This film by Werner Herzog is kind of an anomaly in the fact that it is, basically, F. W. Murnau’s 1922 adaptation Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror which in itself just kinda changed some names of Bram Stoker’s 1890’s book Dracula and got copyright-striked for it even back then. I think. I haven’t watched the 1922 film or read the story in awhile, but yeah, this is pretty much an adaptation of the film with a heavy influence from the book. This version is done pretty well. No real flashiness, no big explosions caused by sunlight rays, no geysers of blood. Just a fuckin vampyre, from Transylvania, laying waste to the modern world of the 1890s. Because he can.
If you don’t know the story of Dracula yet, I pity you. From the bottom of my empty beer, I truly pity you. What life is so void that it does not know the myths and tales of the arguably first Celebrity Vampire, without all that gay-ass shit that Rice chick threw in there with Vampire Lestat or that sparkly Twilight bullshit nonsense. This is the real mythology.
This is a decent telling of the story but you would expect just a little something different from Herzog here. Klaus Kinski does good as the creepy Count, and the rest of the characters are passable, with Isabelle Adjani as the kinda gothy Lucy pulling most of the weight. But maybe we all just spoiled now. Francis Ford Coppola did his version, which in itself is actually a pretty good but more Hollywooded experience of the original Bram Stoker tale. Damn you Winona and Keanu, you are only wed by the bond of horrible acting skills there. But this is a different beast of a film, like more gypsy-ish, written on a scarf or some shit. A decently functional telling of the tale with a few cool shots and locations that help elevate the material, but somewhat disappointing, really. It’s like a note-for-note cover by a band. I don’t want to listen to the same song, put your take on it! Fer fuck’s sake, make it more interesting. This is just...interesting.
