Nosferatu vs. Father Pipecock & Sister Funk – review

Directors: Tony Watt & Vivita (& F W Murnau)

Release date: 2014

Contains spoilers

The last time I reviewed a Tony Watt film it was Acid Head: The Buzzard Nuts County Slaughter, which was an original project that had the distinction of running headlong into the #2 position in my Worst 100. No mean feat.

Nosferatu vs. Father Pipecock & Sister Funk differed from this as it is a recut of Nosferatu eine Symphonie des Grauens that adds sound, both foley and dialogue, as well as adding in several bats, overlays of half-naked/naked women, new scenes/characters and colour moments.

poor print

So lets start with the original footage that was worked with. Blooming awful. It really was one of the worst prints of Nosferatu I’ve seen. I know that (rightly) the Kino Remastered print would not have been available to use but there are much nicer prints than this floating around. Then there was the impact of cutting stills in repeatedly. For example, and early on, as Hutter speaks to Bulwer on the street the spoken dialogue added was obviously longer than the original scene and so a still of the bell tower is interjected to stretch the time out, not once but randomly multiple times; it didn't fit and it almost feels like a strobe.

dancer imposed over original

So, the dialogue sometimes follows the original but more often veers off-piste, for instance Knock tells Hutter about the loose women at Orlok’s castle, there is a dancer at the inn (mentioned by the innkeeper and imposed over the scene) and when Orlok arrives in Bremen he and Ellen get it on (a part of me wants to avoid being a snob at the disrespect to the original… but only because being a snob feels embarrassing and overall, godammit, being a snob over this is absolutely the right thing to do).

blood at mouth

The foley work isn’t great and there is an over-reliance on fart gags (in fact just one fart gag would have been one too many). Then there is Father Pipecock… Played by Tony Watt it is an exercise in blackface and clearly a thing for Watts as he did the same in Acid Head. It wasn’t right then, it isn’t in this, it is racist (compounded by a fried chicken joke) and can’t be supported, applauded or defended. The sexploitative aspects are poorly done too but I can’t get past the racism. If I give this 1 out of 10 it is because it sits on the solid foundation of the original film and, as much as you disrespect and butcher it, the genius of Murnau still strives to show itself.

The imdb page is here.