"I don't know where I'm taking you."

Hooptober 5.0 #12 (fulfills country requirement)

My biggest problem with most versions of Dracula, going right back to the novel, is that they tend to insist the death of the vampire will fix everyone and everything that's been changed and corrupted. For a story that reveals so much about the Victorian subconscious in all its misogyny, xenophobia, and deep, deep fear of sex, it's a little disappointing to see order and purity fully restored as soon as one old impaler gets impaled himself, with no lasting consequences aside from one or two deaths by noble sacrifice here and there. I can still enjoy the story on its own terms as a florid, over-the-top fantasy, but I can't quite buy the reassuring victory over all evil. For horror to really unsettle me the way I want it to, restoring the beloved status quo can't be made that easy.

So without spoiling anything, let me just say: Werner, you get me. I've seen the original Nosferatu a couple times, probably not within the last twelve years or so, and I remember it just well enough to love how Herzog reimagines Murnau's vision and seems to have a conversation with him about this story and its themes. For example, I know that Nosferatu '22 also included a major infestation of plague rats, but I don't remember it ever getting this horrifically detailed about the mass deaths and total breakdown of the social order that Orlock/Dracula brings with him to modern civilization. It gets under the skin in a real way, how the people of the city just get used to having rats and coffins everywhere, with fatalistic acceptance and even celebratory dancing. And, most heavily, complete apathy and even hostility toward any hint of a solution to the problem. It is so scary how quickly we can learn to normalize anything and even welcome our takeover by rats, isn't it? But back to the movie.

I haven't even mentioned Isabelle Adjani as Lucy. She's truly heroic in ways that the women of Dracula often are not. In showing the horror and potential hopelessness of her sacrifice, it's possible that Herzog actually improves on Murnau ever so slightly. There's no passivity in her decisionmaking: she's the one with the power, and the way she decides to use it, and why, is poignant.

Everything about this is so beautiful and haunting in ways that are both informed by and very much distinct from the original. And to end it there? Just, damn. Like I said, horror's best depictions of corruption do not fully reassure us that we can prevail. Herzog, of course, totally understands this.