‘Nosferatu’ remake premieres in Novi

NOVI — Fans of Doug Jones were treated to a premiere of his new film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” a remake of the 1922 silent film, at the Emagine Theatre in Novi on Nov. 11, followed by a question-and-answer session with Jones and his agent, Derek Maki.

Attendees were given tickets for the premiere when they visited Jones’ booth at the Fall Motor City Comic Con at the Suburban Collection Showplace. Only the first 98 people who were interested in seeing the film were able to go.

“This was something that I never expected to do,” said Kristi Bishop, of Grand Blanc. “It was, like, amazing.”

The film stars Jones as Count Orlok and enhances the original film by incorporating sound and aspects of color. Jones said Count Orlok was a role that he had dreamed of playing for many years.

Jones said that he understood Count Orlok and could play the role.

“So getting to do that was kind of like my dream role. That was my bucket list,” Jones said.

“Technically, this movie has been 100 years in the making,” Maki said. “The original ‘Nosferatu’ celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and this film, although it has taken nine years to actually bring to the silver screen, it’s 100 years in the making overall.”

The movie was filmed on a green screen stage in Burbank, California. According to Jones, the effort to bring the film to life started in 2014 with a Kickstarter campaign, and they began filming in 2015. Jones said his portion of the film only took about one to two weeks to film. He said he had seen the film once many years ago, and then once just prior to filming to be able to emulate Max Schreck, who played Orlok in the original film. Jones said he also took inspiration from Count Dracula and the classic line, “I want to suck your blood,” in order to give voice to Orlok.

“We wanted to pay homage to the original film, and I wanted to give Max Schreck’s iconic moments another go with me doing it,” said Jones.

Jones said he made sure to include classic scenes from the film, such as Count Orlok rising from the coffin stiff as a board on the ship, and the classic shadow on the stairs.

The new film contains actual elements from the original film. Producers took original plates from the film, cleaned them up and did some computer-generated imaging. According to Maki, almost every scene from the new film has some sort of CGI green screen element to it. Originally, the remake was going to be in full color, but after seeing it in color, filmmakers elected to only use a limited amount of color for certain aspects of the film, such as blood, and to show time of day such as sunset. They also used sepia tones and black and white, as it is more reminiscent of the original film.

“They didn’t want to retell the story and make it completely on its own. They wanted to show you something that they were inspired by and develop it a little bit more to tell our version of the story. So at the end of the day, they didn’t want to develop it in such a way that it is not what it was originally intended to be,” Maki said.

“We saw it in rich, saturated color and the two elements didn’t blend together as well as it does in black and white,” Jones said. “So I’m really happy they reverted back to black and white.”

Jones said that they were not trying to reinvent anything with the dialogue, but rather to fill in the gaps that were lost in silent films. He said he believes the dialogue did help to bring out what might have been missing in the original film.

“I really liked their take on it because the original one is a silent picture. So it was kind of cool to see it with dialogue going,” said Scott Bishop, of Grand Blanc. “And until they explained, I didn’t know that a lot of it was that (original) picture with them superimposed on it. So it was pretty cool the way they did it.”

Maki said director David Lee Fisher called the film a “labor of love” and said that it was made by fans and for fans. According to Maki, many people thought the remake would be a large studio project — something on the order of “Halloween,” or “Saw.”

“Those are studio films made to make millions and millions of dollars. This film was a passion project. It was in homage to the original,” Maki said.

This was the first time the film was shown to an audience. The film does not currently have a distributor. So in the interim, the film is going to be on tour with Jones at various cons across the country.

“My dream for it is to have a distributor so that everybody can see real works of art and not commercials,” said Maki. “Filmmaking is art. … Filmmaking is not about Marvel movies. It’s not about Iron Man and Spider-Man. Those are made to sell action figures. Film is art. Actors are artists. Directors are artists. And when they bring something to the theater for you guys to see, they don’t care that you paid a dollar or $30,000 to see it. They want you to see something that they believe in.”

As a surprise gift to the film’s first audience, all attendees received a poster that was already autographed by Fisher and then personally autographed by Jones. Guests filed out in a single line and were able to interact with Jones as he signed their posters.

“It was cool because that movie, especially, hasn’t been shown in public before, so that was a cool experience,” said Scott Bishop. “Doug just takes his time with everybody. Autographed pictures and everything — that was so cool.”