Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, released in English as Nosferatu the Vampyre, is a 1979 gothic horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula, with Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker and Roland Topor as Renfield. The film is both a remake of F. W. Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu (1922) and a return to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but Herzog gives the story a more mournful and existential tone. His Dracula is not only a figure of evil, but also a lonely, plague-bearing creature trapped in immortality. The result is one of the most atmospheric vampire films of the 1970s, built around stillness, disease, obsession and a deep sense of decay.

The film was shot across several countries, using locations in the Netherlands, Germany, what was then Czechoslovakia, Slovakia and Mexico to create its strange version of Wismar and Transylvania. Because Herzog could not film in the real Wismar in East Germany, Delft and Schiedam in the Netherlands were used for many of the town and harbour scenes, giving the film its canals, old façades and northern-European civic atmosphere. Lübeck also appears through its historic salt storehouses, which echo the original 1922 Nosferatu and serve as the property Dracula acquires in Wismar. Jonathan Harker’s journey toward Transylvania used the Partnach Gorge near Garmisch-Partenkirchen and mountain landscapes in the High Tatras, while Pernštejn Castle in Moravia provided the interiors of Dracula’s castle. The opening images of mummified corpses were filmed at the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato, Mexico, adding a disturbing documentary-like note before the story has even begun. Together, these locations make the film feel displaced and dreamlike: a German story partly built from Dutch streets, Czech castle interiors, Slovak mountains, Bavarian ravines and Mexican death imagery.

Locations

Pernštejn Castle

Pernštejn • Czech Republic • Castle

Pernštejn Castle has been used in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, Nosferatu, Van Helsing, Journey to the Christmas Star, Borgia and Wanted.