Men Standing in Boats and Walking Around Venice

Cineanalyst

A semi-sequel or reworking of Werner Herzog's 1979 "Nosferatu," which itself was a remake of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent-film "Nosferatu," "Nosferatu in Venice" is a far cry from the brilliance of Murnau's original, let alone Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula," for which Murnau's film was an unauthorized adaptation. I'm not a fan of Herzog's remake; it's a slow and dreary affair that eliminates much of the intelligence of Murnau's work without substituting anything especially thoughtful itself. But, this, "Nosferatu in Venice," is worse. The most compelling parts left in Herzog's remake--mostly the plague stuff and the correspondingly appropriate drab cinematography--after its corruption of the themes of naturalism from Murnau's film, which reworked the subtext of venereal disease from Stoker's book, are even further debased here.

What there is is a derivative dreary look based on the Herzog film, including an abundance of dissolves and multiple-exposure shots; the stupid romance stuff Herzog added, ad nauseam; a complete rejection of Nosferatu as representing anything natural, besides brief mentions of plague, and, instead, adopting some generic horror film type exploitation of Catholic iconography and the occult, sex and nudity and cheap special effects; and only one decent shadow of the vampire shot (the 1922 film is especially famous for its shadows). And, of course, Klaus Kinski returning to the Dracula-esque role; except, this time he refused to wear the sad clown makeup and, reportedly, was such a terror to work with that the film went through several directors, which is surely part of the reason the film is such a mess. At least, Kinski is a bit lighter of foot this outing, although he's still quite stiff in his delivery. The film in general somehow manages to be seemingly as dull and slow as Herzog's despite its average shot length being only approximately 6 seconds (my count) compared to the excruciating approximately 20 seconds (per the cinemetrics website) of the '79 film. Indeed, the editing in this film is choppy, especially during the special effects scenes. And the musical score is constant and annoying.

The reason it's so boring is surely due to its lack of much of a plot. It's full of tedious scenic shots of Venice, of shots of birds (and some barking dogs and, presumably to Herzog's disgust, only one insert shot of rats), and of men standing in boats and, mostly Kinski, walking around. The relatively sparse dialogue is repetitive and mostly consists of exposition and stupidity. See, Nosferatu wants to die, but he needs to be loved by a virgin first.

On the plus side, he's a comparatively strong vampire. I've been watching a lot of Dracula movies since reading Stoker's novel and so many of them feature such weak vamps it's hard to believe they'd ever have lifespans longer than humans. Also, Christopher Plummer plays the Van Helsing type here, a role he'd also play in "Dracula 2000," and Donald Pleasence, also of "Halloween" series fame, plays a priest here after already having played Dr. Seward in the 1979 Universal "Dracula."

(Mirror Note: Like other bad Dracula-esque movies, such as some of the Hammer sequels and the '79 Universal film, this one is inconsistent in whether or not vampires cast reflections. The Nosferatu does cast a reflection in water on the ground in an early scene, but he later doesn't cast a reflection in a mirror at a party. Splitting the difference, once he acquires a virgin's love, his reflection gradually appears as he looks in a mirror--a laughable scene that reminds me of "Nocturna" (1979), where the vampire saw her reflection due to the power of disco dancing.)

score 3/10

Cineanalyst 9 July 2018

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4231157/