The opening credits to Werner Herzog's 1979 German Gothic masterpiece, Nosferatu The Vampyre, has to be one of the absolute best in horror.
The credits open with incredible film footage of the Mummies of Guanajuato, a famous collection of mummies from Guanajuato, Mexico dating back to an 1833 cholera epidemic. (The mummified remains were later unearthed after the failure of living relatives to pay burial taxes of the time, and were stored together in an above-ground building adjacent to the cemetery. By the 1900s, these mummies began attracting tourists and eventually the building became a permanent museum. A bucket-list destination, for sure.)
Along with the stunning imagery of the twisted mummies overlays the hauntingly beautiful Gothic soundtrack from German electronic/organic ambient artists, Popol Vuh. The track, Brüder Des Schattens (Brothers Of The Shadow), sounds like something pulled from a dark, candle-lit monastery with orchestral strings, woodwinds, and monastic chants.
And over it all, the sound of the human heartbeat. The life pulse of the vampire.
The scene then transitions to a bat flying through the night sky, only to be suddenly shattered by the bloodcurdling scream of Lucy Harker, jolted awake from a terrible nightmare.
A perfect foreshadowing of events to come...
Enjoy.
(And if you're interested, you can see the entire film here!)
