Chad

Undeadcow

On the StageVu link it lists the tags "censored for 7 minutes" and "heavily censored;" anyone know the meaning of that? Edit: The run time of the StageVu version is 7 minutes shorter than IMDB lists, bummer.



Wikipedia has some interesting information about ViV:

Undeadcow

Vampire in Venice has atmosphere to spare. I loved the attempts at moodiness even if they were hit and miss. The story degenerates down to an contradictory mess. Christopher Plummer has quite a stage presence.

Kinski portrays the most overweight vampire I've seen yet; I love the final scene where he's obviously laboring to carry the girl stumbling through fog.

If Nosferatu craves death; why does he fight the vampire hunters?

I'm not sure I understood the ending - Nosferatu seemed to have obtained the love of a virgin; is it because she was no longer a virgin after meeting him? ...Or am I mistaking the aimless attempt at being poetic for a plot that doesn't exist?

The vampire is compelled to Venice by the power of a seance... I should have stopped trying to make sense of it right there.

SethDLH

I just finished it and think quite a bit the same about it as you. I don't think he was that overweight and part of the struggle to carry the girl could certainly be part of the performance as his strength was weakening badly as he prepared for death. I actually liked Kinski as a vampire. It's funny that for as much as the legends of this production say he was a raving lunatic (and the half dozen attached directors show it was true) on set I found his performance to be restrained as far as a Klaus Kinski performance goes.

As far as the craving death thing - that has been addressed in vampire movies before and its a battle of the existing personalities, the human side wants death and peace while the evil vampire side craves blood and eternal life. I think the conflict worked here. As for carrying the girl, I'm not sure about the virgin aspect. I get what you're saying and that's definitely a possibility. I just wrote it off that he found love in his final waining days of life and is carrying her off to die with her... works for me lol

Overall I liked the film even if it was a bit disjointed and will check it out again down the road.

Undeadcow

That may be, but the girl was asking Kinski to give her eternal life with him and he was cautioning that he must go on to live forever. Maybe I missed something but I didn't understand the ending at all - because the earlier plot suggests the vampire would die but here the dialogue suggests otherwise.Good point, Kinski was really subdued here.

PhantomStranger

This is one of the few vampire films I've never seen with name actors. That might have to change this month.

SethDLH

That's true... I don't know haha. As you more or less said earlier, maybe trying to make too much sense out of the narrative on this is pointless.

Trevor

Stagevu and alyxstarr links no workee on iOS. Anyone found this elsewhere?

Undeadcow

It's a ~500mb .avi file download, I'm not sure if any iOS apps can be used to run that. I looked around for an alternate source without burnt in russian subtitles or potential PAL speed up but couldn't find any. Vampire in Venice is worth the hassle, it's such a mesmorizing atmospheric trainwreck of a movie - not great but what a sordid history.

Trevor

Thanks. I think I'll be home by midnight to watch it on my PC.

rbrown498

I'm halfway through it and struggling mightily to stay awake. It's SOOOO slow.

And to put my comments into perspective, I love House of the Devil and Antichrist, two films not known for their breakneck pacing.

So, Seth, what was it exactly that caused you to inflict this plague upon us choose this film?

PhantomStranger

Slower than House of the Devil? Whoa, it must move at a snail's pace.

rbrown498

And...I made it through it, with the help of some nice nudity during the last fifteen minutes or so.

I really, really doubt that I'll ever revisit this one, though--unless I've got insomnia and need a non-narcotic sleep aid.

No offense to you, Seth, but it just didn't do anything for me.

SethDLH

None taken. I picked the film because it fit a theme, it had just received a DVD, I'd never seen it and wanted to and the film's history was an interesting one. Plus I love Kinski. Sorry you hated it ha!

Mondo Kane

This was a nice change of pace from what I've been usually watching all month.

The first half was slow, but once we got to that Aguirre shot (Kinski on a gondola instead of a raft) I noticed that things really began to pick up from there.

It was odd, yet so refreshing to see a vampire hunter go through some major motions of failing to become victorious over a vampire.

This one's still lingering in the mind. Thanks for this pick, Seth. This is bound to go in my "Best Of' list by the end of the challenge.

Spiderbite

I first want to thank ALYXSTARR for hosting the link which is the way I watched this.

I agree with a lot of what has already been said. To say this film moves at a glacial pace is being generous. The first quarter where they are moving back and forth thru time was a little jarring and the story is a bit confusing, which has already been mentioned as well.

Compelling the vampire via seance is bizarre but okay, whatever. My question is why did they do that in the first place? Did I miss something?

I always wonder what the hot chicks in Kinski's movies think when they are being mauled sexually by him. The guys is just creepy whether he is playing a vampire or not. And it always seems he is making the moves on young, hot women in all his films. I did enjoy how powerful his vampire was.

This movie was worth the watch strictly because I will never give up the chance to see Donald Pleasence go ape shit and start screaming. He does this at least twice in this movie and I was very pleased. I have no idea why but I enjoy it anytime he loses it in his movies.

Plummer may have a nice stage presence (in other films) but I felt anyone could have done his role in this movie. I didn't feel he added anything to it.

p.s. If people keep falling (or getting pushed) out of your windows to the large square of spikes down below, I think I would maybe get rid of them.

My rating: ** out of *****

DaveyJoe

I agree with most of the sentiments expressed above, the film went back and forth between featuring really cool, atmospheric scenes to "oh god, it's so slow, why are they doing this to us?" I guess that's to be expected with directors coming and going. When the film worked, it worked quite well. I also appreciated how powerful Kinski's vampire was, he really seemed like a force of nature, something you really don't see in vampire movies much. Add that to the fact that Klaus Kinski is one creepy looking sumbitch and you have a pretty intimidating vampire on film. There were many beautiful women were disrobing in this movie... only to be pawed by a leering Kinski with no dental insurance. Kinski's groping of these women made it hard to enjoy the eye candy, but I persevered.

So I definitely had some mixed feelings about this one. At times I was really digging the slow burn feel of the movie, and other times it felt like the producer was just padding the film with shots of Kinski wandering through Europe. It's rare that I flip flip so often while watching a movie, going from loving one scene to hating the next. But there was definitely something about it that sticks with you, I would not mind revisiting this one in the future.

Trevor

Similar thoughts here.

In the end, I think I'm more interested in the history/production of it than the film itself.

clckworang

I think most people have already said what I thought. The only thing I would add is that I got a very MTV in the '80s vibe to this, back when they would come up with elaborate stories or scenarios to go with the videos. Replace Kinski with a singing Meatloaf (and take away the nudity), and this would have been right at home in the rotation.