Nosferatu in Venice (1988)

Interesting facts

• Based on: Nosferatu
• Filmed in: Venice

Vampire in Venice, also known as Prince of the Night and Nosferatu in Venice, is a 1988 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Augusto Caminito and an uncredited Klaus Kinski, and starring Kinski, Christopher Plummer, Donald Pleasence, and Barbara De Rossi. The story follows Professor Paris Catalano (Plummer), who travels to Venice following the trail of the last known appearance of Nosferatu (Kinski), who was seen at Carnival in 1786. Catalano learns through a séance that the vampire is seeking eternal death, and tries to put an end to its existence once and for all.

Production

In the mid-1980s, producer Augusto Caminito began producing horror and thriller films in Italy for foreign markets, such as Lucio Fulci's Murder Rock. Caminito was introduced to the script for Nosferatu in Venice by Carlo Alberto Alfieri who had written the screenplay and its original story with Leandro Lucchetti.

The film was initially to be directed by Maurizio Lucidi. Among the crew was Luigi Cozzi, who was a friend of Alfieri and worked on the set as a consultant and during post-production. Cozzi recounts that Caminito felt the film would be a bigger success with a larger budget and a better-known director.

Filming began on August 25. Upon arriving on the set, Kinski refused to don again his Nosferatu the Vampyre make-up, which would have required him to shave his head. As a result, several scenes which had been filmed in long shot, with a double in Nosferatu costume and make-up, had to be scrapped.

Kinski demanded to and did direct some scenes himself, which included scenes following him as Nosferatu in Venice at dawn. Cozzi stated later that they ended with about 10 hours of footage which consisted of Kinski walking around.

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