NOSFERATU (or Dracula) movies or films inspired by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel “Dracula.”

<>“Nosferatu” (2024, Amazon Prime), written and directed by Robert Eggers. Production design is haunting, photography is disturbingly sinister, sound editing kneads your spine. And, of course, Nicholas Hoult (as Thomas Hutter) expectedly delivers and Lily-Rose Depp (as Ellen Hutter) is a revelation. 

       Meanwhile, with the prosthetics or masks, it is hard to rate the performance of Bill Skarsgård's titular Count Orlok but Simon McBurney (as Herr Knock otherwise known as Renfield) is chillingly hilarious although a bit exaggerated, I think. But Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Arthur Holmwood) is miscast.

       Take note that Nosferatu/Count Dracula, Jonathan Harker and Lucy Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, Lucy Westenra, Renfield, John Seward, Arthur Holmwood etcetera assumed different names in this version. 🎥👍📽

<>“Nosferatu The Vampyre” (1979, Tubi), directed and written by Werner Herzog. A remake of the 1922 film “Nosferatu” by F.W. Murnau. Klaus Kinski is Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani is Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz is Jonathan Harker, and French artist-writer Roland Topor is Renfield. 

       Mr Herzog’s film is set in 19th-century Wismar, Germany, and Transylvania. The eerie grey/black photography and macabre production design (ah so many rats!) feels very true to the book's terrifyingly gothic vibe, as I imagined the novel the first time I read it. 

       There are two different versions of the film, one in which the actors speak English, and one in which they speak German. (So don't pay too much attention to the performers’ lips as they speak.) 🎥👍📽

<>Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” (1922, Tubi), directed by F.W. Murnau, screenplay by Henrik Galeen. The original silent German Expressionist version. Max Schreck as Count Orlok is definitely scary sans the talky, pretty much a pantomime.

       Film historian David Kalat states in his commentary track that since the film was "a low-budget film made by Germans for German audiences, setting it in Germany with German-named characters makes the story more tangible and immediate for German-speaking viewers.” I don't really mind.  

       Meanwhile, Mr Stoker's widow sued over the adaptation's copyright violation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. Still, this film is an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre, a template for the genre of horror film. 🎥👍📽