Nosferatu the Vampyre (15) |Home Ents Review

A ravishing 4K remaster of the beguiling dark fantasy which is seriously disrupted by performances that remind you of Murnau’s iconic 1922 version. The more this film reminds you of that film, the worse this one gets.

Jonathan Harker (Ganz) lives with his beautiful wife, Lucy (Adjani), in the idyllic town of Wismar (Delft in the Netherlands looking very atmospheric indeed). He is assigned by his boss Renfield (Topor) to travel deep into the Carpathian Mountains to sign a property deal with the strange, sickly, Count Dracula (Kinski). The journey is long, atmospheric and filled with ill omen – due to Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein’s exquisite cinematography and moody music from Florian Fricke’s outfit Popol Vuh. Eventually, Harker will attempt to follow Dracula back to Wismar, where the plague-ridden count has taken a liking to toothsome Lucy. 

There is so much to like in this version of Nosferatu and it looks better than ever in this 4K remaster. The colours and smeared, dreamy lensing are beautiful. Ganz and Adjani root the narrative well, acting in very different ways (him stolid, her bewitched); Ganz in particular – his eventual ‘incapacitation’ comes as a bit of a shock. The pacing is spot on too, with the long intro before the count’s entrance developing Herzog’s big idea about the dangerous hangover from German Romanticism very nicely.  

However, this remaster calls attention to the physicality of Kinski’s performance and not in a good way. There is something jarring about him rushing around the streets of Wismar. He just looks like a bloke dressed up funny, running around. The dreamlike state of the film is dispelled. 

This affect is increased when the film recreates famous shots from the Murnau version with a colour and clarity that takes all the spookiness out of them. Another jarring aspect is that, in the third act, Kinski and Adjani both start to imitate the highly gestural acting of silent cinema, which clashes with the subdued, mesmerised state of the rest of the film. 

The effect is devastating: as the climax of the film approaches, it flips over into a kind of pastiche of the horror genre. By the time we get to a ‘dance of death’ in the town square, the film has completely lost the powerful atmosphere it had. 

Special features include: 

• Audio commentary with Werner Herzog and critic Norman Hill
• Additional German-language audio commentary with Werner Herzog and filmmaker Laurens Straub, with English subtitles
• Contracting Vampirism: A Copyright History of Nosferatu (2025, 15 mins): a new video essay by filmmaker and photographer Nic Wassell
• Making of Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, 13 mins): Herzog discusses the film and his philosophy of filmmaking alongside behind-the-scenes footage of the cast and crew

The UHD version is fully remastered 4K (2160p) UHD; the Blu-ray is a fully remastered presentation in High Definition. 

Nosferatu the Vampyre is out on BFI UHD and Blu-ray, Apple TV and Amazon Prime on 22 September 2025.