Tag Archives: vampire

film, musings

Nosferatu in Venice: Atmospheric Trash

With Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU (2024) coming to theaters this Christmas, many will discuss its merits measured against those adaptations that came before it, but few will be talking about the sequel to Werner Herzog’s brilliant revamp of the 1922 classic, NOSFERATU THE VAMPIRE (1979); and for good reason: 1988’s NOSFERATU IN VENICE [aka VAMPIRE IN VENICE] is not a good movie. Yes, it retains actor Klaus Kinski (who reputedly was then very much prone to emotional outbursts, even violence), but it is among his most bizarre (most would say terrible) performances. Some actors in the film, like Donald Pleasance, would distance themselves from it (while appearing proudly that same year in the Universal remake of DRACUOA). Still, others, like critic Kim Newman find merit in the movie. He argues that it is an “attractively photographed, impressively scored follow-up to Nosferatu.” But it is Rocco T. Thompson who perhaps gave the best review; in a 2021 review of the blu-ray release for Rue Morgue magazine, he writes that “the film is still a haunting vision of a floating underworld of rotten opulence that manages to walk the razor’s edge between art and schlock.”

Klaus Kinski and Anne Knecht
Klaus Kinski and Anne Knecht as vampire and virginal victim (in love?)

A sequel in name only, NOSFERATU IN VENICE carries nothing over from its source. Werner Herzog was not involved the production. The setting is moved from Wismar, Germany to Venice, Italy. And Kinski, as the only carry-over, looks like he belongs in a hair metal band — not a horror movie. Still, there is the conceit of a woman luring the monster and sacrificing herself. That is central to the story of Nosferatu as established in previous films. But in this “sequel,” it is not Isabelle Adjani as Lucy bravely keeping the monster in her bed until the dawn destroys him. Instead, it is Anne Knecht as Maria whose virginity — not just her blood — is taken from her… and she apparently likes it! She even takes a bullet (well, shotgun blast) for the monster (intentionally?), leaving the 200 year-old vampire to wander the streets of Venice at dawn, carrying her body along the banks of a canal. The end.

This ending is nothing compared to what the filmmakers also did to THIS Nosferatu’s strengths and weaknesses. Eschewing much of vampire lore, the Nosferatu of Venice takes note of his face in a mirror, can summon vast winds that knock people out of windows, and, unlike his 1922 counterpart, is partial to the sun. When Maria asks him “doesn’t the daylight frighten you?” Kinski’s vampire replies that “it’s the night that frightens me.”

A vampire frightened of the dark?

There’s so much more to criticize. But there’s much also to admire. Sumptuously filmed and set in truly Gothic environments, the atmosphere is exceptional. Antonio Nardi’s cinematography is brilliant — haunting at times. His artistry evokes a Venice that is equal parts real and dream, where it’s forever dusk or dawn, and birds scatter.

Birds scatter wherever the Nosferatu of Venice goes.
Birds seem to scatter whenever Nosferatu wanders the streets (and waterways)  of Venice.

One could also credit (or blame) the director, but NOSFERATU IN VENICE was handled by multiple directors (as many as five, depending on what you call “directing”). This may explain why a film so visually interesting is otherwise a mess.

Augusto Caminito is considered the primary director; as producer since the beginning of the project, Caminito took control after a number of false starts (including Maurizio Lucidi shooting some scenes before the script was even ready). After principal photography began, a number of other directors were considered or worked on the film; Klaus Kinski himself got behind the camera. His involvement is reputed to have come from his temper and inability to compromise. For example, filmmakers were prepared from the get-go to shoot Venice’s carnival with a bald-capped stand-in. Then Kinski refused to wear the now iconic makeup for his scenes. In the end, he looked more like an unkempt Lestat than the Nosferatu to which audiences are accustomed. Not the bald-headed and pointy-eared creature he was in 1979. Nor Max Schreck in the silent version of 1922, looking grotesque — more rodent than man.

A rodent-like Nosferatu. Klaus Kinski with French actress Isabelle Adjani in the 1979 version.
A rodent-like Nosferatu. Klaus Kinski with French actress Isabelle Adjani in the 1979 version.

Indeed, rodents may be one of the reasons why NOSFERATU IN VENICE fails. For rats are an infestation. And so are vampires. In Murnau’s version, the presence of rats is not pronounced, but the aforementioned makeup certainly reflects that dread of infestation. In the 1979 version, Herzog used an abundant amount of rodents, suggesting not only infestation, but making clear to the audience that THIS Nosferatu (explicitly named Dracula in Herzog’s version) brings plague.  Herzog  transported nearly 10,000 white rats from Hungary and dyed them gray for the film (residents of the town where the film was shot found the rodents for many years thereafter). When the town fathers examine the body of the captain of the ship that brings the vampire to their shores, they conclude plague. They run to hide behind closed doors. Where still no one is safe. Plague is everywhere. And the vampire brought the disease (that IS vampirism) with him.

Robert Eggers is reputed to continue that association of the vampire with rats and plague. His NOSFERATU (2024) has 5,000 rodents in it. And while NOSFERATU IN VENICE does end on an island where plague victims were long ago taken (and more recent cholera victims were banished), these factors seem to be there to only advance the plot. A way to explain an abandoned house in which vampires dwell (re-enforcing that Gothic atmosphere that is inarguably there in the sets and locations). Plague and infestation is not a theme, however; it is just a plot device to advance the story.

Even the presence of Christopher Plummer as Professor Paris Catalano (the Van-Helsing-type character) can’t save NOSFERATU IN VENICE. For a vampire expert / hunter, he is ineffectual at every turn. Plummer is wasted in the role. After having his hands burned by a cross made molten by Kinski’s vampire, Catalano gives up and skips town, leaving the fight to others. But not before he informs all that Nosferatu can only be stopped by legitmate love.

But what is legitimate? The love shown in the source material or the sex that here is on display? There’s gratuitous full-frontal nudity — which some might argue is necessary to convey the “love” between Maria and the vampire  — but it’s forced, feeling much like mid-eighties soft-core porn where bare breasts and a few thrusts are meant to titillate. And more like the many vampire films of the eighties and nineties to follow, where sex with a vampire becomes de rigueur (think EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE [1995]), NOSFERATU IN VENICE presses the age-old vampire “sex = death” theme to silly extremes.  And the love story? Nothing like what would be done a few years later  in Francis Ford Coppolla’s DRACULA (1992) — where “love never dies” (and the primary female character (Mina in Coppolla’s film) genuinely falls in love, torn between her husband the Count). Here, love [it it ever was that] does die — with a shotgun blast. EVEN in Herzog’s version, where love is mentioned as freeedom from the curse (and loneliness) of immortality, a woman’s strength is at the heart of story.

This strength of a woman’s love in vanquishing a vampire is what is missing from NOSFERATU IN VENICE. In Herzog’s adaptation, NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979), when the bloodsucking Count first meets Lucy in person (violating the sanctity of the marital bedroom), Adjani’s Lucy solidly proclaims her love for her husband, but then shows empathy for the vampire, almost a tenderness in her pity. The woman’s strength IS her love — for husband, home, and community — and it vanquishes the vampire (well, [spoiler] that particular vampire; another rides off into the sunset [?]). Look at this photo and see how Herzog carefully positions Lucy as succumbing, yet somehow resisting, as if saying prayers to herself while slowly being drain. See the photo of Kinksi and Knecht, however; it’s a still from a scene thay is highly sexualized, with Kinski making thrusts from behind Maria. I know. Ew.

And for Caminito (like Coppolla after him) the vampire seems to be a creature women truly desire, and while it works for Coppolla (depending on how much of a Stoker purist you are), it falls flat here. Don’t put the word “Nosferatu” in your title then set your titular lead up like a sex symbol. With “Nosferatu” in the movie’s very name, the audience expects a rat-like alien of a vampire, spreading plague. Leave the sexy vampires to Anne Rice or The Twilight series. They have their place there, where the dynamic works. But it doesn’t work in NOSFERATU IN VENICE. And that is its ultimate failure.

Praise will undoubtedly be heaped upon Eggers, just as Herzog and Murnau before him. And it will be justifiable praise, as the previews look phenomental.*

But NOSFERATU IN VENICE will be forgotten (if it hasn’t already, with only bloggers debating its pros and cons). As long as blu-ray special editions are released and services like Tubi stream it for free. the film will however forever find a niche audience. If this curious few go in expecting a true sequel, faithful to NOSFERATU (whichever version you choose), they will be sorely disappointed.

 

 * Saw Eggers’ film on December 30 and was blown away by the art direction and cinematography. The movie drags a little, and the acting? a little over the top, but it is certainly beautiful to watch. Lily-Rose Depp‘s Helen (the Mina character, named Helen in the 1922 version, and called Lucy in the 1979) is a more complex character here than other adaptations. A psychic connection to the vampire is established from the very beginning of the film. Their “relationshiop” is at the heart of the movie, making her sacrifice all the more powerful. Add in Bill Skarsgård playing the Graf Orlok / Dracula like no other actor has played him, and you’ve got one hell of a vampire film.

books, film

Shadows, Reflections, Mirrors and Vampires

Like having fangs, transforming into bats, or turning to dust in the rays of the sun, not showing up in mirrors is a trait of the vampire that most people take as gospel. Whether it’s Bela Lugosi slapping a the small, mirrored-lid cigarette box out of Van Helsing’s hands in Universal’s DRACULA (1931), or the Count casting no reflection in an enormous ballroom mirror — in both DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995) and VAN HELSING (2004) — pop culture has cemented the belief / trope that vampires just don’t show up in mirrors.

First edition of Dracula, 1897
Dracula, by Bram Stoker. First Edition cloth cover, 1897. From British Literary Board (public domain photo).

The publication of DRACULA in 1897 is perhaps the best and first known instance of a vampire not appearing in a mirror. It occurs early on, in Chapter 2, on the 8th of May, when Jonathan Harker doesn’t see Dracula’s reflection in his shaving mirror. No vampire of folklore ever seemed to have this problem. Various creatures over many cultures and centuries appeared from and disappeared to the shadows, but none had particular issue with a looking glass. Until Dracula.

NO LITERARY PRECEDENT

Lord Byron, the infamous poet on whom his personal physician John Polidori’s Lord Ruthven — arguably, the first true literary vampire — was based curiously had no mirrors in his residence on the isle of Lesbos (see “Extract Of A Letter, Containing An Account Of Lord Byron’s Residence In The Island Of Mitylene,” published along with THE VAMPYRE in 1819). But this was Byron, and one residence otherwise sparsely furnished. And despite what his physician may have thought, Byron was no vampire (OK, maybe a psychic one).

There’s no mention of mirrors or reflections in VARNEY THE VAMPIRE (pubished as “penny dreadfulls” 1845-1847). Neither does Le Fanu Carmilla seem to have a problem with them (1872). They are stealthy, shadowy figures, but reflections aren’t a problem.

There’s an interesting us of shadows in Alexander Dumas’ “Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains” (also known as “The Pale Lady”) — a short story from 1848 that is easily overlooked by fans (and critics) of Gothic tales. This last section of his collected THE THOUSAND AND ONE GHOSTS (1849), does include a vampire, but one that oddly shows ONLY its shadow.

Nosferatu casts shadow
Nosferatu’s Count Orlok cast a shadow. And eagle-eyed watchers of the 1922 film have spotted him reflected in a mirror during his death scene.

Upon Hedwig, the narrator’s encounter with the vampire of Dumas’ tale, she writes: “Je regardai dans la direction de sa main, et je vis en effet l’ombre d’un cheval et d’un cavalier. Mais je cherchai inutilement les corps auxquels les ombres appartenaient,” which translates as “I looked in the direction of his hand, and I did indeed see the shadow of a horse and rider. But I searched in vain for the bodies to which the shadows belonged.”

A shadow is cast. But no figure is seen. And still, no mirror.

None before Stoker.

Not in Uriah Derick D’Arcy’s BLACK VAMPYRE: A LEGEND OF ST. DOMINGO (1819). Nor in Ernst Raupach’s WAKE NOT THE DEAD (1823). Not the case with the wurdulak of Alexander Pushin’s MARKO YACUBOVICH (1835). Nor in THE FAMILY OF THE VOURDALAK from Tolstoy (1839). Throw in the aforementioned Varney and Carmilla, and you find nary an undead figure with a problem with mirrors.

MIRRORS, SILVER, AND SHADOWS

One wonders, then, where Stoker got the idea from? And like much of the supernatural in DRACULA, some find that the answer lies in folklore and superstition. The Japanese Kitsune, for example, shun mirrors as they fear being exposed by their reflections. But it’s almost certain that Kitsune were not something known to Stoker. They show up nowhere in his notes for the novel or other writings.

Victorian Covered Mirror
In the late 19th century, mirrors were often covered at funerals (and a window left open) so the soul of the deceased would not be trapped.

There was a belief among people of both Christian and Jewish faith — as well as spiritualists of the time (of which Stoker was ostensibly one, having been a member of the Society for Psychical Research) —that mirrors captured souls and/or acted as portals to other worlds. Why else cover them in homes or at funerals where the deceased are present. Fear of the spirits of the recently dead getting trapped in a mirror was at the root of this prctice, and, if true, would certainly put a damper on getting to the promised after-life. But the undead? What would they care? They are already dead. And their spirits don’t get sucked in by mirrors so much as their corporeal bodies simply do not show.

Others have posited a theory that silver backed (and silver-gilt) mirrors of the day may be the reason vampires are repelled by the “foul bauble of man’s vanity” (as Dracula puts it). But nowhere else in Stoker’s novel are vampires afraid of silver. There’s a silver-plated brass candle-holder Van Helsing takes with him to Lucy’s grave. But it’s just the better to see her with. There’s a silver whistle, but it’s for Van Helsing to scare aware rats. And yes, while there’s a silver crucifix among the weapons the heroes take into battle at the end of the novel, it’s the crucifix, and not the silver, that seems to work on vampires. The silver itself is never explicitly mentioned as having any power. In folklore, though, silver is associated with the moon and as having purifying qualities, so perhaps it can kill a supernatural creature? The Brother Grimm did have a silver bullet kill a witch in one of their tales (“The Two Brothers” [1812]). And it was reputed that the eighteenth century Beast of Gévaudan was felled by a silver bullet. But, as it turns out, this was an addition made by an author writing in 1946 (Henri Pourrat’s Histoire fidèle de la bête en Gévauda). That’s four years after Universal’s THE WOLF MAN, where screenwriter Curt Siodmak invented the notion that silver kills werewolves.

Why then does Stoker have Dracula not show up in a mirror?

Plain and simple: having Dracula not appear in Harker’s shaving mirror is a great plot device.

There are many ways Stoker could have introduced Dracula as a vampire lusting after blood. And many ways that Harker could have been startled by the vampire’s presence in his room in Dracula’s castle. But the mirror provides the author with a way to dramatically shock Harker, and the reader, with Dracula’s ability to move stealthily, and strike, should he choose — without setting off (at least two) normal human sensory means of detection.

FROM STOKER’S PEN

Here is the whole passage:

I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count’s salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on: “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity. Away with it!” and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal.

And that’s the world’s introduction to a vampire not showing in a mirror. If anyone could show a literary or folkloric precedent, it would have been put forth in the 125+ years since the novel’s publication as critics and scholars have painstakenly poured over every aspect of the work and the vampire of folklore that inspired it for at least fifty years (there was a time when studying vampires in the halls of academia was scoffed at).

FUN WITH THE TROPE

In his seminal vampire novel I AM LEGEND (1954), Richard Matheson counts not appearing in mirror among aspects of vampires that even those infected with the “vampire plague,” themselves believe because of peopular culture. But they do. Cast reflections, that is. As do Anne Rice’s vampires, Nosferatu, even the vampires of the Twilight books and movies.

Why? Because writers and filmmakers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have fun playing with the trope. It makes vampires more flesh and blood, so to speak, to show up like the rest of us do in mirrors. All the better, they can admire how they haven’t aged if they can see their reflection, and who among us would at least hope that immortality comes with forever looking good to one’s self. Personally, I hate mirrors.

In the end, it’s clear that some aspects of vampire lore were picked up by Stoker to play to an audience familiar with tropes and lore. Others simply served his story, and oddly, retroactively, became associated with the undead as a given. Something ancient. Something born of old Translyvanian beliefs. But even then, it might surprise some to know that that the inventive Irishman behind DRACULA never set foot in Transylvania, and originally thought of setting his novel in Styria (in southeast Austria).

But that’s a blog entry for another time.