Nosferatu in Venice is a Klaus Kinski-starring pseudo sequel to the classic Nosferatu directed by Werner Herzog and starring Kinski. But aside from sharing Nosferatu in the title, the vampire aspect, and Kinsky nothing else relates, And I am totally cool with that. Eurohorror pseudo sequels, are never not interesting to me, and Nosferatu in Venice is certainly that.
Sure it doesn’t reach the same heights as a Zombi 2 or a Troll 2, but it’s a fun time to be had (but it stars cinema wild-man Klaus Kinski who always brings it). The film takes place in Venice (obviously), and we have a vampire who is stalking the city and killing its population of beautiful women (who else?). Professor Catalano (Christopher Plummer) is brought in to assist in the investigation into the deaths, which could be tied into the family that paid him to investigate.
Nosferatu in Venice much like the Roger Corman production “The Terror” is well-known for having a multitude of director’s possibly including Kinski himself. Like the Terror, this creates a disjointed atmosphere for the film. Fortunately, the cast which includes Kinski, Plummer, and Donald Pleasance among others really chew the scenery and help to create something watchable. Of course in the moments they are not on screen there are some excellent atmospheric shots of Venice to help set the tone. When those fail we get exploitation style sex and occasional violence, which really helps bring the whole thing together into an entertaining and bizarre cinematic cocktail.
Severin presents Nosferatu in Venice in a solid 1:77:1 1080p transfer that looks better than the film ever has looked before. It has a release on DVD previously as “Prince of the Night” which was tape sourced and pretty terrible, even so everything here looks pretty nice. We have solid detail, nice colors that bring out the excellent costumes and vistas in the film. There is some compression issues that happen on occasion, but overall it looks quite nice. Audio is presented in English and Italian mono tracks and these come through crisp and clean. Extras include a documentary called Creation is Violent on Kinski’s final years. There are some outtakes from that documentary as extras, and a trailer. RECOMMENDED.