Nosferatu screening launches Herzog fest

The American Cinemathque is launching its Werner Herzog festival with a screening of NOSFERATU THE VAMPIRE at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica at 7:30pm tonight.

I really hated this film when it came out in 1979, but I’ve mellowed over the years. The flaws still grate on my nerves, but they no longer blind me to the strengths. This is a real art house horror movie – little in the way of shock, but quite hypnotic.

You should check it out if you have a chance. Herzog himself is supposed to be there to introduce the screening. Hopefully he will have more to say than when he performed a similar service at a previous Cinemathque screening a few years ago, when he simply lamented that prints are falling into disrepair, gradually dooming the film to extinction.

The festival will continue throughout the weekend with screenings of THE MYSTERY OF KASPER HAUSER, HEART OF GLASS, AGUIRRE THE WRATH OF GOD, FITZCARALDO, LESSONS OF DARKNESS, and GRIZZLY MAN.

Herzog is not a genre specialist, but he often deals with dark themes and obsessive characters, even in documentaries like LESSONS OF DARKNESS and GRIZZLY MAN, so I’ll recommend you check out some of these screenings even though they fall outside the realm of what we usually cover here. LESSONS is a “documentary sci-fi” about an unseen alien visit to the oil well fires of Kuwait. GRIZZLY MAN, of course, is aout the ill-fated Timothy Treadwell, whose love of filming grizzly bears up close led to his death.

Read Hollywood Gothique’s review of NOSFERATU here.