I will never understand the need to remake classic films, even silent ones. If Hollywood needs to remake films, they should take a bad film like FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER and make something worthwhile out of it. I have heard it said Herzog tried to get a dreamlike quality into his remake. The only dreamlike quality I got was the urge to fall asleep...and I was wide awake when I went to see it in the theatre. There is no pacing to the film, and the fact that a sequence showing a boat wander into the harbor lasted a full 6 minutes shows the film needed a good job of editing! NOSFERATU was a waste of film that should have been used to create something more worthwhile. If you want to see a credible attempt to make a superior version of DRACULA may I recommend the Philip Saville directed-Gerald Savory-scripted BBC version of COUNT DRACULA starring Louis Jourdan which was shown on PBS in the US, and not the edited version. Now there was someone who understood Stroker's DRACULA. It has a few flaws (shot on tape instead of film and Jourdan was not the best choice to play Dracula...I would have preferred Max Von Sydow made up to look like Stoker's description of the Count), but was the best attempt I have seen yet to do the book justice.
Review of Nosferatu the Vampyre
