Special Halloween double bill of German vampire classics

This Halloween, the Goethe-Institut and the German Film Office bring you a selection of vampire films curated by Deutsche Kinemathek as part of their “Wild, Weird, Bloody. German Genre Films of the 70s” retrospective at the 2025 Berlinale. Presented as part of AMONG FRIENDS – UNTER FREUNDEN, a campaign of the Goethe-Institut USA to celebrate and strengthen transatlantic friendship.

Vampires and mortals are welcome to join us at the Goethe-Institut New York on October 29 for a special double bill of Hans W. Geißendörfer’s Jonathan (1970), followed by Ulli Lommel’s Tenderness of the Wolves (1973). Please register to attend.

Hans W. Geißendörfer, Jonathan
A political parable of Germany’s 1960s protest movement, Jonathan is set in an undefined past, when a vampire count ruled a small city and its surrounding lands. The bloodlusty count and his followers target the young, so a group of students plans a revolution, choosing Jonathan as their leader. He ventures to the castle on a reconnaissance mission, but his journey is disrupted by violent obstacles—an amuse-bouche compared to the bloody excesses that await him in the count’s abode. With its gory long takes by cameraman Robby Müller and images composed like genre paintings, Hans W. Geißendörfer’s portrayal of the vampire ruling class and its demise earned him a German Film Award for Best New Director.

“the first anti-Fascist film of its kind … the most beautiful-looking vampire film I have seen”—Roger Greenspun, The New York Times, 06/16/1973

“Let yourself be entranced by the entire atmosphere of this loose Dracula adaptation, which unfolds like a dense 14th century Flemish triptych. You will lose some blood, but only enough to lust for more.”—Spectacle Theater

Jonathan
Dir. Hans W. Geißendörfer
West Germany, 1970
97 min.
With Jürgen Jung, Hans-Dieter Jendreyko, Paul Albert Krumm, Hertha von Walther, Oskar von Schab, Ilona Grübel, Sophie Strehlow, Gaby Herbst, Arthur Brauss

Ulli Lommel, Tenderness of the Wolves
A Fassbinder-produced reimagining of the story of Fritz Haarmann, the serial killer whose crimes inspired Fritz Lang’s 1931 classic M. In a post-war German city, Haarmann, a seasoned criminal, is recruited as a police informant. He uses the cover this position affords him to prey on young boys, luring them into his garret before killing them with a bite to the neck and turning their bodies into sausages. Everyone in town loves Haarmann’s meats, from black marketeers to the police inspector, but the tide turns when a nosy neighbor starts putting two and two together. Based on a script by Kurt Raab who also stars as Haarmann and featuring performances from many Fassbinder regulars—including a memorable cameo by the man himself—, Tenderness of the Wolves cares less about historical accuracy than about setting the scene for, in Fassbinder’s words, “a thriller with lots of blood … a combination of Fritz Lang’s M and Hitchcock’s Psycho.”

“Like Fassbinder’s own work, the movie has a haunting banality. It’s about insignificant creeps, and it invests them with a depressing universality.”—Rogert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 9/22/1976

“It’s at once a loose homage to M and a damning of pre-WWII cinema for its inability to sound the alarms against pervasive, fascist movements.”—Clayton Dillard, Slant, 11/4/2015

Tenderness of the Wolves
Dir. Ulli Lommel
West Germany, 1973
82 min.
With Kurt Raab, Jeff Roden, Margit Carstensen, Ingrid Caven, Wolfgang Schenck, Brigitte Mira, Rainer Hauer, Barbara Bertram, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Heinrich Giskes, El Hedi ben Salem