to have her for himself. There is one scene in particular that stands out to me as the best in the film where Dracula enters the room she is in without casting a reflection. It is the perfect distillation of everything that Herzog achieves with the mood and atmosphere of the film.
Jonathan eventually makes it back home to Wismar as well, but he is slowly turning into a vampire himself as a result of Dracula feeding on him while he was his prisoner. This is the biggest departure from both the original Nosferatu as well as Bram Stoker’s novel. The film concludes almost identically to the original film save for a rather interesting epilogue of sorts dealing with Jonathan’s ultimate fate.
If it wasn’t already clear, I’m a big fan of this film. It works as both a remake of Nosferatu and as its own adaptation of Dracula while also being Herzog’s unique artistic vision. Herzog’s use of shadow and deliberate filmmaking style are perfectly suited to the subject matter. Kinski and Adjani deliver incredible performances as Dracula and Lucy respectively, and the score by Popol Vuh is incredibly beautiful and haunting. I highly recommend watching it before checking out the Eggers remake in cinemas. You won’t be disappointed.