Nosferatu – The Real Story – review

Director: Robin Bextor

Release date: 2024

Contains spoilers

Created, clearly, to cash in on Egger’s soon to be released version of Nosferatu, I have to say that I’d rather have a documentary than a production company like Asylum butchering the character in a low budget film (though that could well happen too). There are a couple of quibbles with this documentary but not too much, if I’m honest. So long as you bear in mind that this was not written and produced for the well-read student of Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens and is more an entry level experience.

opening shot

The first irk happened straight away. We get ariel shots of Orava Castle, where the original film was captured. Black and White they are titled as being July 1921. The B&W is too crisp (despite postproduction age lines) and the shots clearly captured by drone. It felt like they were trying to make out that the footage was authentically dated. There is nothing wrong with capturing the castle, such a fabulous location, but wording that made it clear this simulates the time would have worked better (and it's only a small quibble).

Albin Grau 

The film then explores Prana Films, Albin Grau and F W Murnau, the influence of Aleister Crowley, the copywrite issues, and so on. The documentary also looked at Nosferatu the Vampyre the Werner Herzog vehicle. This was quibble number two as the documentary narration (by Ashley Innsdale) suggested it was a sequel – however the talking heads were clear on its provenance as a remake. The talking heads were really good, not too many and knowledgeable on the subject. It did seem strange that the documentary didn’t at least touch on Herzog’s film getting a sequel of sorts in the form of Vampire in Venice.

Stacey Abbott

Other remakes were not touched on, understandably, other than Egger’s and the documentary had little to go on regarding that, other than the trailer. Therefore do not expect any revelations about the new Egger’s vehicle from this particular documentary. Overall this was, as suggested, good entry level Nosferatu studies material. There can, and have, been whole volumes written about the aspects it touched on but such detail would become a barrier for the more casual viewer. 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon UK