Movies That Suck/Vampire Flicks: Nosferatu in Venice (Vampire in Venice) (1988)

This is the second movie I've reviewed on here, after Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, where my initial knowledge of it stems from The Amazing, Colossal Book of Horror Trivia. What's especially hilarious is that the bit of trivia pertaining to it was a question on its very existence. The first chapter in the book, titled Dracula and Other Vampires, starts off right away with a quiz on the original Nosferatu but also includes some questions on the 1979 movie, the last of which is, "TRUE OR FALSE: There is a sequel to the 1979 version titled Nosferatu in Venice." I can remember reading that back when I first bought the book in middle school and thought, "That has to be false." Imagine my surprise, then, when it turned out to be true. And what's even funnier is that I completely forgot about it afterward and, up until late 2021, when I was putting this list of films together, still hadn't remembered it. Then I was talking to my friend Newt about this year's theme and I mentioned the 1979 Nosferatu, he brought up Nosferatu in Venice, which, at first, took me aback, especially when he told me it once again featured Klaus Kinski in the role. But as I looked into it and thought about it more and more, I suddenly remembered that trivia question and thought it was funny how this movie is apparently so obscure that I did know of it at one point and then, forgot about it. That's about the only fun I got out of this thing, as I wish I'd stayed ignorant of it. But just like with Who Can Kill A Child? and Come Out and Play, I figured, "Well, if I'm going to do one, I might as well do the other." So, as with those two reviews, and Vampegeddon, this one is thanks, in part, to Newt. My friend, thank you for supplying me with so much material, and also for giving me your address so I can, one day, "thank" you in person.

I have now watched this movie three times in preparation for this, which is not any different than how I normally do things. What does make it different, though, is that I've rarely had so much trouble staying awake while watching a movie. I first watched it not long after I saw Nosferatu the Vampyre for the first time, but kept dozing off because it was late at night, I was tired, and the movie wasn't doing a good job at keeping me engaged. I avoided watching it again for months until I had no choice and then, watched it for the second time over the Fourth of July weekend. And, guess what happened? I dozed off yet again! I knew I was in trouble then and that this movie was going to cause me a lot of pain but, damn it, I'm committed to my lists, so I decided to persevere. I watched it for a third time before I started writing, this time making sure to watch it during the day and on the Smartcast in the living room, instead of on my laptop while lying on a bed, which may have been part of the problem. My brain still attempted to shut off but I was able to stay cognizant enough to grasp more of the story than I ever could before. Not that it really matters, because there isn't much story to grasp in the first place. This movie is a colossal mess, with a confusing, hard-to-follow story, no characters worth caring about (which sucks, because there are some talented actors here who are totally wasted), some shitty music, and an ending that has no payoff at all. It's not surprising, though, when you read up on what a disastrous production it was from the start, with Kinski being so out of control and crazy that he went as far as to sexually assault two of the actors while filming, making some scenes especially hard to watch in retrospect. It does have really good cinematography and some okay instances of gore and visual effects, along with some bad ones, but on the whole, it's a major chore to sit through and represents the absolute worst in nonsensical Euro-horror.

Prof. Catalano, an expert on the subject of vampires, specifically the notorious one known as Nosferatu, arrives at the centuries-old home of the Canins family in Venice, having been summoned there by the princess, Helietta. The purpose of his visit has to do with Nosferatu himself, who was last seen there in 1786, during the Carnival, during which the plague spread throughout the city. After he meets the princess, she guides him down to her house's basement, opening a secret tomb which contains a single coffin with iron bands across the lid. She tells him of a legend about a vampire that was buried alive in the tomb and she believes it was Nosferatu. Catalano, however, isn't convinced and advises the princess not to open the coffin, as the results could be disastrous. Helietta decides to go about proving her theory another way, specifically in contacting a medium to summon Nosferatu directly. In the meantime, Catalano finds a portrait of Helietta's ancestor, Letizia, hidden in her mother's bedroom, and alludes to an intimate part she played in a horrific event that occurred in the house 200 years before. Though the older princess attempts to stop Catalano from revealing that truth to the rest of the family, when he confronts her about, she reluctantly gives him an old book written in Latin, which tells of the account: a priest attempted to drive Nosferatu out of the house after he'd fed on Letizia, only for the vampire to use his power to kill him and his companions in a grisly manner. Nosferatu then disappeared, as did Letizia, and Catalano warns that he will return to the house at some point. That's when, despite the warnings of the family priest, Father Don Alvise, they hold the seance. As a result, the vampire is awakened after lying dormant for 200 years and, learning of who summoned him from a gypsy fortuneteller, he returns to Venice, which is in the midst of another carnival. Now, he intends claim Helietta, while also roaming the streets of Venice to prey on new victims.

Maurizio Lucidi

The film was the work of Italian producer and screenwriter Augusto Caminito, although that wasn't the initial intention, nor is the end product even 100% his. Caminito, who'd been working in the film industry as a writer since the late 60's, began producing movies in the 80's, mainly comedies but also action-adventure movies, like The Mines of Kilimanjaro and The Kiss of the Cobra, and horror movies like Lucio Fulci's notorious Murder Rock. In the midst of this, the script for Nosferatu in Venice was brought to him by the screenwriter, Carlo Alberto Alfieri, who'd managed to get Klaus Kinski to agree to appear in it due to their having known each other for years. The director was initially meant to be Maurizio Lucidi, who'd directed 1966's Hercules the Avenger (which was mainly a bunch of stock footage from past movies pieced together), as well as a number of spaghetti westerns and giallo films. Lucidi began shooting before the script was finished, filming scenes of the actual Carnival of Venice in February of 1986, with principal photography set to begin in the summer. But, due to constant delays that resulted from Kinski's busy schedule, Alfieri's initial distributors pulled out and he then brought in Caminito. Caminito not only increased the budget but also agreed to produce a long-gestating passion project for Kinski: Paganini, which Kinski would ultimately star in and direct (I pity everybody who had the misfortune of working on that film). In addition, Caminito rewrote the script and decided to go with another director, replacing Lucidi with Pasquale Squitieri, known mainly for rather politically-charged films. But Squitieri decided he wanted to go with a futuristic concept, which Caminito felt would be far too expensive and which Kinski wasn't enthusiastic about. So he was out and Caminito next hired Mario Caiano, who'd directed the 1964 movie, Nightmare Castle, as well as a 1972 giallo, Eye in the Labyrinth. He'd also helped save The Mines of Kilimanjaro from becoming an unsalvageable mess and had worked with Kinski before. Not that the latter mattered as, on the first day of shooting, the two of them got into a nasty and physical argument and Caiano promptly left.

According to Caiano, Caminito had promised Kinski that he would direct the film; Caminito, however, said that, with Caiano gone, he decided to go ahead and direct the rest of the shooting for the day, thinking he'd find a new director the following day. However, the only one he could find, Giovanni Soldati, wanted three weeks to prepare, whereas Kinski's contract expired in three weeks. Thus, he had no choice but to direct the rest of the movie himself. It wasn't his first crack at it, as he'd directed a 1972 documentary, Maschi e femmine, but at the same time, he wasn't exactly a master filmmaker. To compensate, he often turned to Luigi Cozzi, who was a friend of Alfieri and worked on the film as a second unit director, for advice. However, there was little advice he could give him on how to deal with Kinski, and after six weeks of it, Caminito decided to just end shooting, even though there was still much of the script left to film. This, combined with his having re-written the script, which Cozzi has said dropped some significant scenes and characters, is why the film is such an incomprehensible mess. After this, he directed a revenge thriller, Grandi cacciatori (which also starred Kinski, as well as Harvey Keitel), but nothing else. He did, however, keep on producing and writing through the 90's and into the early 2000's. His last producing credit was 2014's Pasolini, directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Willem Dafoe as filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. He died in 2020, at the age of 81.

Let's be clear here: this is really a sequel in-name-only, with the sole connection to the Werner Herzog film being Klaus Kinski in a vampire role, now literally called "Nosferatu." What's especially baffling is that, while he himself may not have thought of or was even interested in doing a sequel, Herzog's film does end with the perfect setup for one. But, instead of continuing the story of the now vampiric Jonathan Harker, screenwriter Alfieri and Caminito were more interested in doing another vampire flick with Kinski. Moreover, Alfieri was so sure that its potential success lay with him that he made sure to secure him early on. Seriously, while people definitely knew him, was Kinski that much of a box-office draw by this point, in Europe or otherwise? In any case, I don't think the trouble of getting him and putting up with his craziness throughout filming was worth it. As opposed to his subtle and nuanced portrayal of Count Dracula in the Herzog film, Kinski spends most of his screentime here doing little more than stalking around Venice (there's a lot of that, shot by Kinski himself, as per his demands), menacing people, and murdering them. Upon being awakened by the seance, his Nosferatu rises from his final resting place near the Bay of Biscay, makes his way to a band of gypsies who worship him, and has a fortuneteller show him the one who summoned him. Though he initially thinks the image of Helietta Canins that appears in the crystal ball is that of Letizia, the woman he loved centuries ago, he heads back to Venice and begins stalking both the Canins family and their friends. He kills the elderly princess, stalks and seduces Helietta, attacks and turns a family friend into a vampire, and ultimately takes Helietta with him... that is, until her younger sister, Maria, who caught his attention when he first saw her, takes matters into her own hands.

Like Dracula in the Herzog film, it's stated that Nosferatu truly wants to die and end his cursed existence, but in this case, the only way that can happen is for a virgin woman to give herself over to him and love him unconditionally. Although he initially only seems interested in seducing and Helietta, given her having summoned him and her strong resemblance to Letizia, when Maria, wanting to save her sister's soul, attempts suicide in

order to catch Nosferatu's attention (why she thought that would work, I don't know, but she's lucky it did), he swoops in and saves her. He tells her that others can make use of her life and declares himself her master, before whisking her off to a villa on nearby island that was once a Lazaretto (a quarantine hospital) for victims of the plague. There, he tells her that he saved her so she could help him to die and she agrees to give him

death. While the husband of one of his victims storms the villa with two other men, Nosferatu and Maria have sex and, once it's over, he asks her to kill him. But then, both of them hesitate, with Maria not wanting him to leave her, while Nosferatu says he's suddenly afraid to die. This leads to Maria being severely injured during a failed attempt to shoot Nosferatu with a rifle. Enraged, Nosferatu kills his would-be assassin and then walks off with Maria's nude body in his arms. She asks him to turn her into a vampire but he's

reluctant to condemn her soul in the same manner as his. Ultimately, they just walk off into the morning mist and you never learn what became of either of them. Besides how poorly made and confusing the movie is, I don't buy this Nosferatu as a pitiful creature who has a bloodlust he can't control and wants release from eternal damnation due to Kinski's performance, which often comes off as just evil and savage, as opposed to his very sad and weary portrayal of Dracula. He also barely speaks, instead just giving off menacing looks and stares, and then suddenly, he's talking with Maria about how he wants to die, that he fears the night more than sunlight, etc., and it rings hollow.

While Werner Herzog added in a number of traditional vampire tropes in his version of Nosferatu, this film goes the opposite route and seems to ignore just about all of them. Nosferatu doesn't have to worry about being out in the daytime, crosses don't repel him at all, and as mentioned, the only thing that can truly kill him is legitimate love. That said, the would-be heroes in the climax do stake another vampire and it seems

to work. Also, when they open Letizia's coffin, they find that she was forced to drink mercury, which Catalano claims is the only natural element that can kill a vampire. But, not only do bullets not work on Nosferatu but, because he's a spectral creature, they tend to pass right through him and can hit someone on the other side, which is how Maria is shot near the end (akin to a scene in Son of Dracula). Like before, he's said to rest in cursed

earth, with Catalano adding, "He's lulled to sleep by the cries of the dead." That said, they don't make it clear if he was the cause of the plague that hit Venice in 1786 but I think we can safely assume he is. Also according Catalano, he only sleeps for 24 hours every 24 days. A bat does figure in one scene but, like before, Nosferatu himself never becomes one, although he is shown to be able to fly, in some form (I say that because I can't tell if it's supposed to be a spiritual projection sort of 

thing or if it's just a bad special effect), when he saves Maria from her supposed suicide. Also, he and other vampires are shown to have the ability to shapeshift, with one taking on his image to fool those who would try to stake him, while Nosferatu takes on the form of Helietta in order to lure one man to his doom. In addition to his traditional seductive abilities, he's also able to create powerful forces that can blast people back, which he uses to

blow a priest and some monks out a window and onto the spokes of an iron fence below, and he can also cause Catalano to burn his hands on the crucifix he attempts to force him back with. Unlike in both the original Nosferatu and the '79 version, his shadow has no significance or menacing air all its own, save for when it quickly glides across the side of a building as he stalks someone. Finally, his reflection seems to come and go. In one scene, he doesn't appear to have one, but then, as he looks at a mirror, his image does appear, although it remains transparent. It's probably meant to be symbolic but I honestly couldn't care less about what that symbolism is.

Before the seance, Catalano is asked how one becomes a vampire and it turns out there are numerous ways aside from simply being bitten, having all your blood drained away, and being cursed. Among the ways he lists off are being born the "illegitimate son[s] of illegitimate parents," the child of witches and warlocks, taking your own life, dying by hanging, dying of the plague, dying with blasphemous final breaths, dying as an unpunished murderer, and being a descendant of a vampire. Now you why there are so many vampire movies, because you don't even have to try to become one.

I can't say I was expecting a good movie when I went into Nosferatu in Venice, but what I was expecting was for Kinski to be in the same makeup as in the Herzog movie; instead, he looks like a vampiric Ludwig Van Beethoven, with that long, stringy hair, some of which runs down to the center of his back, and that 18th century outfit. He does have the rat-like fangs but only when he's in full on vampire mode and biting someone, and while he does have claws, they're not the long talons both he and Max Schreck had before. The reason for this different look is simple: Kinski didn't want to go through the makeup process again. He didn't care for it when he made the Herzog film but tolerated it, probably because he knew that was a prestigious film, he was inspired by the character, and also because he did things for Herzog that he wouldn't do for anyone else. But for a movie like this? Nope (which rendered footage of a stand-in shot before Kinski arrived useless). And unless they were suicidal, nobody was going to try to force Kinski into it.

Refusing the makeup was hardly the worst thing Kinski did during the making of the movie. There are, I'm sure, stories about his insane behavior on every single film and stage production he worked on but, even for him, the stuff he pulled during the filming of Nosferatu in Venice was absolutely appalling. First, there was him just being a difficult prima donna, where he wouldn't follow staging, forcing the cinematographer to completely redo his

set-ups; wouldn't do re-takes (he argued that you don't ask a car crash or a volcano eruption for multiple takes); and shot hours and hours of himself roaming around Venice when he was allowed to direct. But far worse were his full-on sexual assaults on his female co-stars. All three of them have sexually-charged scenes with Nosferatu, with two even being completely naked for extended periods, and Kinski, in the scene where

he seduces Helietta Canins, actually put his fingers in her vagina. Also, from what I've read, what you see in the scene as is, with Nosferatu ripping off Helietta's nightgown, putting his hand on her naked crotch, and squeezing and gnawing at her breasts, was not in the script. What's especially creepy is that Kinski had the original actor for Maria, who's completely naked for the rest of the movie after Nosferatu whisks her away, fired and replaced with the girlfriend of one of the other actors, no doubt

because he liked her body more. Skin crawling yet? If not, then this last bit of trivia will send it over the edge. In the scene where Nosferatu chases after the character of Uta Barneval and turns her into a vampire, Kinski actually attacked actor Elvire Audray. He slammed her to the ground, ripped her clothes, and actually bit into her vagina! And given how rough his attack on her is in the film, I wouldn't be surprised if some of that assault did make it in. When it was over, Audray is said to

have fled the set, crying her eyes out, while Kinski called her a bitch. All this makes both the actual attack and the lead-up to it, where he violently chases her and she screams for help, especially uncomfortable to watch, as you know he would've raped her right on-camera without caring at all.

Reading all this really makes me frustrated about how Kinski was never arrested for all the crap he did, which also includes having sexually assaulted at least one of his own children. It's probably the worst example of the film industry, Hollywood or otherwise, turning a blind eye to a prominent figure's bad behavior. Here's a guy who was well-documented as having been a complete lunatic, was an actual diagnosed psychopath, was known for just exploding and attacking people over the stupidest things, came close to killing people a number of times, was flat-out sexually assaulting people during filming of this movie, bragged about molesting and raping his own children, made no bones about the fact that he was attracted to teenage girls, and no one ever attempted to press charges against him because of his, unquestionable, acting talent. In fact, according to Luigi Cozzi, Carlo Alberto Alfieri had, years earlier, managed to have an assault charge against Kinski overturned, allowing him to continue making movies in Italy. That especially annoys me. Don't mean to get on a soapbox here, but I just hate it when people don't do anything about someone who's clearly dangerous for selfish reasons such as money and/or clout.

I don't know what it is about these Nosferatu films and their Van Helsing characters always proving to be totally ineffective, but what's especially egregious about it here is that they waste a great actor like Christopher Plummer in such a role. His Prof. Catalano arrives in Venice at the beginning, having been summoned by Princess Helietta Canins due to his being a prime expert on Nosferatu. Not only does he know of the Canins family's connection to the vampire but he's also aware that Nosferatu wishes for death himself. Arriving at the family's ancestral house, he meets with Helietta personally and ingratiates himself to the rest of the family and their friends, unintentionally amusing some of them with the subject of vampires and his study of them. Later, Helietta leads him down to the hidden tomb in the basement and shows him the coffin she believes is Nosferatu's resting place. Catalano, however, is sure she's mistaken, saying Nosferatu was shipwrecked in the Bay of Biscay, but he also advises against opening the coffin to prove it, saying the result would be, "So monstrous, that it would be beyond all imagination." In addition, he's aware that Helietta's mother is keeping something from him, as she took down a portrait of Letizia Canins before he arrived. He finds it hidden in her room, and when he sees it, he notices that Letizia is holding a book in her left hand. The old princess attacks him by whacking him over the head with her cane, but she's restrained by Don Alvise before she can do any more harm. Catalano implores her to tell him everything she knows and she gives him an old book that corresponds with the one in the painting. It details the disastrous attempt by an 18th century priest to dispel Nosferatu from the house after he'd bitten Letizia and, after reading it aloud to everyone, Catalano warns Helietta that, sooner or later, the vampire will return. Catalano is then present at the seance, which he warns everybody about the effects, though no one really listens to him. At first, he and the others are unaware of Nosferatu's resurrection as a result and his return to Venice, but the old princess' murder gives them all the proof they need. It's then that Catalano tells Helietta that only the love of a consenting young virgin can kill Nosferatu, and infers that her younger sister, Maria, may be the only one who can do it.

Throughout this first third of the movie, Catalano proves to be an effective enough, take charge kind of guy, one who also comes off as kind of cool, with the elegant, green cape he often wears, his knowledge of vampires, and his poised, elegant manner. But, as the movie goes on and Nosferatu claims more victims, be it when he seduces Helietta or makes Uta Barneval into a vampire, Catalano proves to be almost as ineffectual as Van

Helsing was in Nosferatu the Vampyre. Though he boldly declares he will not allow Nosferatu to take Helietta, when he finally confronts the vampire when he arrives to do so, Catalano fails miserably. He holds out a cross and attempts to drive him back with it, going on about how wretched a creature he is and powerless he is against God, only for Nosferatu to use his power to make the cross too hot for him to hold onto. He collapses to

the ground with burned hands, and Nosferatu and Helietta literally walk out the door together. Catalano then just gives up and is next seen packing his bags, completely despondent over his failure and giving Dr. Barneval hints as to where Nosferatu may be in a hand-waving, "whatever" kind of tone. Even when Don Alvise and Barneval come up with a possible hiding place that turns out to be correct, Catalano doesn't even consider joining the latter in his raid on it, intoning, "How

ironic. What a waste. To think that the end of one's life's work to discover... the arrogance of opposing evil in one's own way. It's perhaps contrary to the universal scheme... of God." He then leaves, with Alvise admonishing him for thinking he could be equal to God in fighting evil, and suddenly kills himself by jumping into the Grand Canal. At first, I found this decision of his to be so abrupt, hopeless, and cowardly that I was dumbfounded, but now I

realize that Catalano was apparently dying of some unspecified disease, which better explains his actions and mindset leading up to it. However, I only realized that was the case from other sources. He says several times that he expects to die soon but he was so vague about it that I just assumed he meant while fighting Nosferatu. Either way, it doesn't change that they gave Plummer a pretty thankless role in the end.

While it's never stated outright, you could assume that, because she looks just like her, Princess Helietta Canins (Barbara De Rossi) is the reincarnation of Letizia Canins, Nosferatu's 18th century love, which is why her mother hid Letizia's portrait from Catalano and why she's ultimately seduced by the vampire. Her ultimate fate is in stark contrast to the first half of the movie, where she summons Catalano to Venice to speak with him about her family's connection to Nosferatu. Believing that Nosferatu's resting place is a hidden tomb in her home's basement, given that there's an old legend about vampire having been buried alive down there, she tells Catalano that she wishes to open the tomb in order to free her family. But when Catalano tells her that wouldn't be a good idea, Helietta instead decides to use a medium to contact Nosferatu in order to prove her belief. Not only does this lead to Nosferatu awakening after being dormant for 200 years but, during the seance, Helietta appears to become possessed by Letizia and calls for him, eventually leading to his returning to Venice. After her mother is murdered, Helietta knows it was Nosferatu and Catalano tells her that only the love of a consenting virgin can truly kill him. They then open up the coffin in the tomb, revealing the body of Letizia, who'd been forced to drink mercury before being staked. Witnessing this genuinely horrifies Helietta, after which Dr. Barneval, whom she seems to be having an affair with, takes her to a carnival costume ball to try to cheer her up. There, she's stalked by Nosferatu, who uses a gypsy slave of his to distract the others while he follows Helietta out into the streets. Though she makes it home, he later appears to her in her bedroom and seduces her with his romantic words and sensual touches, to the point where she calls him her prince and lord. He bites the side of her face, marking her, and the next morning, she tells Catalano and Barneval what happened. Though the two of them try to prevent it, she willingly goes with Nosferatu when he comes with her, but she then disappears from the plot during the climax, save for when she awakens in her coffin after Uta is staked and Nosferatu uses her form to kill Barneval.

The third act is when Helietta's younger sister, Maria (Anne Knecht), takes over as the "protagonist" after having spent much of the first two acts as a minor character with very little dialogue. The most noteworthy thing she'd done up to this point is a sudden and inexplicable moment where she outs her boyfriend as a cheater by disguising herself as her own mother, talks with him as her, and when he denies any relationship with Maria, removing her disguise (trust me, it doesn't make any sense in context, either). Early on, Catalano alludes to Maria's significance when he tells Helietta of the consenting virgin who's needed to kill Nosferatu with love and glaces at her, much to Helietta's horror. After Nosferatu takes Helietta away, Maria, having seen the vampire's seduction of her sister, as well as having heard Catalano's words, jumps off a tower in order to get Nosferatu's attention, as he'd taken an interest in her before (like I said, she's lucky that worked at all). He grabs her in midair and takes her to his villa, where she agrees to help him die like he wants. But, apparently, during the time she spends with him in the lead-up to their having sex in order to put his life in her hands, Maria actually begins to empathize with and then fall for him, asking him not to leave her. This hesitation on both their parts leads to Maria getting severely wounded when Barneval attempts to shoot Nosferatu and the bullets go through him and hit her. At the end of the movie, Nosferatu walks off into the Venice mist while carrying the nude Maria in his arms. She asks him to make her into a vampire but he's reluctant to do so, as he doesn't want to damn her soul in the same manner as his. Both of their fates are left unknown.

Dr. Barneval (Yorgo Voyagis) and his wife, Uta (Elvire Audray), are introduced during the opening where they, along with Helietta and some others, are duck-hunting and he shoots a bat. Helietta tells him that doing so is bad luck but he says it doesn't apply to vampire bats, which is what he just shot. That bit of dialogue is repeated at the end of the movie, suggesting that his shooting the bat was the cause of everything that happened in the story. In

any case, while neither of them are all that significant, Barneval has the larger role, coming off as a skeptic for much of the movie. When he meets Prof. Catalano when they're having dinner at the Canins house and the subject of vampirism comes up, Barneval jokes, "Vampirism. Sounds like something you call a vet for." He remains skeptical during the seance and Catalano's reading of the account of what happened 200 years before, saying of the latter, "The book was the fruit of someone's imagination and inspired the painting [of Letizia]. It's no proof." He even tries to explain away what happens when they open Letizia's coffin, despite how she sat up before her body decomposed. As I said, he also appears to be having an affair with Helietta, given how he calls her "darling," kisses her on the head after she faints at the seance, and has an exchange with her at the costume ball where, after he asks when she's getting rid of Catalano, Helietta asks, "When are you getting rid of your wife?" They then kiss, but when Helietta, feeling Nosferatu's presence, says she feels a chill, Barneval offers to take her home, completely ignoring Uta, who also happens to be there with them (and flirting with other men; maybe they just have an open relationship). They then get separated in the crowd and Barneval, along with many of the other guests, are distracted by the enchanting gypsy vampire who is Nosferatu's servant, allowing him to stalk Helietta. The next morning, unbeknownst to Barneval, Uta is stalked, attacked, and bitten by Nosferatu. Barneval then has all of his doubts put to rest when he, Catalano, and Don Alvise confront Nosferatu and he shots him with his rifle, only for Nosferatu to instantly heal his wound, toss him aside, and bend the gun's barrel. 

After Helietta has been taken, Barneval figures where they may be and heads out to the "dog island" with two friends of his, armed with rifles whose bullets are filled with mercury. They find three coffins within the place, one of which seemingly houses Nosferatu, but when they attempt to stake him, they realize that they just staked Uta, who had shape-shifted into his form. It's only at that point that Barneval likely even

realizes his wife was missing, but when he sees what's happened, he becomes enraged and determined to kill Nosferatu, leading him to attempt to shoot him, only to severely injure Maria. Seeing how ineffective their bullets are against Nosferatu, he and the others run, only for Barneval to come across Helietta, whom he saw in one of the coffins earlier. Again proving to be more into her than his own wife, he affectionately tells her that he's come to take her home and, when she asks him to come in for a kiss, he gladly accepts. He learns too late that it's actually Nosferatu in the form of Helietta, as he bites into his bottom lip, causing him to collapse to the ground, bleeding to death.

I had no idea when I first went into this movie that Donald Pleasence was in it, so when I saw his name in the credits, I sat up and took notice. Unfortunately, while he does his absolute best, as he always did, his role is very small and I think his talents are wasted here even more than Christopher Plummer. As Don Alvise, the Canins' Catholic priest, he mainly looks after the older princess and can often be seen snacking on sweets (something Pleasence's Dr. Seward also did in the 1979 Dracula). Like Dr. Barneval, Alvise is initially skeptical of the idea of Nosferatu, writing off the story of what happened 200 years before as a mere legend. However, he's utterly against the idea of a seance, which he feels is blasphemous, and tries to stop it, saying the church forbids it, but the medium ignores him, merely saying he must leave, which he does in frustration. Alvise's most telling action, however, comes when Nosferatu arrives to take Helietta with him. While Catalano and Barneval prepare to face the vampire, Alvise runs and hides like a coward, and doesn't come back out until Nosferatu has made off with Helietta. This makes his last scene especially frustrating, as he suddenly gets all self-righteous with Catalano as he leaves, declaring, "I am the guardian of wandering souls. I am the defender of suffering spirits. That great dragon, that ageless serpent called Satan seeks to corrupt every corner of the civilized world. Humanity must fight to save itself. Every man knows the temptation of his own lust! Only God Almighty is not a tempter, nor tempted. I'm the guardian of wandering souls. I'm the soldier of the truth. You set yourself on a level with God, and he has punished you! You know nothing! You know... nothing! You're proud, and you live as a god! You think you have knowledge?! That, you don't! You know... nothing! You know nothing!" Regardless of the character, Pleasence's delivery of that speech is, of course, awesome. Also, Alvise is the one who mentions the Lazaretto that could be Nosferatu's hiding place, sending Barneval into action.

Helietta's mother, the older princess (Maria Cumani Quasimodo), initially sees Catalano's arrival as a threat to the period of peace the Canins family is going through. She tries to hide Helietta's apparent connection to Nosferatu by taking down a portrait of Letizia before Catalano arrives, and when he finds it in her room, she whacks him with her cane. Don Alvise stops her from going any further and, with that, she reluctantly gives Catalano a book that details what happened in the house in 1786, saying she vowed never to reveal the details to anyone, and that the Canins family left Transylvania to, "Escape a terrible destiny, in vain." After that, she has no role in the movie, telling Alvise when he complains about the seance that Satan already has a grip on the house. And when Nosferatu arrives in Venice after his revival, the old princess, after failing to repel him with a crucifix, becomes his first victim, whom he kills in the same manner as the priest who confronted him 200 years before: flinging her out a window and onto an iron fence below, impaling her. As her body is being taken to the funeral, you hear her say in voiceover that all of the Canins women are cursed either to die violent deaths or be taken away by Nosferatu.

It's hard to explain just how mind-numbing a viewing experience Nosferatu in Venice is, except to say that it's one of those movies that just throws a bunch of scenes and images at you in a manner that makes no sense. It's okay at first, when Prof. Catalano arrives at the Canins home and meets with Princess Helietta, but it quickly begins to unravel when, as Catalano waits for her to meet with him in the big sitting room, he glances at a discolored spot on the wall and at a tag below it.

It's edited so quickly that, the first two times I saw it, I wasn't able to piece together that there was a painting missing. So, when Catalano later goes into the old princess' room and sees the painting of Letizia, I didn't understand the significance, nor why she suddenly attacks him. Also, that initial scene is intercut with reaction shots from Maria watching Catalano, though it doesn't ever make it clear that she's in the same room, and I initially thought she was Helietta, just loitering around up

in her bedroom. When they're having dinner that night, there's a moment where Don Alvise pushes the princess through the dining room in a wheelchair and the atmosphere suddenly becomes awkward and tense. Everyone stops what they're doing and watches her as she's wheeled through, while she never takes her piercing blue eyes off Catalano. We know at this point that she doesn't like Catalano being there, but it hasn't been made

clear exactly who she is. In fact, I only know she's meant to be Helietta and Maria's mother, and that the two of them are meant to be sisters, from plot synopses on various sites. Neither of them interact with or even talk about her, or each other, for that matter. And as I mentioned earlier, there's a sudden, random moment where the old princess appears to call out Maria's cheating boyfriend, only to then kick him in the leg and reveal herself to

actually be Maria wearing a latex mask and wig. That's what I mean. Things just happen in this movie, and while you could say the same for a number of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci's movies, at least they're well-made enough in terms of technical filmmaking or, if nothing else, spectacularly gory to where you can overlook it. Not the case here.

I've already alluded to how there are so many unanswered questions and aspects of the story that make no sense, but you have no idea just how often this movie leaves you wondering what it is you're even watching. Again, they don't make it clear that Catalano is dying from a disease when he says he expects to die soon, Helietta and Dr. Barneval's apparent affair comes out of nowhere (I keep saying "apparent" because the exact nature of their relationship is still not clear to me), or why Maria

thought attempting suicide would prompt Nosferatu to save her and thus, allow her to kill him (if it was from that little interest he took in her, then she's assuming a lot). In addition, I'm not exactly sure what Helietta's frightened of. She knows that Nosferatu has a connection to her family and believes his resting place is the tomb in the basement, but I'm not sure how she thinks opening the coffin or contacting Nosferatu through a medium will help her family. What's more, I'm

not sure if she's also afraid his curse may extend to her because she's a descendant of Letizia or if she's her reincarnation, thus. Both are alluded to but never made clear. Speaking of Nosferatu, if the seance revives him after 200 years of dormancy, then why is there a scene of him biting someone's neck beforehand? Also, I'm assuming that he awakens at the Bay of Biscay but, who are all these gypsies who have bites on their neck and worship

him to the point where they're willing and eager for him to turn all of them into vampires as well? Why is the one girl in particular chosen to be his servant? Why are they using modern vehicles and living out of trailers? (I'm not trying to be stereotypical but that really hurts their authenticity for me.) How does Nosferatu figure out that the girl he sees in the one gypsy's crystal ball is someone other than Letizia? Why doesn't

Nosferatu kill all the dogs at the villa if he hates them as much as he apparently does? What happens to Helietta after Nosferatu takes her back to the villa? We know she becomes a vampire, as she's seen in one of the three coffins found there, but she disappears from the story completely, even though her eyes spring open when Uta is mistakenly staked by Barneval. And the list just goes on and on.

When a movie is this nonsensical and a chore to watch, it can cause me to nod off or fall asleep completely for a few minutes (you'll see what I mean when we get to another review in just a few days). So how out of it was I when I first watched Nosferatu in Venice, you ask? So much that it took me a while to realize this wasn't a period piece but actually took place in contemporary times (the flashbacks, minute amount of modern technology, and the 18th century clothing many wear because

of the Carnival of Venice confused me further in my drowsy state). And until recently, I remembered little from the first viewing, and after the second one, I just remembered Klaus Kinski, Christopher Plummer, and Donald Pleasence, some blood, a lot of nudity during the second half, some music I hated, and a lot of shots of Nosferatu wandering around Venice. Even when you're awake enough to actually watch and try to understand it, it's still a total, incomprehensible mess.

But, as Kim Newman once said, it's a, "Strangely beautiful mess," which is the biggest compliment I can give. Though Klaus Kinski made his job far harder than it should've been, cinematographer Antonio Nardi made up for it by making the film look quite lovely. There are many wide, sweeping beauty shots of the city of Venice, showing off the city's architecture, the canals, and the big wide plazas and squares, as well as a number of Gothic shots showing the city covered in a thick mist, with

the streetlamps being the only source of light in some of them, and shots pointing down the narrow, claustrophobic alleyways and streets the city is known for. The color scheme and palette are quite lovely as well, with a number of beautiful shots of the horizon and the sea, lit by orange and purple lighting from a sunset. But what really brings out the color are the numerous exotic costumes the townspeople wear during the carnival, particularly in the costume ball that Helietta and Barneval

attend. Besides the expected powdered wigs and 18th century suits and dresses, you get a number of rich and quite striking costumes, masks, and face-paints, which are not only cool to look at but nicely bring the aesthetic of the past into the present, making Venice feel like a world unto itself, as well as making it understandable why nobody gives Nosferatu a second look when he walks in to stalk Helietta. I also appreciate that the nighttime scenes

were all actually shot at night, instead of going day-for-night, and in addition to genuine darkness, many of these nighttime scenes, both exterior and interior, have a cool, blue look to them that I really like.

As far as specific locations and settings go, the most prominent is the Canins house, even if all you really see of it, besides quick glimpses of the dining room and Helietta's bedroom, are the big drawing and sitting room, a study where the seance is held, and the older princess' room, but those are plenty. The sitting room is full of posh, old-fashioned furniture, enormous paintings on the wall, a very high ceiling with big, circular paintings dotting it, and some small chandeliers

hanging down, while the study has an interesting-looking ceiling, more lovely furniture, and plenty of books lining its shelves. Even the older princess' bedroom is much bigger and grander than you'd expect, with big, tall windows, a very large bed, and a really big wardrobe. There's also a foyer that's absolutely enormous, and Helietta's bedroom is particularly beautiful, with its pink walls, sheer white bedding and netting around it, and, symbolically, two bronze angel statues above her

head. All of these rooms are filmed in big, wide master shots, as the filmmakers were making sure they got everything out of these locations/sets that they could. But then, on the opposite end of the spectrum is the house's basement, a dark, dank, dungeon-like area, with hallways that lead to a secret tomb containing the coffin with iron bands across it (that tomb is also memorable for a part of the wall that has water running down its side,

which is explained by their being below the Grand Canal). Other memorable spots in Venice itself include the marsh in the opening where Helietta, Barneval and some friends are hunting, the big, lovely mansion where the costume ball takes place, and the tower that Maria throws herself off the top of. You get some memorable, Vertigo-like shots of the latter's spiraling staircase and upper landing, as well as a couple of memorable exterior shots slowly panning down the tower's front when she jumps off.

When Nosferatu is resurrected by the seance, he climbs out of a coffin in the midst of an enormous corridor in a stone building and then walks out onto a landing and down some stairs to a ledge overlooking the sea. The climactic setting of the Lazaretto, on an island near Venice, is akin to the Canins house in that it's a place of both beauty and the macabre. The main building, a long abandoned villa, is still lovely to look at, despite its rundown

nature and the expected details of cobwebs and water dripping. The room where Maria is kept in a bed after Nosferatu brings her there is actually a long hallway with walls adorned with all sorts of lovely architecture and statuary, religious paintings on the high ceiling, and an elegant bed with a canopy. But, when Barneval and his friends arrive to kill Nosferatu, they first go through a tomb-like building near the villa that's filled with open coffins containing old skeletons, the remnants of a

plague cemetery (and as if that wasn't unsettling enough, earlier, Barneval mentioned that part of the island was also used as a crematorium for cholera victims), and a spot with three coffins containing the gypsy girl under Nosferatu's command, Helietta, and Uta. While they're there, you also see a little more of the property, which is quite pretty, lined with a number of lovely trees, and, as I've said, it also contains a number of dogs, though I

don't know why Nosferatu would keep them there. If their presence is meant to warn him of intruders, then they failed on that score, as Barneval and his friends were able to catch him completely unawares and shoot Maria.

These amazing locations help give the movie a fairly big scope, as do some flashbacks here and there, such as one at the beginning that shows the extent of the devastation the plague wrought on Venice in 1786, where you see streets and ports lined with dead bodies, monks and others carrying bodies away, gondolas filled up with them, ships heading out to sea with more, priests saying prayers and blessing the victims, and even some jesters dancing around them, all while you can hear

the beleaguered families crying. But then, another, brief flashback of a carriage racing towards the camera, which you see when Catalano and Helietta are down in the tomb and she tells him the Canins originate from Transylvania, doesn't serve much of any purpose and, in fact, is hampered by its being a superimposition over the main scene and never becoming solid. There are other such instances of sloppy or distracting editing, such as an overuse of

dissolves in a single scene, like when Nosferatu approaches Maria as she lays in the bed, or the moment where Catalano commits suicide by throwing himself into the Grand Canal. In that latter instance, they try to use a lot of thick mist to obscure him actually falling into the water in order to make it more dramatic, but there's an obvious cut when the mist completely fills the screen and you hear the splash, followed by the shot of Catalano's bag floating in the canal, making it just a bit less effective.

In terms of visual effects, there are a scant few in the film. Some of them, such as the wide exterior shots of Maria jumping off the tower, a shot of Nosferatu's reflection materializing in a mirror in the villa, and Barneval blowing a large hole in his torso that lingers for a little bit before sealing itself, are done fairly well; however, the effect of Nosferatu catching Maria in midair when she jumps and whisking her away looks really bad. They're both transparent images flying above a

panning shot of the city, which is why I earlier suggested he might have swooped down to her in a spiritual type of form, but I have a feeling it's really just a bad visual effect, as you can barely see them and the whole thing looks awkward. Even worse than that is an effect when they open up Letizia's coffin and she decomposes in front of them. The effect is done by cutting from a shot of Barbara De Rossi in deteriorating makeup to a reaction shot of some of the other actors and then to a dummy

made to look like the skin has rotted away, revealing the muscle underneath. It starts to dissolve, when the film suddenly cuts to Helietta gasping in terror, and then, it cuts back to the image being put through some kind of early morphing effect, as the head turns blood red and the eyes and mouth become completely white. It looks horribly archaic, as do the actual physical effects, and the picture quality suddenly drops to

VHS levels in the close-ups of the effect, suggesting that the original negatives were cut and they had to use a tape copy for later home video releases (the original version of the film was said to be 99 minutes, whereas the version you can get now is around 93). In terms of actual bloody violence, there's more here than both the original Nosferatu and the '79 film combined, though it's still not much to write home about. There are some

bloody close-ups of necks being bitten into, as well as the sides of people's faces and even their bottom lips, two people are impaled on an iron fence, Nosferatu himself gets a big hole blown in his torso (when it seals itself a few seconds later, they just reversed the shot of the dummy getting blown open), and Maria gets some nasty rifle shots to her nude body, and that's about it. So, if you're gore-hound, you'll probably come away disappointed.

The first scene that's worth going into any detail on is the one where, after Prof. Catalano has dinner with Helietta, her family, and friends, she leads him down into the basement. At the bottom of some stairs, they head down a corridor and around a bend, where they stop to light a candle. They then walk through a door around another corner, revealing the hidden crypt containing the lone coffin. Helietta tells Catalano that the crypt dates

back to the 16th century, when the Canins first settled in Venice, and remarks on the iron bands clamped across the top of the coffin. Catalano inspects the coffin, putting his hand on it, when one of the bands suddenly snaps apart with a loud, bursting sound, followed by what sounds like ghostly moaning. Taking another look, Catalano notes that the band had been eaten away by rust, whereas the others are in good condition. Helietta mentions how it was said that a vampire was

buried alive in the tomb and she believes said vampire was none other than Nosferatu. That's when Catalano insists she's mistaken, but also advises against opening the coffin, saying the reaction could be devastating and monstrous, prompting the princess to prove her suspicions in another manner.

The next day, when the older princess appears to go out, Catalano sneaks into her bedroom, where he discovers the portrait of Letizia, which he noticed had been taken down from the sitting room. As he inspects a certain detail of the painting, the older princess suddenly comes in and whacks him over the head with her cane. After a cutaway to the brief moment which reveals that the person Catalano saw go out was actually Maria in

disguise as her mother, he confronts the older princess, who's being looked after by Don Alvise. He says he knows of Letizia's connection to Nosferatu and implores her to reveal what it is she's hiding. With Alvise's help, she gets to her feet and gives Catalano an old book, inferring that it tells everything there is to know about a curse that hangs over the Canins. He notes that the book is identical to the one the figure of Letizia in the

portrait is holding in her left hand, while Alvise finds himself unable to read the title of the chapter the book is opened up to. Catalano takes a nearby hand-mirror and uses it to reflect the image backwards, revealing the title to be Nosferatu. Following a brief cutaway to Nosferatu himself feeding on a young woman in the dark somewhere, Catalano reads from the book: "The abomination appeared in 1786. In that year of our Lord, an

unprecedented tragedy took place in this house, between these very walls." A flashback then shows some monks blessing the house, when a priest, holding a cross, yells, "Vile being, I impose upon you the will of Almighty God!" (He holds the "all" in "Almighty" for a couple of seconds, like a singer.) Approaching one particular door with the monks, he yells, "Creature of evil, in the name of the crucified Christ, I order you to submit... to the absolute authority of God!" Some groaning is

heard from behind the door, and then, blood oozes out from under it. The priest further orders Nosferatu to leave the house, then pounds on the door and forces it open, revealing the vampire as he stands there, holding Letizia's body in his arms, bloody bite marks on her throat. A dead servant is also revealed to be lying on the floor with a bloody neck. The priest continues cursing Nosferatu, as he walks into the hallway, and then, stares evilly at him. At that moment, a vortex of wind kicks up,

forcing them all back and blasting them through the window behind them. All three of them are impaled on an iron fence in the courtyard below. We then cut back to the present, as Catalano says that Nosferatu left Venice after that incident, and that Letizia's fate is also unknown. He also tells Helietta that, sooner or later, Nosferatu will return to the house.

Later that day, after the medium has arrived, they prepare for the seance. They all sit around a table and join hands, ignoring Don Alvise's protests when he bursts in, with the medium simply saying he must leave. She then says, "Nosferatu, reveal yourself to us. Champion of evil, manifestation of inequity, shunned by death itself... I am... evoking you." She inhales and exhales sharply, as a transparent image of Nosferatu's clawed hand

emerging from within a coffin appears next to her. Helietta appears to be affected by this as well, as the medium says, "Nosferatu, reveal yourself to us!" In a cutaway, Nosferatu flings off the lid of the coffin and stands up in it. As the medium continues trying to evoke him, he climbs out of the chamber he was in and makes his way outside (Klaus Kinski looks and acts like he just rolled out of bed here). Suddenly, Helietta appears to become possessed

and starts calling for him herself, calling him, "My prince," and, "My lord." As he looks out over the sea and the setting sun, he hears her voice, though the sound of it confuses him. He walks on, stepping on the head of a snake he comes across and causing a sudden shock in Helietta, who faints with a gasp. The medium passes out as well, while Catalano and Dr. Barneval place Helietta on a sofa and open the curtains to allow the sunlight in. Catalano then tells Barneval to follow him and he

leads the doctor down to the crypt, only to find that nothing has happened and the coffin is still sealed. Barneval heads back upstairs and Catalano turns to join him, when he hears a ghostly voice behind him. He turns and slowly approaches the coffin, as he hears what sounds like Helietta calling for Nosferatu.

Speaking of which, he wanders the shoreline of his present location and walks into a gypsy camp, all of whom are revealed to have bite marks on their necks. They immediately begin surrounding and touching him with reverence, with one dancing around him in a provocative manner. An older gypsy woman guides a teenage girl out of a trailer and introduces her to Nosferatu, saying he will make her immortal. Nosferatu, however, demands

to know who summoned him and the older woman takes him into the trailer, where a crystal ball is kept. She picks it up and, as the two of them look into it, an image of Helietta appears. The woman says, "Someone who lives far away has summoned you," but Nosferatu insists, "You're mistaken. That's a scene from the past." Then, in the next scene, as the gypsies dance outside, Nosferatu does as promised and turns the gypsy girl into a

vampire. Once it's done, he walks out of the trailer, followed by her, and prepares to leave the camp. The gypsies plead with him to stay, the older woman telling him, "My people are nothing without you," but he answers, "Your people are free. I'm leaving... Time has no meaning in a life that never ends." He then walks out of the camp, followed by the gypsy girl. He promptly heads to Venice, arriving there from the sea on a misty

morning. We get our first little sequence of him wandering about the city, before the scene switches to nighttime, with the carnival beginning as fireworks light up the sky and costumed pedestrians fill the streets. They appear to see Nosferatu as he makes his way through the Grand Canal, after which he disappears into the city's depths. The next morning, the disembodied voice of Letizia can be heard inside the Canins house, asking why Nosferatu didn't take her with him. The

sound of it awakens the old princess and, thinking it's Helietta, she wanders out of her bedroom and into the study, where Letizia's portrait is hanging once again, as the voice pleads with Nosferatu to take her away. She walks into the middle of the room, where a lamp is overturned in front of the portrait, and it's then revealed that Nosferatu is sitting on the sofa next to her. She gasps in terror at the sight of him, while he rises to his feet and backs her into a corner against the wall. The

princess holds up a crucifix and recites a prayer, but Nosferatu isn't affected at all. He takes the crucifix from her hand and bends and crumples it, then puts it back into her hand. He guides her across the room, as she continues whispering prayers, over to the window. He gently opens it up and drops her out, causing her to fall onto the same iron fence that impaled those who stood against him 200 years ago. He also tosses one of her sequin gloves out after her and it lands near her body, as blood oozes and pools towards it.

After the princess' funeral, everyone gathers down in the hidden tomb to open up the coffin. Barneval uses a saw to cut open the iron bands and the men lift the lid up and lay it aside. Everyone then watches as Letizia rises up, before she suddenly decomposes. This is almost too much for Helietta to bear, as she nearly collapses against the wall, but Barneval tries to reassure her that what happened was simply due to air finally hitting the body and

causing it to decompose (apparently, he didn't see the body literally rise up once they opened the coffin). Catalano inspects the ashes the body crumbled into and finds traces of mercury, explaining it to be the only natural element that can kill a vampire and that Letizia had been forced to drink it. The film then switches to that night, with Nosferatu continuing to wander the streets, while Helietta and Barneval attend a costume ball at an

elegant mansion. But right after they arrive, so does Nosferatu, and his presence causes Helietta to feel a sudden chill. Barneval prepares to take her home, but the thick crowd causes the two of them to become separated. Barneval attempts to find Helietta, but then, his and nearly everyone else's attention is grabbed by the gypsy girl, who begins dancing near a balcony. Elsewhere, Helietta stops in front of a large mirror, when she turns and sees Nosferatu directly across the room from her. He

starts towards her and she, after being unable to find Barneval, pushes her way outside. The gypsy continues enchanting all those watch her with her dancing, paying special attention to Barneval, before going out onto the balcony to continue. Outside, Helietta realizes that Nosferatu is following her and attempts to lose him in the narrow alleyways. At one point, he's right behind her, but then, after she runs a little bit farther, she suddenly turns back around to see that he's

disappeared. She heads on back home, unaware that she's being followed by a bat, which flies up to and hangs onto the outside of her house's main door, marking it for Nosferatu.

Later that night, Helietta is in her bed, tossing and turning, when Nosferatu emerges from the darkness, holding his hand out to her. At first, she's frightened, but her demeanor changes when he walks up to her bedside, calls her Letizia, and speaks to her in a language she doesn't recognize but finds beautiful. As he rips her nightgown open and kisses her torso, he tells her it's a language that no longer exists. He then completely rips away the

gown and massages her body, telling her that what he said was how he went to great lengths to find and be with her, because she was the one who called to him. Maria is shown watching from the doorway, while Nosferatu tells Helietta that he will take her away soon. It looks as if he's going in for a kiss, but then, he bites into her and blood streams out, but the two of them appear to be kissing, regardless. Seeing this, Maria closes the door. The next morning, Catalano and Barneval examine

Helietta. She tells Catalano how Nosferatu came for her, while Barneval, after a medical checkup, feels her condition isn't that serious, saying her blood pressure is normal and the wounds superficial. Catalano tells him he's mistaken, and figures that Nosferatu will take her away the next time he comes, "On a macabre journey that's destined never to end." Opening the window to look out at the street, then closing both it and the shutters, he declares that he will not allow him to succeed. Following that is a brief moment where, elsewhere, Nosferatu angrily deals with some caged dogs, kicking at their cages and yelling.

The film transitions back to Venice, with the flashback of the carriage superimposed over a sweeping shot of the city, for some reason. Nosferatu returns and is, once again, roaming the streets early in the morning, when he comes across Uta Barneval doing the same. He follows after her down a narrow alleyway, calling her name in a ghostly manner. Frightened, she fast-walks through the alleys, coming to a spot overlooking the water. A tourist boat goes by, blowing its horn, which Uta

initially thinks was what she heard, and she turns around to see nobody behind her. But just as she breathes a sigh of relief, Nosferatu grabs her from behind and roughly manhandles her. Uta takes off running, yelling for help, and Nosferatu gives chase, snarling and breathing heavily. She runs through a doorway and into a large, empty building, only to lose her footing, giving Nosferatu the opportunity to jump and attack her. He rips at

her clothes, grapples with her, and then bites into the side of her face, with blood running everywhere (again, knowing of Kinski's crazed and sick behavior while shooting this scene makes it especially hard to watch). After that, he makes his way back to the Canins house through the canals, with Catalano and neighborhood dogs sensing his approach.

In the small courtyard near the house's entrance, Catalano, Barneval, and Don Alvise await his arrival. Catalano notes that the dogs have stopped barking, while Barneval loads up a rifle with .45 caliber shells. Catalano then shushes the doctor, as they hear the sound of approaching, echoing footsteps on the other side of the house. He tells them that Nosferatu is outside, and his presence is confirmed by a steady, rumbling, gust of air that emanates through the house, shaking light fixtures

and a small bell hanging from the ceiling. They then turn their attention to the main door, as they can hear someone trying to get in from outside. Catalano says, "Here he comes," and while he and Barneval prepare to face the vampire, Alvise backs away and takes cover behind an iron gate. Mist seeps through the door and the shaking force intensifies, to the point where the bell starts ringing. The door blows open with a powerful gust of wind and a flurry of mist, only for it to clear and

reveal nothing. Suddenly, Nosferatu bursts open a gate directly behind them that leads to the water's edge. Both of them turn around to face him and slowly approach him. Barneval cocks his rifle and, when they're close enough, points and shoots. He blows an enormous hole in Nosferatu's torso, although this doesn't affect him at all. Barneval cocks and shoots again, only for the hole to seal itself. He empties the rest of his magazine at the

vampire, as he slowly walks towards him. Reaching him, Nosferatu grabs his rifle's barrel, lifts him up into the air with it, tosses him aside, and bends the gun barrel over his knee and tosses it to the floor. Maria comes down the stairs to see what's happening and Nosferatu's attention is promptly drawn to her. He walks towards the staircase, and when Catalano sees Maria, he runs to his bag, which is sitting at the bottom of the stairs,

and pulls out a cross. He yells, "Back! Back! Bestial creature, you've known ever since Satan belched you forth those many hundred years ago that you have been excluded from nature's scheme. Life has refused you. Death has refused you. The just reject you. Even the unjust. There's no place for you, here on Earth or elsewhere, that will welcome you. The very essence of life rejects you. Now, in the name of all God's angels, I order you, stand back. In the name of Jesus Christ, begone... vile abomination, or the power of the cross will crush you."

He approaches Nosferatu while brandishing the cross and saying prayers, as the vampire just stares at him, not looking the least bit intimidated. Helietta then appears on the stairs, telling Nosferatu, "Here I am, my lord." Nosferatu's attention is drawn to her, while Catalano continues trying to banish him with the cross, getting right up to him and yelling, "Back! Back." Nosferatu turns back to him and, concentrating his power, makes his cross become red-hot to the touch. This brings

Catalano to his knees and forces him to drop it from his burned hands. He collapses to the floor, writhing in pain, while Nosferatu walks around him and heads up the stairs. Helietta heads down towards him and the two of them meet in the center. Holding hands, they walk down together, as Maria yells at her sister not to go with him. The two of them walk out the house's gates and into the streets, as Alvise emerges from his hiding place

and crosses himself, while Catalano is still on the floor, totally defeated. That night, Nosferatu and Helietta arrive at his villa, while back in Venice, Maria climbs to the top of a very high bell-tower and, remembering what Catalano said about Nosferatu desiring death from love, throws herself off the top. Nosferatu catches her in mid-air and whisks her away, telling her, "If you don't need your life, others can use it. Now you belong to me. I am your master." In the next scene, Maria awakens naked in a bed at Nosferatu's villa. She gets out of the bed and walks over to a window, looking out to see him standing on an exterior landing, watching the setting sun.

The climax begins as Nosferatu comes to Maria in the bedroom and she agrees to help him die; at the same time, Barneval and two friends of his head to the island on a powerboat, armed with guns. They arrive there while Nosferatu and Maria begin their copulation that will allow her to end his life. They fill their rifle shells with mercury, load them up, and head into a building filled with coffins and skeletons from the island's plague cemetery. Just beyond them, they find three closed coffins lying in

the center of a square of lit candles. Figuring Nosferatu may be inside one of them, they begin opening them. The first one contains the gypsy girl, the second Helietta, and the third apparently does contain Nosferatu. Barneval decides to take a chance and stake the vampire through the heart while he's sleeping. He grabs a nearby piece of wood and quickly uses a pocketknife to sharpen it into a stake. He then has one of his friends hold the stake over him, while he grabs one of the rifles,

and hits the stake with the butt to drive it through Nosferatu. But when he does, Nosferatu rears up and lets out a scream in a woman's voice. His form changes to that of Uta, much to Barneval's horror, and, not noticing that Helietta has awakened, he angrily declares he's going to kill Nosferatu for this deception. Though one of his friends insists they have to leave, Barneval storms out to find Nosferatu, who's still having sex with Maria at the

moment. Barneval and one of his friends make their way up to the villa and sneak inside and head upstairs. They head down a hallway, as Nosferatu tells Maria, now that they've completed their lovemaking, his life belongs to her. The two of them then hesitate for her to kill him, while outside, Barneval and his friend approach the door to the room. He flings open the door and fires his rifle, only for the shells to go through Nosferatu

and hit Maria. Nosferatu swings around, snarling with his rat-like fangs exposed, and Barneval fires his last shot, but it does nothing to him. He stands up and, leaving the bloody and badly wounded Maria behind on the bed, chases after them, as they run out the door and flee the villa.

They run back through the grounds and rejoin the third man (who'd lagged behind this whole time). Barneval is then surprised to see Helietta up and walking around ahead of them. She beckons to him and he follows her through the crypt and out into an old vineyard-like spot. He tells her that he's come to take her home, then notices how pale she is. However, she says she's happy he's there and, reaching out for him, asks him to kiss her. He does so, but in the middle of the kissing, she turns into

Nosferatu and bites into his bottom lip. Barneval pulls away, yelling in pain and horror, as blood gushes out of his bottom lip, before he drops dead on the ground. Later, as darkness falls, Nosferatu walks out of the villa, holding Maria's nude body in his arms. She begs him to save her by turning her into a vampire but he's reluctant to do so, saying it's a fate far worse than death. He walks on with her, as she keeps begging him to let her stay with

him, and the two of them are last seen walking through Venice before disappearing into the mist. The film ends the same way it began, with a hunt in the marsh, as the bit of dialogue from the beginning about it being bad luck to kill a bat is replayed.

The music score is interesting in that there are parts of it that are based on a 1985 album by Vangelis called Mask, specifically some pieces associated with Nosferatu himself, such as a big, bombastic, orchestral theme meant for his overall presence and a rapid electronic one accompanied by singers either yelling or repeatedly chanting, "Nosferatu! Nosferatu!", for the scenes where he attacks or has rough sex. The original music is the work of Luigi Ceccarelli, who scored a number of Italian horror and exploitation movies, including other works by Augusto Caminito. I described the music as shitty in the introduction but, truth be told, it's more of a mixed bag overall. Some of it is done well, like when he's attempting to make it sound really low and menacing, but other parts, like the whimsical, electronic music for the "romantic" scenes, which has this distinctive tinkling aspect, haven't aged well and come off as really cheesy. The movie also opens and closes with what sounds like a church hymn, with children singing, but in every print I've viewed, including the 1080p versions available on sites such as Tubi, the sound always screws up and becomes badly scrambled, and during the ending credits, it cuts out altogether and the last bit of the credits are silent. That was definitely not a good note to start on, no pun intended, during my first viewing, and it cracks me up to think that there's not a recent home media version that's been able to fix it. If someone has the Severin Films edition, let me know if it does it on there too.

I apologize if this review of Nosferatu in Venice was just as incomprehensible and confusing as the movie itself but it really is a chore to sit through, let alone analyze. While it may benefit from the presence of some superb actors, great cinematography, location work, and art direction, occasional instances of okay visual effects and gore, and good bits of music, that doesn't make up for the story being so hard to follow, character relationships and motivations being hard to decipher, the aforementioned actors' talents being ultimately wasted, some laughably bad visual effects, some bits of music that are just cringe in how dated they are, and, worst of all, certain scenes being hard to watch with the knowledge of the depraved and disgusting actions Klaus Kinski made against the women he co-starred with. Unless you're a really big fan of Kinski, Italian horror, or vampire movies, I would suggest to just stick with the original Nosferatu or the Werner Herzog film and act as though this thing doesn't exist, which is what I'm going to do from now on.