(Streamed via Tubi)
Professor Catalano (Christopher Plummer) is an expert on vampirism who arrives in Venice looking for Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski). It is his theory that the old bloodsucker, though he causes death and despair everywhere he goes, is secretly wishing to die himself. It’s then up to the professor to make sure he gets his wish.
Vampires in Venice is a sequel to Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu remake with Klaus Kinski. You might not catch that (even if you see it under the title of Nosferatu in Venice) since Kinski refused to wear the elaborate iconic Nosferatu make-up this time out. He also apparently fired a lot of people (which resulted in him directing part of the picture) and assaulted a few more behind the scenes.
The presence of Plummer and Donald Pleasence help lend some much-needed class to the proceedings. So much class that the film often meanders whenever they are not on screen. At least it’s able to skate by virtually on Kinski’s oddball performance alone. Even without the make-up (he still wears a set of big ass fangs), Kinski looks creepy, and he exudes a tortured state of existential weariness when saying ponderous dialogue like, “What is time in a life that never ends?”
Despite the offscreen struggles, what occurs on screen is at least consistent visually as the film is often moody and dreamlike. While Herzog’s version looked great, it was slow and kind of dull. The same can be said for this one, but at least it achieves a sense of otherworldly weirdness that makes it watchable. (The gondola shots of the fog-shrouded Venice are quite atmospheric.)
Unfortunately, “moody and dreamlike” also translates into fitfully frustrating and wildly uneven. The third act is increasingly challenging to get through as it seems like this stretch of the film suffered the most from the backstage turmoil. It starts to make less and less sense as it lumbers towards its inane conclusion, but at least this portion features a generous helping of nudity and at least one big unintentional guffaw (the flying scene), which almost salvages it.
AKA: Nosferatu in Venice. AKA: Vampire in Venice. AKA: Prince of the Night.
No comments:
Post a Comment