Nosferatu in Venice (1988)

I'm a tremendously massive fan of the works and persona of Klaus Kinski, but apparently I should praise myself lucky that I never had to work with him or maybe even meet with him person. Kinski allegedly was an incredibly arrogant individual and literally an impossible person to interact with professionally. During this particular period – the late 80s – he also was at the heights of his violent temper, which (nearly) ruined all the movies he starred in. Director David Schmoeller made the ironic short film "Please Kill Mr. Kinski", based on the disastrous experience that he had with him during "Crawlspace" in 1986 and even the long-running professional relationship with the acclaimed director Werner Herzog got destroyed in 1987 during the filming of "Cobra Verde". According to the documentaries Herzog and Kinski got into several vicious fights and openly threatened to kill each other. Also this "Nosferatu in Venice" suffered enormously from Kinski's eccentric quirks. He chased away the initially hired director Mario Caiano, he physically assaulted two of the lead actresses and he refused to cut his hair or wear any make-up. And yet, it's a Kinski film and I'd move heaven and earth just to see it! I liked "Nosferatu in Venice" a lot, but not exactly because it's a good film… I'm much more fond of the whole idea and concept of the film. What a brilliant idea to set a vampire movie in the wonderful city of Venice! And not just any ravenous and mad-as-hell vampire, but a melancholic vampire figure like Nosferatu! That's just fantastic. The story initially follows Prof. Catalano, who's searching for the mysteriously vanished Nosferatu, but at the same time the professor is convinced that he is fed up with his immortal and roaming existence. Deep in the basement of a Venetian family mansion there is a tomb, and the heiress thinks that Nosferatu is buried here. They hold a séance to awaken him, but he resurrects somewhere on a tropical island. Nosferatu promptly travels to Venice, hoping to find love and eternal peace. "Noferatu in Venice" is slow-brooding and talkative, and thus definitely not recommended for the nowadays new generation of horror/vampire movie fanatics that swear by fancy computer-generated effects and monstrous transformations. This movie thrives on macabre atmosphere, moody set-pieces and sober cinematography. The plot is very messy and often doesn't make a lick of sense, and yet it's captivating from start to finish. This is also a very unconventional vampire story. Kinski's Nosferatu doesn't suck the blood from the virgin's necks, but he impales old ladies on fences and tears off the lips of jealous boyfriends. Kinski doesn't have to do a lot apart from demonstrating his naturally sinister charisma. The cast contains another two phenomenal actors, Donald Pleasance and Christopher Plummer, as well as a couple of beautiful actresses, like Barbara De Rossi.

Nosferatu (dir. F. W. Murnau, 1922) is regarded as a masterpiece. To be honest, I enjoyed Werner Herzog's remake (1979) far more - Klaus Kinski's performance in the title role was perfect; repellent and charismatic in equal measure. So I've been looking forward to seeing this hard-to-get-hold-of "sequel" for years. Oh dear, what a disappointment. This film is a confused mess. If "Vampire in Venice" were less conventional, it could be Art-house or Surrealist Cinema. And then its fogginess might be to its advantage. But... it just isn't.Whereas its' predecessors were directed with a spark of genius, "Vampire in Venice" had a history of directorial dithering - and boy does it show. Despite some excellent cinematography, great sets and a (potentially) strong cast, the film is so weakly directed that it falls apart almost immediately. The cast is wasted. The plot is incongruous. The characters are under-developed and their motivations are anyones' guess. The whole is deeply unsatisfying. Of course, Barabara De Rossi is utterly gorgeous, Plummer has some gravitas and Kinski is OK, but without a firm hand at the rudder, we are on a gondola to nowhere.Only the film's few saving graces allowed me to watch to the end. One for the curious only, I fear.

This has it all. Klaus Kinski playing Nosferatu. A perfect match of this tortured magnetic egotistical actor who had imaginings of being something far greater: he toured for a time proclaiming himself as Jesus; albeit a rather more angry and vituperate Jesus. Kinski had played the role before in A Herzog film. So the experience alone should assure success. This Nosferatu is more glamorous and set in a decayed cosmopolitan Venice. For the audience a clue that things were going to go seriously wrong as they sat in the cinema was the appearance of more than one director. This always heralds serious problems in production. It starts promisingly a Gypsy camp summons up Nosferatu as their benefactor. Then he is off to Venice to avenge the royal family that have tried to destroy him. Here the narrative starts going awry and long periods of soft focus camera panning accompanied by string quartets show th holes left in the scripts due to arguments. The film tries to find its focus again by giving Nosferatu a love interest in the shapely black actress Maria. But its too late and too little point. Assuming that the intention is to see Nosferatus demise, the audience would already be asleep to see the interesting climax, which I am not going to reveal. You have to track it down and stay awake to the end

This brilliant Italian vampire film certainly has an accomplished cast. Whilst Pleasence and Plummer are good, Kinski acts his socks off in reprising his 1979 role of Nosferatu. De Rossi and Knecht are also good, and pull off this whilst being so unbelievably gorgeous as well. What lets this down is the dodgy dubbing in the English language release that I saw - even though Pleasence and Plummer seem to have their own voices, the others look dodgily done, even if they are their own (which some must be). Suffice to say, watch the Italian version, and be amazed.