In 1979, three films based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula were released: John Badham’s Dracula, starring Frank Langella and adapted from the stage play; Stan Dragoti’s Love at First Bite, a comedy that drops the Count (George Hamilton) in modern-day New York City; and German director Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, featuring Klaus Kinski in a remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 masterwork, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.
Herzog’s film shot both a German and English cut, with the latter arriving in America 45 years ago this week. While initially the least successful of the three (the box office winner was the crude and now almost forgotten Love at First Bite), it has lingered in the consciousness of horror fans and cineastes thanks to Herzog’s reputation as an iconoclastic director, its audacious spin on already-legendary material, and the eerie power of its imagery and its star’s performance.
