After seeing so many of my friends flex their movie lists from 2023, I felt like it was finally time to start making a real effort in going through my list of shame. While I don’t think quantity is a good metric for studying film, I do believe that I can manage watching and studying at least one film every weekend. Obviously this isn’t for class credit or anything, so I’m giving myself permission to skip or double up at my own discretion; a movie-a-week is more like a guideline than anything else.
This particular film was a pretty rough start for this project, we’ll see if I can keep the momentum into the rest of the month after a movie like this. Werner Herzog writes, directs, and produces the 1979 re-interpretation of the Bram Stoker classic, and it is far from his best work. I truly struggled to understand who this film was made for and for what purpose. Awful performances that range from completely wooden to absurdly manic, incomprehensible character motivations, and a surrealist aesthetic that does absolutely nothing to improve on the source material.
I wish I knew what his intended audience for this story was, since those familiar with traditional vampire lore would find Klaus Kinski’s portrayal of Dracula to be cartoonish, and those who aren’t would be left confused. If we’re going in with the assumption that this is someone’s first vampire story, wouldn’t it be better to slowly unravel the mystery of the bites and Dracula’s nature up until the climax? And if we’re going in with the assumption that everyone should be versed in the tropes of this infamous monster, what is the point of playing coy with the mystery of the Count? The entire project feels like an excuse for Kinski to dress up in his Nosferatu costume and twirl his proverbial mustache at every opportunity.
The rest of the cast doesn’t do much better, to be honest. Although the stiff dialogue could certainly be a result of the English overdub, that doesn’t excuse the flat blocking or the ridiculous mannerisms the supporting characters almost all seem to have. I am reminded of a classic aphorism that good characters can save a bad film, but you cannot have a good film with bad characters.
Perhaps I expect too much from this style of film from its time in history. But I don’t believe that building relatable characters and emotional investment in stories is such a modern innovation that it couldn’t have been used here. This was one of the few instances of me just waiting for the credits to roll, slogging through the remaining runtime for this awful thing to be finally over. Maybe that’s the message in the medium that Herzog was trying to convey, the slow and interminable existence as a vampire, longing for a death that never seems to arrive until the first light of dawn. If that’s the case, then mission accomplished, I could absolutely welcome a stake through the heart at this point. 3/10 for this slogging mess, film snobs and gatekeepers will tell me I’m wrong.
Fight Film Friday 