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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 30578
Released: May 29, 2001 |
| Our Price: $10.18 |
| Used Price: $2.14 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Clever, engaging, and boosted by the sublime casting of Willem Dafoe as Nosferatu actor Max Schreck, Shadow of the Vampire is a film full of good ideas that are only partially developed. Its premise is ripe with possibilities, but the movie's too slight to register much impact, so you're left to relish its delightful performances and director E. Elias Merhige's affectionately tongue-in-cheek homage to a landmark of German silent cinema. John Malkovich is aptly loony as the eccentric director F.W. Murnau, whose passion in filming the 1922 classic Nosferatu leads to the extreme casting of Schreck as the vampire, a vision of evil who, in this movie's delightfully twisted imagination, actually is a vampire, sucking the blood of cast and crewmembers who've dismissed Schreck as an overzealous method actor.
As these on-set maladies and "accidents" continue, Schreck wields greater control over Murnau, who descends into a kind of obsessive art-for-art's-sake madness until diva costar Greta Schroeder (Catherine McCormack, doing wonderful work) is served up as the actor's ultimate motivation. Merhige and his actors (including Cary Elwes, as intrepid cameraman Fritz Wagner) have great fun with this ghastly escapade, and the humor is kept delicately subtle to balance the movie's artistic aspirations. To that end, Dafoe is just right, his bald pate and gaunt features a perfect match for the mysterious Schreck, his grimace and talon-like fingers suggesting a human vulture on the prowl. Likewise, the re-creation of Nosferatu's expressionist style is both fanciful and brilliantly authentic. Too bad, then, that this movie suffers a mild case of vampiric anemia; if it shared the depth and richness of, say, Ed Wood, this might have been a cult classic for the ages. --Jeff Shannon
Shadow of the Vampire Reviews:
Count Orlok Bites! 
2009-12-03 - Count Orlok Bites!
Shadow of the Vampire is not a docu-drama of the original 1920s silent screen horror film, but takes well from that time. Director F.W. Mirnau made an expressionist classic and director E. Elias Merhige created quite the film to answer the question: Was Mirnau's film great because the actor Schrek was really a vampire?
There are a few scenes that reflect on the obsessiveness of German directors, the pampering snobbery of actors and actresses, the rabid press wanting to know if this film is based on the Stoker novel Dracula (it kinda was, but I digress).
Mirnau pretends that Schrek is simply a method actor getting into his part, while he secretly feeds the vampire bottles of blood.
The filming techniques were pretty coolly demonstrated: "Iris in, and begin." The actors with their thick eye make-up, and the occasional drug use and fooling around off-stage made for some interesting scenes.
Willem DaFoe really steals the scenes -- I mean, the guy walks and talks as Max Schrek did or may have done during the actual Nosferatu. There are also scenes where they took the actual film clips of Nosferatu and then cut DaFoe in them, and frankly you cannot tell the difference between actors, he's that good.
Horror and comedy plays the biggest role: Schrek criticizes the original Stoker novel to the producer and writer as they share a bottle of schnapps under a full moon. Schrek says the horror was really Count Dracula who had not eaten real food for centuries now trying to remember how to set a table. The writer quips, "Did we read the same book?"
Orlok grabs a bat mid-flight, sucks its blood and stalks off.
The producer exclaims, "What an actor! Dedication!"
As Mirnau's crew becomes a supermarket of bodies and blood, he begins to wonder if he has truly made a deal with the devil.
The film is a bit slow and pondering in parts and if you have not seen the original silent film, you may not get all that Shadow of a Vampire is showing.
The DVD has some comments by Willem DaFoe and the director as they discuss the film, and the whole production. There's the usual commentary and languages.
Must see!
Other films of interest from director Merhige:
E. Elias Merhige - RV: A Filmmaker's Journey into the Dramatic Structure of the Mind (IRVA 2006)
Suspect Zero (Full Screen Edition)
Great performances from Malkovich and Defoe.
2009-11-11 - I find this story to be very well-written and (vampire)beautifully filmed. I appreciate that it was done without a lot of computer graphics. It's also a very interesting premise in the story line. Willem Defoe is so believeable in this role I forgot that I was watching an actor. And Malkovich performed with his usual and expected level of excellence in this character. This film maker was intense and detached. And he was appropriately torn and at the same time totally driven. I found the ending to be quite unexpected.
must like dark comedy with pathos and layers 
2009-10-25 - a lot of vampire films should be held up for ridicule . i won't mention any by name here . the proliferation of reverent vampire films and related filmaking with long leather jackets and romance and pretentious scripts is a silly trend . a trend targeted at a young , white , male/female demographic that is too young and/or oblivious to seperate the wheat from the chaff . visit this film or "THE HUNGER" , hammer's "CURSE OF DRACULA" , "BLADE II" , "THIRTY DAYS OF NIGHT" , television's "THE NIGHT STALKER" , "FRIGHT NIGHT" , JOHN CARPENTER'S "VAMPIRES" and LON CHENEY JR. as "THE SUN OF DRACULA" just to name a few . why ? so as to get clued into the fun and possibilities of vampire pictues . i love a lovely goth girl as much as the next guy . lighten up and keep an open mind though . it's entertainment .
Shadow of the Vampire (2001)-Cool, and really strange!
2009-07-16 - Shadow of the Vampire was almost as strange as the movie it "documented" the making of, "Nosferatu". It actually shouldn't be called a documentary because of the "supernatural on top of supernatural" theme it employed. Still, it was a very interesting presentation that I enjoyed and rate at four stars.
Shadow of the Vampire
2009-03-17 - This film is amazing, one of my favorite films. The story is good, John Malkovich is a tremendous actor.
Very well done.
buy this movie
