Nosferatu in Venedig (1988)

Nosferatu in Venedig: Directed by Augusto Caminito, Klaus Kinski, Maurizio Lucidi, Luigi Cozzi. With Klaus Kinski, Barbara De Rossi, Yorgo Voyagis, Anne Knecht. Professor Paris Catalano visits Venice, to investigate the last known appearance of the famous vampire Nosferatu during the carnival of 1786.

“This has it all. Klaus Kinski playing Nosferatu. A perfect match of this tortured magnetic egotistical actor who had imaginings of being something far greater: he toured for a time proclaiming himself as Jesus; albeit a rather more angry and vituperate Jesus. Kinski had played the role before in A Herzog film. So the experience alone should assure success. This Nosferatu is more glamorous and set in a decayed cosmopolitan Venice. For the audience a clue that things were going to go seriously wrong as they sat in the cinema was the appearance of more than one director. This always heralds serious problems in production. It starts promisingly a Gypsy camp summons up Nosferatu as their benefactor. Then he is off to Venice to avenge the royal family that have tried to destroy him. Here the narrative starts going awry and long periods of soft focus camera panning accompanied by string quartets show th holes left in the scripts due to arguments. The film tries to find its focus again by giving Nosferatu a love interest in the shapely black actress Maria. But its too late and too little point. Assuming that the intention is to see Nosferatus demise, the audience would already be asleep to see the interesting climax, which I am not going to reveal. You have to track it down and stay awake to the end”