Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

Wikipida describes the Werner Herzog directed Nosferatu the Vampyre as a West German art house vampire horror film, and there can't be many of those. In truth this film is basically a remake of the better known 1922 silent German expressionist classic Nosferatu, which itself was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stokers novel Dracula. This film takes some visual cues from the original, particularly in the look of Nosferatu, here played by Herzogs best fiend Klaus Kinski. It also largely follows the plot of the original film but I think the ending is a bit different, though is been around five years since I saw that movie so I could be misremembering. Part of me wonders why Herzog chose to remake a film already so well known and innovative, but the picture works well as mood piece, and particularly the sequences near the end, as the town is overrun by rats and descends into plague, is a great example of the directors stylized fatalism. The title sequence of the film, which features the actual mummified corpses of the victims of an 1833 cholera epidemic is also very Herzogian.  If your looking for something both familiar and odd to watch this Halloween I'd recommend it. ***1/2