Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Werner Herzog remakes Murnau, and the vampire is lonely.
Take the silent film’s plague and shadows and add what it left out: a monster who is tired of living forever.
You want the slow, beautiful, sad version, with a vampire who is tired of living.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: Murnau’s outline, with Stoker’s names restored now that the novel was in the public domain.
Changes: the mood, to mourning. Klaus Kinski plays the Count as something pitiable, and Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy Harker is the one who acts.
Whose story is it?
the Count’s loneliness and Lucy’s resolve, in about equal parts.
How much time does it ask?
107 minutes.
The middle film of three Nosferatus: Murnau in 1922, Herzog in 1979, Eggers in 2024.
Where to find it
Blu-ray (Shout! Factory) — Amazon
Other ways to get it: 4K UHD from the BFI (UK) · Find where it’s streaming — JustWatch
More Draculas: Nosferatu (1922) · Dracula (1931) · Dracula (1958), or Horror of Dracula