Nosferatu The Vampyre
 

https://youtu.be/E9m9tvEbVXs

This looks like an old remake of the black and white silent horror movie Nosferatu.

I've never watched it before but that soundtrack alone gives me goosebumps. I think it's kind of funny though how that trailer is spoiling the ending of the movie with the tragic fate of Hutter's wife Ellen. ::big grin::

Did you watch the film yet?

I just saw this for the first time about 6 months ago.

Nope not yet but I hope I can get the chance someday.

It looks good!

It is a re-imaging of Nosferatu. Follows fairly close. It has much more character drama than the silent original, as one might expect. It's interesting.

There is an English version (the actors spoke English, not a dub), and one German (with English subtitles). I'm not enough of a snob to recommend one over the other. I watched the English version, of course, and won't be watching the other.

That trailer... Sure does spin, eh?

I wouldn't assume too much about Ellen's fate from this trailer. That's because there's no Ellen in the film, so she's OK. But I wouldn't assume too much about Harker's wife Lucy's fate from the trailer either. It may look like she's bit, but not everyone bit by a vampire dies. ::wink::

There's big fans of this film. I enjoyed it, and I like arthouse or avant garde, but I can't say I loved it.

Someday? Dude, you live in America. You can see anytime you want. You can watch it on Youtube for $3.99.

Wait I'm confused...

Harker's wife's name was Nina (in the novel Dracula) and in Nosferatu her name was changed to Ellen (just like Harker became Hutter and Count Dracula became Count Orlock). Lucy in the novel Dracula was a friend of Nina's whom Dracula turned into a vampire but I think in Nosferatu she had a very minor role as either the wife or sister of Hutter's friend who looked after Ellen while he was away in Transylvania.

I guess you're saying there's more character depth in this remake which sounds awesome to me. ::big grin::

BIG SPOILERS

And in the silent movie version of Nosferatu I liked Ellen because she was such a pure hearted character who cried when Hutter picked her a bouquet of flowers to cheer her up without realizing that he "killed the beautiful flowers".

Also unlike Dracula where Harker was the hero and Nina was the damsel, in Nosferatu it was Ellen who saved her husband Hutter by offering herself to Count Orlock and letting him get destroyed by the sunlight. In fact she pretty much saved the whole town from the death plague he brought over with her own life.

I'm not exactly in control of my own money. Plus I'm broke. ::big grin::

Yes, you are right on all accounts! But in this 1979 film they change some names, just like the makers of the 1922 film (who were trying to avoid being hit by a copyright infringement, and failed).
Not sure why Herzog changed the name of Harker's wife to Lucy, but he did. Weird, huh?

Lol yeah. ::big grin:: I guess maybe because both women were being stalked by Dracula in the book? He wanted to feed off of both of them and then turn them into vampires just like the "Brides of Dracula" who lived in his castle.

LOL! Yeah, might as well call her Minellelucy! She's every woman in the world.

In the 1932 Dracula film, I wonder if the vamp chicks were just his feral sisters?

Oh wait her name was Mina not Nina lol my bad. ::big grin::

I always wondered why Dracula only chose to turn women into vampires? He must have been a real pimp. ::big grin::

In fact I think the term "Brides of Dracula" was only invented by the 1932 movie because in the book they didn't have any names and their relationship with Count Dracula was never made clear. They were just female vamps who lived in his castle and were most likely transformed by Dracula in the same manner Lucy was.

Did they use the phrase,"Brides of Dracula" in the 1932 film? Oh wow, I didn't even notice that. Shame on Drac for polygamy, amIright?

Lol yeah like where does he think he's living, Saudi Arabia? ::big grin::

Not that I see anything wrong with polygamy or Saudi Arabia of course. ::smile::

And I never actually watched the 1932 movie but I just assumed they got their name from that movie but maybe I'm wrong? I wonder who came up with the name "brides of dracula"? They were never actually called that in the novel. ::confused::

Oh, I got ya. Probably the only reference to brides of Drac are in the movie Brides of Dracula, the Utah Years.

Poor Count Orlock had no pretty vampire brides I guess because he wasn't as good-looking as Count Dracula. ::sad::

Speaking of "Lucy", in the novel I felt that she was a tragic character. She was a beautiful young woman who had three men competing for her love (a psychiatrist named John, an American cowboy named Quincy, and a lord named Arthur).

When Dracula killed her and turned her into a vampire the three men who each loved her had to team up with Johnathan Harker and Van Helsing to hunt her down and kill her (again) in order to free her from her vampire existence.

It was sad. ::sad::

Has anyone seen shadow of the vampire? Does it make me a bad person to admit I liked that more than Nosferatu?

Never heard of it. ::confused::

It's a fictional take on the making of Nosferatu.

Oh ok. Cool. ::smile::

*GASP*

What a horrible thing to say! ::big grin::

I loved the concept of Shadow of the Vampire so much that I came in with lots of expectations! Unfortunately for me, it didn't meet them. I didn't really like Shadow, but I probably ruined it for myself. What happened in the story is about what I thought would happen, but how it was done wasn't my cup of tea.

I get it though, most of the silent film formats are harder to get into... the text frames, the over acting, and freeze in place poses.

See I am so weird because I think most of the new movies today are hard to get into. I think that the actors today can't act their way out of a paper bag and everything is drowned in CGI effects with scenes that move so fast that you can't even tell what is really happening.

I seem to love horror movies from before my time. They were the best. ::wink::

I know what you mean. There's good and bad in various eras. The pace of some 1930/40s films lend to comfortable contemplation; where some modern films can seem a bit chaotic.

I think the acting ability varies the same in each period. But I do like the more natural acting and more varied shots of the modern films, where appropriate.

Yeah there's good and bad in every era. For example movies in the 70's and 80's had some of the worst special effects. It was easier to spot makeup on an actor or tell that a monster was just a puppet. But sometimes people did a very good job and made the special effects look as real as possible.

Same with CGI effects today. Some look really good and some are so obviously computer graphics.

That's true, so many older monsters weren't very convincing, that is where the director didn't get creative enough. Obviously not seeing the monster at all is sometimes the scariest and horrifying scenes there are.

Then I think of 'The Thing 82' where the practical effects are more effective and scarier than any modern CGI monster effects I've yet seen. There's still something about an actual physical presence, though on film, that is weighty and creepy; and CGI has yet to capture that well enough.

The great thing about modern CGI is the engrossing photorealistic background settings. The giant (background) mattes of the past were great, but modern CGI worlds have been increasingly more interactive with the characters.

Yeah I agree and I think about the original Night of the Living Dead vs Dawn of the Dead.

NotLD was in black and white which really worked in the movie's favor. If it was in color I imagine the zombie make-up would have looked less realistic and it would have been laughable.

Even though Dawn of the Dead was a classic you have to admit that the zombie make-up looked unrealistic as fuck. They looked like a bunch of blue smurfs. ::big grin::

Then came Day of the Dead and you could tell Tom Savini put a lot of extra work into the zombie make-up. They looked realistically rotted with dirty tattered clothes and it was believable that the movie was set a few years after the zombies took over the world.

But now in the new zombie movies they seem to use CGI effects for zombies. I miss the old days when they used make-up. Some of the make-up effects looked really good like in Lucio Fulci's Zombie and there were a few slight flaws but that didn't stop me from getting immersed in those movies. ::cool::

LOL! Yes, some of those blue makeup jobs in Day of the Dead did make them look smurfy. Much better in Day. And in Zombi it was very effective.

Some of the CGI blood squirts in Walking Dead, and other productions, are just comical. Might as well just throw some sharks flying through the air.

I always wondered how they got the zombies in Lucio Fulci's Zombi to look so stiff like a real corpse? I used to work in a funeral home and I can tell you that real corpses really do look stiff like that.

The way they moved actually felt more realistic to me than Romero's zombies. A lot of the zombies even had eyes that were closed shut and one had eyes that were half-open and unmoving so it was scary how they knew you were there and would hunt you down even though they shouldn't be able to see you. ::EEK!::

Gotta give props to Fulci's zombies for being great actors in such minor non-speaking roles. ::cool::

I know what you mean. There doesn't seem to be much attention spent on the attributes of each individual zombie, which could be an horrific aspect, that is where there isn't you cliched swarm scene.

I almost felt like there was something sad about Fulci's zombies in that movie. It's as if they were all sad to be walking around dead and hungering for human flesh.

Maybe it's just because of the movie's soundtrack? ::big grin::

Oh and I got the original Nosferatu on Bluray today! ::cool::

Nice!

You know, isn't it interesting how in Nosferatu there weren't any vampire hunters?

SPOILERS

The only way Count Orlock was eventually stopped was when Ellen lured him into her bedroom to feed on her long enough for the sun to rise up and destroy him.

This was completely different from Dracula where you had Van Helsing team up with Johnathan Harker and three other men to hunt him down and destroy him.

Nosferatu was pretty much a ripoff of Dracula yet at the same time it feels like a completely different vampire film. ::cool::

It's a very different film. The character Nosferatu (1922) is decrepit, bizarre and awkward, and demonstrates amazing supernatural powers. Whereas the Dracula (1931) character is handsome, regal and demonstrates hypnotic social powers.

The Nosferatu film makers could have made just a few more key changes from the book to escape copyright infringement without changing what makes Nosferatu an excellent film. I would have loved to see Murnau make some changes and remake it as a talkie in the 30's.

The look and feel of Nosferatu's cinematography and direction is quite surreal, innovative and a course in evocative imagery and direction in itself. Whereas Dracula is rather stagey, derived from a stageplay, and it works well.

I agree.

And also what I loved about Nosferatu was that ultimately the hero of the movie was a loving wife wanting to protect her husband. I think that in most movies of that era it was always the other way around.

Plus she seemed to have some sort of psychic link to her husband Hutter like when she had the nightmare about him being attacked by Count Orlock and somehow I think she was able to save her husband by calling Orlock away from him through her dream.

It's like Renfield had a direct psychic connection to Count Orlock which drove him insane and Ellen had a direct psychic connection to Hutter.