I’m not sure when I first saw Nosferatu. It may have been in one of my film classes at WV State or it may have been at one of the local libraries. I do remember watching it, however. When I first heard about Shadow of the Vampire on the Internet back in 1999, it sounded interesting. It revived memories of the silent classic around which the film is based. The plot of Shadow of the Vampire is that Nosferatu director F.W. Murnau (played by John Malkovich) hired an actual vampire to portray Count Orlok in his film. The actor was Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe).
There have been many urban legends about Schreck and Nosferatu and Shadow of the Vampire uses those myths to weave its tale. I remember reading in Famous Monsters about some of these, including one that claims Max Schrek may have been a stage name as Schrek is German for “fear”. I don’t know if this is correct, but the IMDB lists Schreck as the actor’s birth name and lists several other films that Schrek appeared in.
Shadow of the Vampire’s trailer makes it out to be almost a comedy, but I didn’t find much of it comedic. It is not really much of a horror film either as there aren’t many scares to found in the film either. It is a decent drama about making a movie. The conceit of pretending that Max Schreck truly was a vampire is amusing and allows for a nice little “what if” spin. Dafoe does a wonderful job as Schrek and Malkovich is equally wonderful as Murnau.
I was a little disappointed in the film, but mostly because it was sold as a form of comedy, and I as I stated, there really aren’t many humorous moments in the film. In fact one of the bits that works as a bit of dark humor in the trailer with Murnau telling Schrek that he can’t kill his camera man plays completely natural in the film itself. The acting is great. The makeup and all the technical aspects are dazzling, but the script just left me a little unsatisfied. I give Shadow of the Vampire 2 stars.
365 Days of DVDs 