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Sunday November 3rd 2024

Vampire In Venice (Nosferatu A Venezia) | 1986

This slow, uneventful sequel to Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht exploits the dank Gothic mistiness of Venice so well that the city seems the natural home of the vampire movie.

Vampire in Venice location: Nosferatu bloodily feasts: Chiesa di Santa Maria Valverde, Campo dell’Abbazia, Venice
Vampire in Venice location: Nosferatu bloodily feasts: Chiesa di Santa Maria Valverde, Campo dell’Abbazia, Venice

The home of the Princess, to which vampire hunter Professor Catalano (Christopher Plummer) comes to stay, is Palazzo Barbaro, Canal Grande at Ponte dell’Accademia (seen also in Richard Attenborough’s In Love and War, with Chris O'Donnell as the young Ernest Hemingway, and in Iain Softley’s Wings Of The Dove).

Nosferatu (Klaus Kinski) prowls the misty Piazza San Marco, while one of his victims plummets dreamily from the Campanile.

The funeral of the Princess heads for San Michele in Isola (again seen in Wings Of The Dove), the cemetery island of the Venetian lagoon.

Vampire in Venice location: Palazzo Barbaro, Canal Grande at Ponte dell'Accademia, Venice
Vampire in Venice location: The home of the Princess: Palazzo Barbaro, Canal Grande at Ponte dell’Accademia, Venice

Nosferatu sets up home at Lazzaretto Vecchio, once the hospital and graveyard for plague victims, now a dogs’ home, scheduled for redevelopment.

He bloodily feasts on a victim at the eerie Chiesa di Santa Maria Valverde, Campo dell’Abbazia.