If you know me a little, then you’d know that I’m a big fan of director Werner Herzog. Watching how he would interpret the original 1922 movie was something I didn’t hesitate to do. Especially since he worked with his muse Klaus Kinski, who crawls into the skin of count Orlok.
The movie closely follows the original. The story about the real estate agent who travels to count Orlok’s castle and on his way hears about the scary things happening there, experiences a lot and eventually has to travel back to save his life have been brought to life in typical Herzog style. He opens the movie with the frightening mummified corpses which were found in South America. It immediately sets the tone. The village the real estate lives in, Wisborg, is brought to life by shooting in the Dutch cities Delft and Schiedam. Even a famous Dutch actor Rijk de Gooyer has a small cameo and I liked that small Dutch touch the movie had. It inspired me to start writing about dutch movie locations which I’ll probably publish later this year.
This movie is part of The Werner Collection boxset I own and I was surprised to find it held two versions, on separate DVDs. After checking what the differences were I found out that in order to make the movie, Herzog had to make a German and an international (English) version. I didn’t watch them both, but of the German version is supposedly better. After having watched the 1922 version I was able to compare it to Herzog’s version. Once in a while he’ll add some shots of landscapes, but it was easy to see how he interpreted each scene from the original. Kinski might not be as frightening, but despite that he is still fantastic and threatening as a vampire. The imagery of white rats slowly spreading across the town and the coffins being carried through the streets are something you’ll remember. It’s hard to pick a favorite between the original and this version because they both have their strengths and weak points. But you should have seen them both at least once.
