Nosferatu The Vampyre

 Deep in the heart of Germany…

Estate agent, Jonathon, is offered the prosperous job of selling properties to a Transylvanian count but to do so must take a long trek into the isolated man’s homeland to close the deal. Thinking of career prospects and his beautiful wife, Lucy, he accepts and ventures via foot and horse into a lost world of mountains and forests, amidst which is the count’s ruined castle. Meeting the corpse-like Dracula, Jonathon closes the deal but, after realising that the villagers’ seemingly superstitious warnings of the living dead may have some foundation in truth, he soon finds himself prisoner in the castle, left to wander around for weeks as Dracula himself heads off to his new country by ship. Having spotted a picture of Lucy he’s also now out to acquire himself a new woman. Back in Wismar Dracula’s ship (now with a dead crew) arrives but unleashes on the town a horrific plague as rats pour onto the streets. Soon, mass numbers of the population are dying as the disease spreads and the vampire places his coffins at strategic points around the town; meanwhile the deeply lethargic Jonathon manages to escape before desperately attempting to head back home so he can save his otherwise doomed lover.

Taking the 1922 silent movie as a template was a fairly brave move as it was already an unofficial (and once legally denounced) version of Bram Stoker’s book and took many liberties with the source material. Thus, the Werner Herzog film can be considered more of a remake of a film than yet another adaptation of Dracula, though it certainly qualifies as the latter too. Herzog framed a number of the shots almost identically to the silent version, pre-empting the Psycho ethic that was (unsuccessfully?) adopted by Gus Van Sant a couple of decades later. It was a more relevant approach in the case of Nosferatu however because not only was it updating a silent film for sound-obsessed modern audiences, it also expanded on certain aspects and created an altogether more powerful experience. In fact, the use of sound in this version is incredibly instrumental in formulating a profound experience for viewers - the castle itself is a gothic joy to allow oneself to become a part of as wind howls through the corridors and rooms while wolves constantly whine in the distance. The music (from classical sources as well as German ambient group Popol Vuh) is overwhelmingly dark, thrusting forward an incremental feeling of impending doom like few other movies. It’s a chillingly grim world that Herzog creates. Even before that, the long journey to the castle is emphasised more here than in any other Dracula adaptation. Indeed, when Fox saw the first cut they wanted it shortened, not realising that Herzog was envisioning the metaphoric voyage of the spirit. Thankfully this is generally complete in the German cut. Use of landscape is monumental and absorbing.

The actors are well suited to their roles: Bruno Ganz as Jonathon plays an innocent man lost in a supernatural realm, doomed to a fate he cannot realistically control. Similarly, the vampire (Klaus Kinski, an actor famous for his clashes with Herzog on their many team-ups) is withered and pathetic as his deathly existence continues to sprawl meaninglessly across centuries. Kinski’s portrayal here, while not necessarily aping the Stoker character exactly, is unique and fixating. The other lead, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy, provides a captivating physical appearance coupled with melancholic presence helping us identify with her character’s futile plight. The conclusion, without giving anything away, is different to both the novel and the silent Murnau film. Unfortunately, the film was ridiculed in some quarters during its early days, not helped by the English version which was cut in the US and displayed a voice track uttered by people who couldn’t actually speak English, this alternate version having being shot simultaneously with the same cast/crew: it resulted in an oddity. The full German version gave cause to re-evaluate it but even there some may find it slow and theatrical in places. For me it works wonders and, dare I say (sorry, Stoker fans), the 1979 of Nosferatu is actually my favourite version of Dracula.

For years I’d only seen this on Fox’s old UK videotape. It had the dreaded English language track (in mono) with a fullscreen transfer, plus it had been blasphemously shortened by some twelve minutes. Even then I gradually developed an appreciation for the material, so it was some revelation when I finally picked up the first Anchor Bay US DVD just prior to the millennium: widescreen, German language, and uncut (though the monaural English cut was contained on the flip side of the disc). It was like a goldmine - what was once something that hinted at an incredible world suddenly became a beautifully nightmarish landscape of utter doom (that’s a good thing by the way). Of course it’s now one of my favourite viewing experiences. It’s been re-released by Anchor Bay various times in the US and UK but they’re basically variations on the same original disc. The transfer was good for its time but is looking quite rough now. It was eventually resurrected in the UK by BFI on Blu-ray, with a HD transfer that outshined former DVDs and audio in either English or German language (the latter having mono or 5.1 surround options).  I picked up the beautiful steelbook at the time - now long out of print - which came with a good quality booklet and lovely original poster art across the metallic exterior (see above).  The film was also available within a fairly priced Blu-ray collection of Herzog movies, and stateside from Scream Factory.

Possession

1981, France/Germany, Directed by Andrzej Zulawski
Colour, Running Time: 123 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R1, Anchor Bay; Video: Anamorphic 1.66:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Mono

Genre amalgamations go back a long way, whether it be the obvious mixing of science fiction and horror abundant during the fifties, or gangster/vampire combinations such as From Dusk Till Dawn, etc. From what could easily have been the uninspiring and unproductive event of marital break-up in the life of Zulawski was borne Possession (not the one with Gwyneth Paltrow in it!) - something that might be described as an odd collision between social drama and visceral horror. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani play Mark and Anna, a couple in the midst of a marital crisis where permanent split seems like the only viable outcome. Aside from having a young child to consider, Mark appears to be unable to live without Anna but has difficulty communicating what he’s feeling without descending into maniacal, emotionally charged babbling, often turning to manifested aggression in frustration. His psychological state spirals downward while Anna seems ambivalent about what she truly wants, often portraying a need to terminate the relationship between them whilst possibly still exhibiting some feelings that are positive towards her husband, amidst the obvious torrent of confusion. Mark finds out that she’s been having an affair with someone and naturally this does the situation no favours. Finding out who it is he goes to see the man, presumably without intention to discuss the problem diplomatically - the strangely androgynous Heinrich beats Mark up during the ensuing conflict. Arranging to have his wife followed it’s revealed that Anna is frequently retreating to a derelict area of the city (Berlin) where in a run-down apartment she’s mating with some sort of hideous multi-limbed monster.

Rather than being a story of demonic infiltration à la The Exorcist, this movie investigates the results of the ‘possession’ of one human being by another, something that generally occurs in intimate relationships and is suggested here to ultimately have a destructive effect on its closest participants. The film distributors, particularly in America, didn’t really know how to market this project and in all fairness that’s quite understandable, especially in an era when films of a fantastically disturbing nature were good box office business - not only is the trailer a superficially ambiguous advertisement for what could easily be just another monster movie in its audience’s eyes, but the film itself had forty minutes or so removed by a studio who didn’t understand the content. Similarly here in the UK it was placed on the banned list by the Director of Public Prosecutions and effectively condemned as a ‘video nasty’ (something that ironically probably helped gather a small cult reputation for the film). The film has since been restored in the US and permitted an uncut release in the UK under thankfully revised opinion. Controversies aside, what remains now though is something that’s difficult to understand with its apparent symbolism and personal meaning to the director. It’s clearly a response to the despair produced by the disintegration of his own relationship with his spouse but there is much here to decipher, and that’s where many viewers will drop off (to sleep in some cases). However, there are rewards to be had should you be able to mentally focus on what’s going on - the intricacy of Mark and Anna’s relationship is disturbingly realised and the physical product of their interpersonal deterioration is quite fascinating; that is, the terrifyingly passionate hatred between them seems to create the very monster that Anna ends up mating with (thereby producing more offspring). The creature itself is not seen too much but what’s visible is hideous, a bedridden octopus-like monstrosity that conceals something distortedly human in its nature. Anna’s occasional dismissal of her real husband hints at the possibility that she (i.e. the female) sees him purely as the machine that will impregnate her when required. The fact that she’d rather mate with something so horrific (than her husband) in order to produce more offspring possibly offers support to this idea. While Neill does a good job Adjani is simply astounding as Anna. The extremity of emotions she displays is worryingly realistic (indeed she won a couple of awards for this role), most notably in the train tunnel sequence where she goes into prolonged violent spasms before a disgusting miscarriage - this scene must be one of the most disturbing ever committed to celluloid, surely something very few actresses could have achieved, and it pretty much elicited outrage in some people. Its impact is profound and underlines the state of Zulawski at that time. As far as the film as a whole is concerned it's more likely to be a painful experience rather than a specifically enjoyable one, but the latter was hardly the director’s intention.  Plus I would suggest that it is excessively long at two hours. However, films don’t come a great deal more challenging than this and its imagery and overall impact is quite unique.

Released a couple of times in the US by Anchor Bay Possession was restored to its full running time and Zulawski’s original vision, plus it was presented correctly at 1.66:1, anamorphically enhanced in a pillar-box fashion and generally pretty good looking for its time. The DVD also came with director commentary and interesting text notes on his work. The second disc release was identical apart from the fact that it was coupled with Mario Bava’s final film Shock as a double-bill.  Possession was finally passed uncut for home viewing in 1999 by the BBFC here in the UK for a Visual Film Entertainment VHS, and Second Sight have since (in 2010) put out the film on DVD - this UK DVD is the best edition of Possession available at time of writing, presenting the film uncut in the correct aspect ratio (as did the Anchor Bay DVD but with a much more comprehensive selection of extras, albeit missing the AB commentary). More recently US company Mondo Vision have been preparing their own special edition DVD of the film, reportedly with around four hours of extras in addition to being available in either standard SE or limited SE sets, but I suspect the cream of all releases will come from Second Sight this year, who are putting together a Blu-ray consisting of a director-approved HD transfer and host of newly commissioned bonus materials as well as the ported over extras from their 2010 DVD.

Castle of the Walking Dead

1967, West Germany, Directed by Harold Reinl

Colour, Running Time: 80 minutes

Review Source: Download; Image: Letterbox 1.66:1, Audio: Mono

Beginning the tale a century or so ago, we along with a group of angry villagers witness the sentencing and quartering of an evil count found guilty of brutal crimes against humanity. Jumping forward a few years an eminent scholar, affectionately called 'Roger', is on his way to an ancient castle to learn more about his family history. Stopping off at a village within the vicinity he discovers a certain degree of hostility whenever the castle is mentioned but pushes on with his trip regardless. On his long coach ride to the mysterious destination he rescues a nubile young female and her servant from travelling marauders and together they all continue their journey through the forest. Passing through morbidly decorated woodland their coach driver is brought to his own demise, bringing about an awareness of ubiquitous death in the air. Arriving at the castle nonetheless it soon becomes apparent that the corpse-like keeper of the place is working towards the resurrection of the count who was horrifically executed so long ago, and the guests at the castle are just the materials he needs to conclude his experiments with immortality.

Masquerading in parts (including YouTube) under the rather misleading title of The Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism (boasting even more misleading poster art!) this Euro chiller from the sixties is much more appealing under its Castle of the Walking Dead moniker, however the German title (Die Schlangengrube und Das Pendel) more so reflects the opening credit nod towards Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, probable influence being derived from the moderate success of Roger Corman’s Poe cycle of the period. The story itself was of course already adapted effectively by Corman at the beginning of the same decade with Barbara Steele and Vincent Price in lead roles, and a respectable job it was in terms of cinema at least. Here the Germans brought their own interpretation of proceedings and whilst there are elements that couldn’t be considered entirely original even back then, certain sequences have been realised imaginatively to produce unique imagery: the prime example of this is the prolonged coach ride through the woods, with corpses hanging from the trees amidst an artistically lit environment - quite exquisite in a ghoulish sort of way. Christopher Lee appears on screen for fairly short periods, playing Count Regula (errr, okay), the man who is executed and later brought back to life in an attempt to grasp at immortality. His presence is striking as usual, made more impressive by deathly make-up and an omnipresent expression of sombreness. The characters spend most of the last half of the story occupying the castle of Roger’s (Lex Barker) destination, and a glorious Gothic delight it is; full of traps, dark passages, walls made of skulls, and inhospitable rooms, it’s the sort of place I’d love to explore. Also standing in the movie’s favour is an aesthetically pleasant approach to cinematography generally (marred by occasionally clumsy editing), giving birth to some striking landscape shots as well as accentuating the claustrophobic interiors. Finally we have the Kraut contribution to the Euro babe: Karin Dor! Wow, I wish she had been a bit more widely used in these kinds of Gothic chillers: a voluptuous, elegant, and effortlessly beautiful scream queen that grants bonus points to the film’s visual appeal. The film is a little let down by its old fashioned English dubbing (though Lee definitely provides his own voice), and a slowly paced final act (in fact, the whole outing is quite leisurely), however there is plenty to recommend it to the fan of European macabre cinema.

This is one of those films that has never been treated particularly respectfully on home video, with transfers ranging from fullscreen to widescreen with generally lacklustre picture quality and often footage missing. Presumably it’s a so-called ‘public domain’ title as I watched it in its entirety on YouTube and whilst I’m not in favour of free downloading of movies (even though in this case it was legal!) it does give the serious collector the opportunity to specimen titles which might ordinarily be avoided. In my case I’d been looking forward to watching this film ever since reading about it in the monolithic Aurum Horror Encyclopaedia so many years ago, and it didn’t let me down. I’d certainly like to buy a restored version of the movie should it ever appear, though it does seem unlikely given its present status. At least the presentation online was 1.66:1, with picture quality approximating something between VHS and DVD, with audio clear enough. If you’re interested in a DVD it has been made available stateside from low-end labels such as KEF Films and Thrill Kill, whilst Image Entertainment once put out their own disc. There has been a UK release in the last few months but my expectations aren't high.  Finally, there was a German release under the aforementioned title ‘Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel’, which is reportedly a reasonable edition.  I’m personally waiting - probably in vain - for a worthwhile restoration.

Nekromantik

1987, Germany, Directed by Jorg Buttgereit

Colour, Running Time: 75 minutes

Review Source: DVD, R1, Barrel; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

Amassing a notable degree of underground notoriety in the late eighties, Nekromantik was/is a film that refused to hold back in any sense, whether referring to its onscreen depiction of visceral gruesomeness, its rarely explored concept, or the downright bleakness of the story at hand. Rob is a bit of a loser who can’t hold down a job - somehow he just doesn’t fit in with the average group of people, of which there are surreptitious reasons for. His current role as ‘street cleaner’ involves removal from site of dead bodies after various unexpected incidents such as car accidents, suicides, accidental murders, etc. What his workmates don’t know is that he thieves bits of bodies (e.g. internal organs) whenever he sees the opportunity, taking them home to store in jars of formaldehyde. Surprisingly, he’s not a loner - his live-in girlfriend shares the same morbid passion. And this passion is granted vivid manifestation when he manages to get a complete corpse back to the apartment - the couple proceed to make sickening love to each other and the putrescent mess that lies on the bed. But his antisocial nature at work soon gets him an instant dismissal, causing his girlfriend some stress at the fact that he won’t now be able to obtain fresh cadavers and the like - she swiftly departs taking the rotting body with her. Rob’s mind descends into a turmoil and his life spirals further out of the grasp of whatever control he ever even had.

This film is something that you view very differently as you age, with opinion shifting between perversely screwed up entertainment to feeling downright depressed at the atrocities on sight and in mind. The infamous corpse-fu**ing sequence is shot with various optical effects obscuring the activity somewhat but there is enough there to render it pretty horrific (if one must be a necrophiliac then surely it would be more pleasant to get hold of a body that wasn’t rotting down to the bone!), and as it remains hung on the wall between bouts of ‘love’ making its dirty fluid drips into bowls beneath - with that and the jars of internal organs, etc, littering the shelves, the place must reek to Hell. Rob’s slide further into existential instability is accompanied and symbolised by interspersions of animal violence (the virtually unwatchable slaughter and skinning of a rabbit) and dreams where two lovers run through a field in slow motion tossing intestines to one another. All of this is accompanied with some of the most downbeat and devastating acoustic music ever heard on film: this stuff brings you spiritually to your knees. Rob’s destruction of the cat he buys to appease his girlfriend (thankfully the death not actually visible in this instance) is enough to break your soul. The eventual and inevitable resolution of his predicament of lost love is something you’ll never have seen in cinema before, and you’ll hope never to see again. The message seems to be that Life is stripped down to its primordial essentials and there is no God in the universe and no saviour from our journey to death and the decomposing shambles we are doomed to become afterwards. Admittedly amateurish in places, Nekromantik is nevertheless not a film any sensitive person is likely to enjoy, but it does elevate itself to the level of the unforgettable with its sheer audacity, visceral intensity, guts (no pun intended), and utterly bleak nihilism.

Barrel’s DVD was released around 2001 and remains the sole disc worth picking up, though it’s long out of print. Presenting the fullframe version of the film about as well as possible on home video (it was shot on Super 8 so I doubt even Blu-ray could do any better with this primitive material) the image is as clear as it needs to be, especially if, like me, you originally experienced this film on bootleg VHS tape in horrendous condition. There are also loads of extras present (including one of Buttgereit’s insane 8mm shorts) making this a true collector’s edition. Not a film for the masses, or even the majority of horror fans, but something that has stamped its dirty mark on humanity and, for better or worse, remains indelibly in the minds of all who have witnessed it.