Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) on Netflix
Estate agent Jonathan Harker leaves his wife Lucy in Wismar to meet Count Dracula, who wants to buy a property in the town. Villagers beg him to stay away from the castle.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.3/1049,902 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1850, Jonathan Harker works as an estate agent in Wismar, Germany. His employer, Renfield, sends him to Transylvania to visit Count Dracula, who wants to buy a property in the town. Jonathan leaves his wife Lucy behind. At an inn, the locals beg him to stay away from the accursed castle. He continues and reaches the castle, where he meets the Count, a man with pale skin, large ears, sharp teeth and long fingernails. When the Count sees a small portrait of Lucy, he is enchanted and agrees to buy the Wismar property.
Cast
- Roland Toporas Renfield
- Jan Grothas Harbormaster
- Carsten Bodinusas Schrader
- Martje Grohmannas Mina
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Herzog insisted the white rats imported from Hungary be dyed gray; according to behavioural biologist Maarten 't Hart, who refused to cooperate further, the cages had to be submerged in boiling water for several seconds, killing half of the rats that had survived the journey, during which they had begun eating each other.
- Herzog filmed the opening sequence himself at the Mummies of Guanajuato museum in Mexico, taking the naturally mummified victims of an 1833 cholera epidemic out of their glass cases, propping them against a wall and arranging them in a sequence from childhood to old age.
- Herzog could not shoot in Wismar, where Murnau's 1922 original was filmed, so he moved production to Delft, Netherlands; after Delft authorities refused to let him release 11,000 rats for a scene, parts of the film were shot in nearby Schiedam.
- Herzog intended to film in Transylvania, but Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime refused because of the link between Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler; Pernštejn Castle stands in for Castle Dracula, both interiors and exteriors.
- The Japanese artist Reiko Kruk did Klaus Kinski's bald, rat-toothed Dracula make-up in four-hour sessions; although Kinski fought with Herzog and others on other films, he got along with Kruk and had no outbursts during the make-up work.
- At the request of distributor 20th Century Fox, Herzog shot two versions of the film at the same time, filming most dialogue scenes twice, once in German and again in English, with dubbing used for a few scenes.
