- Directed by Werner Herzog
- Written by Werner Herzog, Bram Stoker
- Stars Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz
- Run Time; 1 Hour, 47 Minutes
Synopsis
We start with shots of many (real) ancient mummified corpses in a tomb somewhere as credits roll.
Lucy wakes up, screaming. She’s had another nightmare about bats. Jonathan goes to work, and his boss, Renfield, says Count Dracula sent a letter and wants to buy a house locally. Jonathan will need to go and get Dracula to sign the paperwork— in Transylvania. Renfield is weird and has a giggling problem as well as a really bad toupee. Jonathan will need to leave today! He says a quick goodbye and leaves Lucy with Mina to watch over while he’s gone.
We soon get a horse riding montage and Jonathan takes the long way, by horse through the woods and mountains. He mentions to the innkeeper that he has to get to Count Dracula’s castle tonight, and they react… badly. The innkeeper and the local gypsy band warn him not to go there, as people always disappear near the castle, and there are evil spirits after midnight. Jonathan decides to stay in the inn for the night after all. The innkeeper’s wife gives Jonathan a book about Nosferatu, or vampires.
No one will drive Jonathan so he has to walk. Cue the walking through the mountains montage. Night falls, and he continues to walk until a carriage finally comes for him. It’s Dracula’s coachman, who takes him the rest of the way to the castle.
Dracula opens the door, and he looks like a cross between Willem Dafoe and an albino rat. He does, however, have a nice dinner ready for Jonathan, but he doesn’t eat food this late at night himself. He sits there and intently watches Jonathan eat his dinner. He reads the contracts as the “children of the night” make sweet music outside. We do see that Dracula has the single coolest cuckoo clock ever invented.
Jonathan cuts himself just a little bit with the dinner knife, and Dracula overreacts about as badly as anyone could.
The next morning, Jonathan wakes up and explores the castle, but it’s just one big maze. That night, Dracula complains about not being able to grow old. Dracula takes one look at a photo of Lucy in Jonathan’s locket and hurries to buy a house in their neighborhood.
Dracula finally walks into Jonathan’s room and bites him. Meanwhile, back in Germany, Lucy still dreams of bats and has now begun sleepwalking. They call in Dr. Van Helsing to treat her. Next morning, Jonathan finds Dracula “sleeping” in a crypt during the day. That night, Jonathan watches Dracula loading many large boxes onto a cart and drive away. He stumbles down the hill to the village, but he looks really ill.
Dracula loads the boxes onto a ship and sets sail for Germany; this goes badly for the crew. Lucy sits and watches the ocean, awaiting…?
At some point after Jonathan left, Renfield has been locked into solitary confinement in the asylum, and Dr. Van Helsing is treating him as well. He’s been eating flies. He announces that his master has arrived. The ship arrives in town, but the crew is missing except for one dead man. The cargo area, however, is full of rats. Could it have been the plague?
That night, Dracula unloads his boxes and places them in various places. Not long after, Jonathan returns home to Lucy, but he’s not quite right. He doesn’t recognize Lucy, and the doctor says it’s a severe brain fever. “The sun is hurting me,” he says.
That night, Dracula comes to Lucy and introduces himself. He makes no reflection in her mirror. She’s morbid and creepy and pale and talks about death a lot, which really turns Dracula on. Renfield escapes from the asylum, giggling all the way.
People are dying all over town. Everyone knows it’s either plague or the rats. Lucy thinks it’s a vampire. She reads Jonathan’s book and wants to destroy the vampire, but Van Helsing wants to wait and study this all scientifically.
She finds one of the boxes of dirt and destroys it and then walks through the town, which is full of people dancing, riding goats, and being extremely weird. Meanwhile, there are millions of rats everywhere, but no one seems to pay any attention to them.
Van Helsing explains to Lucy that they found Mina dead this morning; she has two little bite marks on her throat. Lucy says she knows now what she must do. He comes for her the next night, and bites her, but he stops to pull her dress up and is distracted by her beauty until the sun rises and kills him. Lucy groans and dies immediately afterward.
Van Helsing finds Dracula’s body in her room and drives a stake through his heart. Jonathan warns him not to do it. Jonathan calls for help and accuses him of murdering Count Dracula. Van Helsing is arrested for murder. Jonathan then goes full vampire and calls for his horse; he has big Nosferatu teeth now too and rides off into the night…
Commentary
It’s very slow and ponderous, and the music doesn’t help. The actors often stand in picturesque, staged scenes as if they were posing for a photoshoot. This is a very visual film, seemingly more focused on art than story, really. Then again, everyone knows this story backwards and forwards, so at least it’s interesting to look at as the story progresses.
Klaus Kinski is wearing big fake teeth, and with his accent, he’s sometimes hard to understand. Renfield manages to be both over-the-top hilarious and downright disturbing. Isobel Adjani as Lucy is pale and mysterious and weird, and that’s even before Dracula starts working on her. Doctor Van Helsing is completely useless here and does nothing helpful. The rats really steal the show though. That was a lot of rats.
In the original 1922 film, the book “Dracula” was still under copyright and there was a whole deal about the film infringing on the copyright; this is why the title was Nosferatu and the vampire in the story was called Count Orlock. By this time, Bram Stoker’s copyright had run out, so they used the name Dracula instead.
The ending was a little different than the original film, but for the most part, it’s the same. It’s very slow, but overall, it actually is very well done.