Making a good Dracula film now is generally about variation on a theme, but here we have a director remaking, sometimes scene-by-scene, the original (Nosfertau, by Murnau).
No-one suffers more exquisitely than Isabelle Adjani, done up here as a Pre-Raphaelite stunner attracting the repugnant attentions of Klaus Kinski as quite the most loathsome Dracula ever. Werner Herzog’s magnificent-looking remake of Murnau’s silent classic is relentlessly creepy and hypnotic as the Transylvanian fiend spreads corruption and pestilence, creating a permeating atmosphere of evil rather than outright shock horror thrills. Images of the plague-devastated town are particularly memorable, but it has to be said that the stilted dialogue drags the production down.
