User Reviews

This rare film has deserved its obscurity. There seems to be no limit to awfulness when it comes to movies but Maurice Rabinowicz's debut is a strong competitor for worst film of all time. The Nosferat of the title is Jack The Ripper. He perverts the morals of a bourgeois family and opens the way to fascism. At least, that's what it is supposed to be about. What I saw and heard were endless scenes of people taking of their shoes and walking, very slowly, from one point to another; not that anything interesting happens where they are going. To make matters worse: anybody brave enough to sit this one through is treated to excruciatingly boring moral and political speeches, delivered in typical seventies fashion, that make you want to strangle the scriptwriters. The sets and lighting are worse than the script. The street seems to be filmed in a basement with lightbulbs desperately trying to look like streetlamps. In dialogue scenes filmed outside cars are continually passing by disturbing the image and sound. At least something is happening then. The film is based on a play: Le Nosferat. Yvette Michelems and Maurice Rabinowicz wrote the appalling script. It's no wonder that Rabinowicz directed only one more film: Une page d'amour (1978) which he also co-wrote with Michelems. Le Nosferat ou les eaux glacées de calcul égoïste is the perfect example of what can go wrong when talentless people get to write, direct and produce their own films. There is no control; in this case a serious disadvantage.