Nosferatu in Venice

Nosferatu in Venice (Nosferatu a Venezia) (1988)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: Multiple people, as I explain below

Starring: Real-life villain Klaus Kinski, Donald Pleasence, Christopher Plummer, several attractive European women

From: Scena Film/Reteitalia

A review done by request… made last year. When I reviewed 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, more than one mutual wanted me to see its pseudo-sequel. Once you hear the details of its disastrous production and real-life villain Klaus Kinski’s behavior which included alleged sexual assaults… my hesitancy in viewing such a movie is hopefully palpable for the reader. Note that these assaults bear no impact on my rating.

As there was no good reason to turn down a request made by multiple people, the stake was finally driven into its heart, metaphorically speaking. Nosferatu devastated the city w/ a plague in 1786; a princess (who of course is a spitting image of the title character’s lost-lost love) invites professor Christopher Plummer to the city as she feels his tomb is nearby. It is-the infernal beast is awakened after a séance, carnage happens, etc.

The movie itself is an absolute mess. After reading about the production hell on Wikipedia, it should be a blessing that I found what was on screen to be “bad” instead of “catastrophe.” This had several directors:

Maurizio Lucidi
Pasquale Squitieri
Mario Caiano
The producer of the film, Augusto Caminito
Kinski himself

Furthermore, I was amused to hear that low-budget cult hero Luigi Cozzi was a second-unit director. I was not amused reading about Kinski’s behavior on set. He was relatively well-behaved while filming Nosferatu the Vampyre… not here. He didn’t shave his head or apply the makeup he were in the ’79 film. He didn’t follow the script and just did whatever he wanted to. He convinced the producers to fire the original actress for the Maria character (Amanda Sandrelli) and instead he wanted the girlfriend of supporting actor Yorgos Voyagis in the role-that’s why it was the only time Anne Knecht ever acted. She appears nude and makes out with Ol’ Klaus. I can only imagine how Voyagis felt about that.

Then, there was his assaulting both female lead Barbara De Rossi and supporting actress Elvire Audray; those details are too nauseating to mention-I can bring up that part of these attacks ARE ON CAMERA. Yes, they put it IN THE MOVIE. Whether or not I (or anyone else, for that matter) should automatically rate the film at ½ star or a star for this can be debated. I found the movie to be bad for other reasons.

Due to the production hell, at least part of the script was not filmed. No wonder the movie makes little sense, there’s plenty of Kinski just wandering around (for certain, I’ve heard those were the scenes directed by Klaus himself), the film is both ponderous & boring, and Plummer’s character just comes across as an incompetent blockhead. Even better, the title creature is a “vampire” that among other things can walk around in daylight and can see its reflection in a mirror. If it was just an evil being, that wouldn’t make the picture any better, mind you.

I’m glad others enjoy the film more than me. There is nice cinematography, and sometimes “Gothic dread,” to borrow a phrase from a mutual. Furthermore, the Luigi Ceccarelli is nice-until I learned that it was a rather blatant rip-off of the 1985 Vangelis album Mask, explaining the ending credit that the score was “inspired” by the album. Why not add more chaos into the maelstrom that was the making then release of Nosferatu in Venice? Donald Pleasence is also in the film; he doesn’t actually do much aside from yelling often and… snacking on food. No, really.

No hate on those that do rate Venice higher (or quite a bit higher) than me. Those that would want to view this in the future, it’s a personal decision if the star and their abhorrent behavior on set is a deal-breaker for you. It wasn’t a deal-breaker for producer Augusto Caminito; he worked with Kinski on the last two movies of his life before passing away in ’91, if you can believe it.