Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

The torturous production of the classic 1922 vampire film Nosferatu is recreated in this stylized account of director F.W. Murnau and his obsession with creating realistic horror by any means necessary -- even if those means include actual bloodletting. The film begins as Murnau (John Malkovich) is ready to take his unauthorized interpretation of the Bram Stoker tale on location in Czechoslovakia. There, the director has arranged for his cast and crew to live in the same castle in which they will shoot their parts, as they all wait for their co-star, Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) -- Murnau's choice to play Count Orlok -- to arrive. Their leader has warned them that Schreck is a student of the Stanislovsky method of performance and will not respond to them out-of-character. Nothing, however, can prepare them for the real thing: when the actor arrives, he's already in full Gothic regalia, asserting that he is indeed a vampire. Schreck makes good on his claims by terrorizing the cast and crew, attacking Murnau's original cinematographer (Wolfgang Muller) and plucking bats out of the air for midnight snacks. Director E. Elias Merhige previously made his name with his experimental theater productions and with his horrific film school thesis, Begotten.

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Review By Jason Clark

A fanciful retelling of the making of the classic 1922 horror film Nosferatu, this second feature by independent director E. Elias Merhige boasts a healthy knowledge of cinema history, particularly in its recreations of director F.W. Murnau's work locales and star Max Schreck's freakish visual appearance, but suffers from characterizations that would seem over-the-top in a vaudeville show. Malkovich suggests all of the bluster of director Murnau, but little of what made him such a vital director. In fact, judging by Malkovich's arch, often unpleasant portrayal, F.W. Murnau may as well have been Ed Wood. Dafoe fares better as the pointy-eared, blood-starved Schreck, but his technically precise performance exists as more of a stunt than anything else, leaving human emotions at bay. Shadow of the Vampire attempts to create a revisionist rhetoric of the tumultuous behind-the-scenes aspects of Nosferatu, but never quite understands the logic behind it. This is partly the point, but often the film's befuddled, rigid structure makes it more of an ordeal than it should be, especially when the original 1922 film on which its events are based is far richer in its exploration of frightful behavior without drawing so much attention to itself. A film that succinctly defines "not for all tastes," Shadow of the Vampire premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.