When you think about how it was as an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's
Dracula that modern day viewers, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't be able to see, as it was ordered to be destroyed following a lawsuit by Stoker's widow, it's quite remarkable the life that
Nosferatu has had. Not only did prints of it survive the lawsuit, allowing it to go on to be deemed a classic, not only of the silent era and German Expressionism, but also of the horror genre in general, but it's had its own cultural impact, one that's nearly as substantial as
Dracula itself. The image of Count Orlock has become just as iconic and recognizable as the suave, debonair version of Count Dracula, and it has inspired other monsters in fiction, like Kurt Barlow in
Salem's Lot and some vampires in the
Blade movies. Orlock has even been featured on
SpongeBob SquarePants, for God's sake! In addition, you've had a number of movies that, in one way or another, are tied to the original silent film, specifically Werner Herzog's 1979 remake and its unofficial sequel,
Nosferatu in Venice (both of which I've reviewed), the little known 2023 version with Doug Jones, and Robert Egger's grand 2024 remake. And then, there's this little oddity, which I remember being something of a big deal when it was released. I not only saw a handful of TV spots but, when it was put out on VHS and DVD, I remember looking at the back of them in various stores and seeing glowing reviews, like one from the Los Angeles Times that proclaimed it to be one of the best movies of that year. It was even nominated for a couple of Oscars, which they proudly put on the back as well. This film did intrigue, I'd long known of
Nosferatu by that point, thanks to those old books on horror movies I would frequently check out from my school and the nearest local library, and I instantly knew this had something to do with it. I didn't learn what the premise actually was until many years later (I got a vague idea from the plot synopsis on the back of its home video releases), but when I did, I thought it was a really interesting one, especially given all the myths that have sprung up about the original movie's production.
But it seems like, in the years since it was released, Shadow of the Vampire has kind of been forgotten. I know I hadn't thought about it in a long time, until James Rolfe featured it in a video he did on his top five movies about making movies. That was the first time I really saw any clips from it, and it also wasn't too long after that when I found the DVD cheap at McKay's and decided to give it a whirl. However, I was not prepared for this movie's very bizarre tone, which is like if you took a vampire movie, mixed it with an arthouse flick that's as a meditation on film and creativity in general, and sprinkled in some black comedy. It's definitely interesting and unlike most other horror movies you'd expect to see from this era, featuring some very good performances by a nice cast and a number of unusual and memorable visual motifs employed by its director. But, that said, it's a little too offbeat for me personally, and while I do compliment the actors on their performances, especially John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe, I can't get really attached to many of the characters for various reasons.
Berlin, 1921. Despite having been refused the rights to Bram Stoker's Dracula by the late author's estate, German filmmaker Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau forges ahead, changing the main character's name to Count Orlock and calling the film Nosferatu. After filming some scenes at Jofa Studios, Murnau prepares to shoot on location in Czechoslovakia. When the film's producer, Albin Grau, asks about the actor who will play the vampire, Murnau tells him nothing and heads out to a cabaret to indulge in his vices. The cast's other male lead, Gustav von Wangenheim, tells the crew that Murnau has hired a mysterious theater actor named Max Schreck for the role. None of them recognize the name, and Gustav says that, according to Murnau, Schreck is a character actor who was once associated with Russian actor/director Konstantin Stanislavsky and completely submerges himself in his roles. To that end, he will only appear in full makeup and costume, will never break character, and his scenes will only be filmed at night. The next day, the cast and crew travel to Czechoslovakia by train, arriving at a small inn, which is also to be one of their filming locations. During the journey, Gustav discovers what appears to be a bottle of blood in a wicker basket containing some of the crew's food supply, and during their first night at the inn, cameraman Wolfgang Muller begins acting strangely. The next day, while filming one of Gustav's scenes there, Murnau is interrupted when the landlady protests his taking down the crucifixes she had hanging up inside the building. That night, at the ruins of an ancient castle, the first scene with Schreck as Count Orlock is filmed, formally introducing the mysterious actor to everyone. His appearance and behavior prove both impressive and unnerving, and Murnau continues to be coy when asked where he actually found him, saying it was at that very castle. Wolfgang collapses after he walks into the same tunnel that Schreck disappeared into, and has to be helped off the grounds. Things only worsen during filming of the first major scene between Orlock and Hutter, as Schreck tries to drink Gustav's blood when Murnau causes him to cut himself, and Wolf's health deteriorates to the point where he must be replaced. Unbeknownst to everyone else, Murnau has made a true deal with the devil with Schreck, who is not just a mere actor, and the director may not be able to control him for much longer.
Produced by Nicolas Cage's production company, Saturn Films (Cage, for the first time in his career, is credited here as a producer),
Shadow of the Vampire was written as a screenplay back in the late 80's, by Steven A. Katz. (According to him, it actually helped get him the opportunity to write a draft of the screenplay for
Interview With The Vampire, but when Neil Jordan was hired as director, he decided to write his own screenplay and Katz's work went unused.) It came out of a lifelong interest he'd had in
Nosferatu and, particularly, the actor Max Schreck. And though Katz's impetus for writing the screenplay was likely because of how little was known about Schreck, as well as F.W. Murnau, at that time, it was also, for many years, a popular urban legend that the former really was a vampire. Said legend was popularized in the 1950's by Greek filmmaker and writer Ado Kyrou, who claimed in his book,
Le Surréalisme au Cinéma, that Schreck's "true identity" was never revealed, then suggested he might've really been a vampire. And to this day, there are some who think, if nothing else, that he
thought he was an actual vampire and went around the set, biting people. But, while he is said to have been a very strange person, there's no evidence that he was that unhinged. In any case, it just so happens that Cage is not only a big fan of
Nosferatu but, according to Katz, Schreck was one of his acting inspirations. So, of course, he wanted to make this movie when he learned of the script, and is said to have considered playing Schreck himself, before deciding Willem Dafoe would be a better choice.
After having seen his film, Begotten, Cage had always wanted to work with filmmaker E. Elias Merhige and hired him to direct Shadow of the Vampire. At the time, Merhige hadn't actually made a feature film since Begotten, which was back in 1989, though he did direct some music videos for Marilyn Manson in the interim. And after Shadow, he only directed one other movie, 2004's Suspect Zero, with Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley, which bombed badly. Since then, he's mostly gone back to theater work, where his career started. In a 2004 interview he did with the website, Screenwriter's Utopia, Katz said that Merhige's cinematic experience was mostly comprised of art films and he didn't know much about genre movies or even mainstream movies in general. Katz also said the two of them often clashed over Merhige's approach, which was to go for an arthouse feel and focus on the themes of creativity and the relationship between Murnau and Schreck, whereas Katz just wanted the movie to be a really good vampire flick.
To say that John Malkovich's portrayal of F.W. Murnau is one of a man who considers himself an artist is a gross understatement (it sometimes gets to be a bit much, as I'll go into later). From his introduction, where he's filming an interior scene for Nosferatu at Berlin's Jofa Studios, while wearing a pair of goggles and a white coat not unlike that of a doctor (the crew even often refer to him as "Herr Doctor"), it's clear this guy lives only for his work. As he plays music on a phonograph to create atmosphere for his actors, he calmly, and almost sensuously, talks Greta Schroder through her role of Ellen Hutter: "You're very content right now, aren't you, Ellen? You live in a nice house. You wear pretty clothes. And you're married to a kind man who's promised to love your forever. You have no inkling of what lives at the bottom of the flower box. No sense of longing. No notion, even, of death itself." Once he's finished, he asks cameraman Wolfgang Muller if they've "established pathos" rather than if the scene looked good, and tells Greta afterward, "For a moment, I even thought I saw a premonition of evil cross your face." He's also longing to get out of the studio and on location in Czechoslovakia, declaring, "Thank God, an end to this artifice!" By extension, he feels that, as an art form, film superior to theater, and he doesn't pay much mind to Greta's complaining that she's being forced to leave Berlin just at the start of the theatrical season. However, he also has no time or respect for the economics and politics of filmmaking, as he tells producer Albin Grau that the cost of shooting on location is, "The price of genius," would rather that their financiers not know what kind of movie they're making at all, and has Grau deal with the press. During the journey to Czechoslovakia by train, Murnau has a speech that sums up how significant he feels film is: "Our battle, our struggle, is to create art. Our weapon is the moving
picture. Because we have the moving picture, our paintings will grow and
recede, our poetry will be shadows that lengthen and conceal, our light
will play across living faces that laugh and agonize, and our music
will linger and finally overwhelm, because it will have a context as
certain as the grave. We are scientists engaged in the creation of
memory... but our memory will neither blur nor fade."
Also from the beginning, Murnau's rather unsavory side is established. While directing Greta in the opening, where she's playing with a cat, he says, "Nice pussy.
Nice pussy," then follows that up a rather sexual-sounding, "
Meow." Moreover, once filming is done for the day, he heads out to a cabaret and engages in some debauchery. However, while the movie does allude to Murnau's sexuality, which seems to be bisexual rather than homosexual as it was in reality, it doesn't become a major part of the plot.
That said, there was a deleted subplot that involved his relationship with a cabaret performer named Micheline, but while she may or may not appear in this scene (I'm not sure), her true significance, in that she's the one who gave Murnau the novel of
Dracula, is only vaguely hinted at near the end. Much more significant is Murnau's drug addiction, which he indulges in while there, and also play a very important part in the story during the third act.
Even before he departs with his cast and crew, Murnau has deliberately kept them in the dark about who will be playing Count Orlock, leaving it to actor Gustav von Wangenheim to tell them of Max Schreck and his unusual "methods." Upon arriving at the small Han Budala Inn, which they also use as a filming location, Murnau reinforces his desire for absolute authenticity when he says he plans to use the locals as extras, saying, "They don't need to act. They need to
be." Furthermore, while filming the dinner table
scene between Hutter and Orlock, he deliberately causes Gustav to cut his finger, arousing Schreck's bloodlust. Speaking of which, when the others finally meet Schreck for the first time during the night shoot at the castle ruins, Murnau is delighted by the reaction his appearance gets from both Gustav and the crew. He also tells everyone to refer to Schreck as Count Orlock, that he isn't interested in personal accolades, and should be left alone. Grau suspects Schreck isn't really from the Reinhardt Theater Company as
Murnau claims, and when asked where he really found him, the filmmaker cryptically answers, "In that hole." He soon begins demanding absolute perfection from everybody, having no patience when the inn's landlady walks into a shot to complain about their taking down the crucifixes they had hanging up, and getting frustrated when Wolf becomes more and more lethargic and unresponsive. He really loses his temper when things go haywire while shooting the latter part of the dinner table scene. The generator shorts out, causing the lights to blink on and off, and
Schreck, after trying to suck the blood from Gustav's bleeding finger, goes for Wolf's neck in the dark and chaos. Murnau angrily admonishes him for this, yelling, "I have contracted you in secrecy and at great expense. You will not
damage this production!", then yells at Wolf, who looks as though he's barely alive, "Herr Muller, when will you have your equipment functioning properly?! I am tired of your lack of enthusiasm!"
After filming ends for the day and they return to the inn, Murnau, in private conference with Grau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen, talks about needing to replace Wolf, and also admits that he likes that the crew is now on edge because of what's happened. He's also desperate not to delay filming, as he doesn't want the financiers to get control, and even when Galeen angrily shoves him for how little concern he has for everyone's well-being, he's still only focused on quickly getting a new cameraman. Before leaving,
he tells Galeen, "When you wrote this scenario, you had demons of your own to work out, did you not? Now, I have mine." You see just how literally he means that, as he's next seen again yelling at Schreck for feeding on Wolf. As should already be clear by this point, he's only upset because Wolf is a vital member of the crew, rather than out of concern for his well-being (during this confrontation, Wolf is outside, in the back of the car, when he should be in a hospital). Murnau even sarcastically asks Schreck
why he couldn't have gone for someone like the script girl, before
reminding him that not harming his crew, for that very reason was part of their agreement. Since he now needs to go to Berlin to find a replacement for Wolf, he warns Schreck to behave himself while he's gone, only for him to then refuse to get onboard the ship where a good chunk of the film is set. More enraged at this, Murnau declares that he'll shoot around him on the scenes at sea, and also tells him that, if he doesn't go to the island of Heligoland to shoot the film's ending, he won't be able to have
Greta Schroder, as per their bargain. Schreck continues acting defiant, and Murnau warns him that he will find a way to get back at him for this, but he's unfazed. And by the time Murnau returns to the film, which has now moved to Wismar, he has clearly lost control of Schreck, who demands to have Greta immediately, and tells Murnau that it's not his movie anymore. Murnau grabs and tries to choke him, only for Schreck to use his inhuman strength to remind him of what he's dealing with.
Once they've arrived at Heligoland, Murnau, as Grau and new cameraman Fritz Arno Wagner set up to shoot the final scene, injects himself with laudanum and falls into a stupor. When they find him, he admits that Schreck really is a vampire. Murnau says he doesn't know his real name, but remembered his image from a book he read when he was in school, adding that his painting was one of a series, "Portraying a long line of despotic kings, rumored to be vampires, living in Slovakia for hundreds of
years," and, "I had forgotten all about it until she gave me that other book...
Dracula. Then I went to scout locations, and there he was, living in an old monastery." Finally, he reveals just how far he was willing to go to make his film, admitting that he promised Schreck he could feed on Greta in return for posing as an actor. By this point, they've also learned that they're trapped on the island, as the airplane they used to fly there no longer has any fuel. With no other recourse, they decide to film the final scene that night, planning to destroy Schreck once dawn arrives. As
they're preparing to shoot, Greta becomes hysterical when she sees that Schreck has no reflection in the mirror. Murnau injects her with some laudanum, both to calm her and to drug Schreck when he feeds on her blood (which Murnau, of course, films). Come dawn, they try to open the studio's large metal door and let in the sunlight, but find that he learned how the mechanism worked and sabotaged it.
By the end of the scene, both Grau and Wagner are dead, while Murnau, now completely crazed and obsessed with finishing his film, continues shooting. He not only doesn't seem to comprehend that the other two men are dead, but continues giving Schreck direction, telling him where to stand. And when Schreck approaches him in a threatening manner, Murnau tells him, "If it's not in frame, it doesn't exist," (something the real Murnau told Alfred Hitchcock when his career was just beginning).
Schreck actually goes along with this, only to be exposed to sunlight when the rest of the crew arrive and open the metal door. As he films the vampire's disintegration, Murnau continues his direction, even to those who are dead, like Grau, to whom he says, "Albin, could you quickly collect the wooden stake and return it to its rightful place? It
is necessary for the final frame, to remind us of the inadequacy of
our plans, our contingencies, every missed train, the failed picnics,
every lie to a child." He keeps filming even after Schreck has been destroyed and the crew
walk in, telling them, "Softly, please. Our work is nearly complete. Our very own cave painting on our very own cave wall. Time will no longer be a dark spot on our lungs. They will no longer be able to say, 'You would had to have been there,' because the fact is, Albin, we were." Shooting the grisly aftermath of what's happened, he asks the crew, "Is there one among you who might wear the mantle of camera assistant?" When he gets no response, he then asks, "Could I possibly impose on you to collect the slate at my feet and provide me with an end board?" One of them does, and the movie ends with a close-up of Murnau, who's finally stopped cranking the camera, saying, "I think we have it."
According to the trivia section on the movie's IMDB page, Willem Dafoe's performance as Max Schreck marks the only time anyone has ever been nominated for an Oscar for playing a vampire. It's remarkable to ponder, but it's also not surprising that he got the nomination, seeing as how he is definitely the best part of the movie. Like the character of Count Orlock in the actual
Nosferatu, Schreck's first appearance comes a little while in, but there is a considerable buildup to him, in how Murnau is very mysterious about who he is and where he found him, and the information about his "method" of staying in character and only shooting his scenes at night. Though his first true appearance is at the castle ruins, Schreck's presence is felt during the crew's first night at the Han Budala Inn. There's a very brief glimpse of his shadow in Wolf's room, and Gustav then comes upon Wolf after he's clearly had an encounter with the vampire. Afterward, someone, likely Murnau, leaves a ferret in a cage for Schreck to feed on near his lair, and we then get our first glimpse of him, mostly of his long, claw-like fingernails. Not surprisingly, when Gustav and Albin Grau see Schreck when he creepily emerges from the darkness at the castle ruins, they're quite unnerved by both his appearance and behavior; Henrik Galeen, on the other hand, is over the moon at how incredibly freakish he comes off. But, when they next film the dinner table scene, Schreck proves to be a little difficult to accommodate, in more ways than one. Initially, it's due to some typical "actory" demands that seem unimportant, as well as his being distracted when he sees a picture of Greta Schroder and says her name rather than the character's. But when Gustav cuts his thumb, Schreck lunges at him and sucks his blood, then attacks Wolf when the generator malfunctions and the lights go out, feeding on him for the third time and leaving him nearly catatonic on the floor. Following that, when Murnau demands that he control himself, especially during his absence when he has to go to Berlin to get a new cameraman, Schreck makes it clear he has no intention of letting the director keep him on a leash.
Schreck's motivation for being in Murnau's film is simple: he will be able to feed on Greta at the end of filming. But, despite their bargain, Schreck, knowing that Murnau can't really harm him, does whatever he wants, namely feed on various people on the crew. He also seems fascinated by the idea of film, as when he's left alone on the set after everyone else has gone back to the inn, he fiddles around with a projector. Initially looking at his hand's shadow when he puts it in front of the beam, he then looks through the lens
and at the footage, which is of the sun breaking through clouds (something he probably hasn't seen in centuries, as indicated by an earlier line). And when they first start shooting his scene, he asks for some makeup, which the makeup girl had begun to apply to his forehead, but Murnau says he doesn't get any. Since he's not actually an actor, he's confused by some aspects of filmmaking, like when he's supposed to be reading the contracts that Hutter has brought him but those aren't what those papers actually are, or,
when he looks at her picture, it's meant to be Helen Hutter and not actually Greta. While filming the latter, Murnau has Galeen give Schreck some motivation, asking him, "What is it that inspires the most longing in you? That is most desirable and yet most unobtainable?" Schreck answers, "The light... of the sun," and he's told to use that emotion in playing the role. It prompts him to ad lib a line about Helen having a "beautiful
bosom," and he also adds one about how he and Hutter will be neighbors in Wismar. Ironically, all this naivety on Schreck's part makes
him come off as the demanding method actor that Murnau has passed him off as. And as the movie goes on, Schreck's vampire nature makes him seem all the more difficult, like when he refuses to shoot on a ship, prompting Murnau to have a facade of it built at his castle, demands to be flown to Heligoland, and, in Wismar, refuses to continue acting until he's able to meet Greta. And as much as Murnau threatens to make him pay for his interference, it's clear when he tries to strangle him that Schreck is the one with the upper hand.
Not unlike when Klaus Kinski played Count Orlock (or Dracula, as he was actually called) in the Werner Herzog film, there is some palpable melancholy to Schreck regarding his immortality. A couple of times, he recites Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem
Tithonus, about a character who has eternal life but not eternal youth, something he's, obviously, able to relate to. He first reads from the poem after they've finished shooting for the day and his dinner is brought to him. When he's given the large bottle of blood, he laments
to the one who brought it to him (again, likely Murnau), "There was a time... when I... fed from golden chalices. But now... in my old age, I feed the way old men pee: sometimes all at once, sometimes drop by drop." But most tellingly is a scene between him, Grau, and Galeen one night on the castle grounds. The latter two, completely plastered on schnapps, decide to play along with his "method acting," asking him when he became a vampire; he simply answers, "I can't recall." He gives the same
answer when asked where he was born. But he says he does remember
how it happened: "It was a woman... We were together in the night, and then, she left me. At first, I had a painting of her in wood. Then I had a relief of her in marble. And then, I had a picture of her, in my mind. But now, I no longer even have that." Significantly, he also says that he found the novel of
Dracula to be "sad... because Dracula had no servants," then goes on to elaborate: "Dracula hasn't had servants in 400 years and then, a man
comes to his
ancestral home, and he must convince him that he... that he is like the
man. He has to feed him, when he himself hasn't eaten food in centuries.
Can he even remember how to buy bread? How to select cheese and wine?
And then, he remembers the rest of it: how to prepare a meal, how to make
a bed. He remembers his first glory, his armies, his retainers, and
what he is reduced to. The loneliest part of the book comes... when the
man accidentally sees Dracula setting his table." (More than likely, he was also talking about himself.) Grau asks, "But if you're so lonely, why don't you make more vampires?", and Schreck answers, "I can't. I'm too old. Although, I seem to remember I was never able to."
Schreck is also the source of much of the movie's dark humor, like when, as he's holding the bottle of blood and lamenting what he is, he suddenly yells, "Don't look at me that way!", or, when Murnau, while admonishing him for feeding on Wolf, asks, "Why not the... script girl?!", he off-handedly remarks, "The script girl. I'll eat her later," then suggests, "I don't think we need the writer." There's also something inherently funny in seeing him actually get drunk on schnapps along with Grau and Galeen. Following his
speech about the woman who made him a vampire, he drunkenly asks, "What was I saying?", then looks at the bottle after taking another swig and says, "This schnapps they make in these parts. I haven't tasted it in..." He doesn't finish his sentence, and nearly walks off with the bottle, though Grau takes it back. He seems to still be tipsy when he attacks a crew member on the deck of the fake ship later on. In Wismar, after they finish shooting another scene, Schreck, still lying in the coffin, is approached by Fritz Wagner, who
asks if he's ever read Plato. In all earnestness, he says he
knew him, and becomes irritated with Wagner over his opinions on some of Plato's philosophies. At the end of the scene, Grau, offscreen, says, "Let's hurry, everyone. It's almost 4:00." Hearing that, and realizing the sun will rise soon, Schreck bolts straight up, exclaims, "4:00?!", and looks around nervously, his head moving in a manner similar to a clock hand! Afterward, when they film the scene where Orlock rises up out of the coffin in the ship's hold, Schreck, after they cut, seems annoyed that they had to resort
to that kind trickery, as he's capable of doing it himself. And when he and Murnau talk about filming his death scene, he tells him, "Don't expect realism there, Murnau." Late in the film, Schreck discovers how
he could be destroyed on the soundstage at Heligoland by fumbling around
on the set and pulling a lever that opens the large metal door, causing him to quickly run for cover in a funny manner. Later, while filming the final scene, Schreck is so eager to feed on Greta that he can't stand it, waddling back and forth like an addict who badly needs a fix. Then, when he's
finally able to get at her, he gets to grope and fondle her for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, when he feeds on her blood, which is full of laudanum, it causes him to fall asleep, and you see him lying atop her, the sound of loud snoring coming from either him or her. And when he awakens upon hearing their attempt to destroy him, he's still a little woozy from its effects (though that doesn't diminish his threat).
There are a couple of times where Schreck lets Murnau know that he's well aware of the type of person he is. When he's first ranting about Wolf, Schreck sneers, "Don't pretend you mourn, Herr Doctor. I know you." And during their confrontation in Wismar over Greta, Murnau exclaims, "You are destroying everything. My people
have to trust me for you to get what you want!" To that, Schreck says, "You and I are not so different," possibly referring to when he was a tyrannical king, as Murnau later says
he was. Also by this point, he's proven to indeed be a serious threat, as he's definitively killed one crew member, and tells Murnau that
Nosferatu is no longer his film. He tries to get at Greta that night, when she's doped up on morphine and completely hysterical, but is unable to enter her room, which is locked up tight. So, when they're shooting the movie's final scene the following night, Schreck is quite literally chomping at the bit to get at her, growing impatient when Murnau keeps putting it off to film his "death scene." He
finally decides he's done waiting, tells Murnau to go to hell, demands that filming begin again, and goes right for Greta's throat. When they then attempt to destroy him with sunlight, only to learn he cut the chain to the lever that lifts up the stage's metal door, Schreck is furious that Murnau attempted to break their bargain. He threatens to kill them all, then hide in the shadows until sunset that evening. Both Wagner and Grau attempt to kill him, but Schreck quickly dispenses with each of them. He also goes for
Murnau, but when he keeps filming, Schreck decides to go along with it and returns to feeding on Greta. Unfortunately for him, that's when the crew show up and open the metal door from the outside, destroying him.
The makeup on Willem Dafoe, for which the movie was also nominated for an Oscar, is amazing, very effectively recreating the iconic aspects of the classic Count Orlock look: the bald head, pointy ears, rat-like incisors, and the long, claw-like fingernails, as well as his black suit. There are even some shots where Dafoe is filmed at a certain angle and lit in a manner where he really does look how the Max Schreck did in
Nosferatu. But that's just the icing for Dafoe's absolutely delicious performance, where he not only
manages to be creepy, threatening, melancholic, and even darkly funny, but also effectively mimics the stances, movements, and tics of the real Schreck. There are also some little touches of his own, such as his low, raspy voice, bouts of inhuman growling and labored breathing, and an occasional tic where he wiggles the fingers on both hands, causing the fingernails to clack against each other. And, more than anything else, you can tell that Dafoe is having an absolute ball in playing this role (but, then again, that always seems to be the case with him).
While it's certainly not a new idea by this point, as we've seen, I like how the movie goes into the idea of what a miserable, lonely existence being a vampire would be. Notably, it adds a new, humiliating dimension to it by suggesting you can be cursed to continue aging while never dying. As Schreck says, he's so old now that his feeding habits have become as erratic as an old man needing to use the bathroom, and his being unable to turn others into vampires is another way of saying he's impotent. And, unlike
what we saw with Jack Palance in the 1974 TV movie of
Dracula, Schreck can't just break into a room and attack someone, and can also be affected by drugs in someone's bloodstream. But, all that said, he's still strong enough to where, when combined with his immortality, he can be a real threat. Also, like in
Nosferatu, his shadow seems to have a power all its own, especially in how it grips Greta's heart while Murnau is filming the ending. Speaking of powers, also like in that movie, Schreck is unable to become a bat (he actually catches and feeds on one while
talking with Grau and Galeen), and he also doesn't have Count Orlock's connection with the plague, either. As per usual, he can only be destroyed by either a stake or exposure to sunlight, but, while he does have one, it doesn't seem like he absolutely has to sleep in a coffin throughout the entire day. Rather, he simply has to stay in darkness while the sun is out.
Udo Kier was never an actor I was a big fan of, but I actually think he works well here as Albin Grau,
Nosferatu's producer, art director, and costume designer. What I like about his performance is that, for a change, he's actually playing a normal, reasonable guy. Granted, the real Grau was also an occultist, and there is a moment in the movie where he drunkenly claims to have once seen a spiritualist pull ectoplasm out of his mouth, but when Henrik Galeen then counters by saying he once saw Greta Schroder naked, Grau proves he is still very much a normal man when he remarks, "That beats ectoplasm!" At the beginning of the movie, as they're preparing to travel to Czechoslovakia, Grau is frustrated with how tight-lipped F.W. Murnau is about the person who will play Count Orlock. As the producer, he's also concerned with keeping the movie on time and budget, and, much to his chagrin, Murnau tends to rely on him to deal with the politics of filmmaking. When they arrive on location at the Slovakian castle ruins and meet Max Schreck, Grau knows he's not from the Reinhardt theater company, like Murnau said, and is perplexed by the director's odd answer about where he actually found him. Unlike Murnau, who becomes frustrated and more worried about his film than everyone's well-being when Schreck attacks Gustav von Wangenheim and then Wolfgang Muller, Grau tries to maintain control and declares that they're done shooting for the day. That said, he's intent on continuing production, and has to stop Galeen from attacking Murnau over his insensitivity about what's happening. By the time the third act rolls around, Grau finds himself the producer of a film that's in chaos, with both Murnau and Greta getting doped up. And then, as if that weren't enough, he learns Schreck is a real vampire, and they're trapped on Heligoland with him. After their failed attempt to destroy him while shooting his final scene in the movie, Grau, following Fritz Wagner's death, tries to stake Schreck, but gets strangled for his trouble.
's screenwriter, Henrik Galeen (John Aden Gillet), is initially very impressed with and intrigued by Max Schreck when they meet him at the castle, declaring him the "overture to our symphony of horrors." He wants to congratulate him on his performance, but Murnau tells him to leave him be, as it may interfere with his method. However, when Schreck attacks Gustav and Wolf during filming, and Murnau later not only talks about finding a new cameraman but says he likes how his crew is now on edge, Galeen starts to fall out of love with the whole thing. Appalled by what he's saying and planning to do, not to mention incensed when he says the movie's financiers "hate your script," Galeen lunges at and shoves Murnau, calling him a fanatic; Grau is all that keeps it from escalating into a full-on fight. During Murnau's absence, both Galeen and Grau are able to have a private talk with Schreck, but due to their being drunk on schnapps, they mistake his stories about how miserable it is to be a vampire, as well as when he snatches a bat out of the air and feeds on it, as just dedication to his craft. After they've moved to Wismar, and following the confrontation between Murnau and Schreck, Galeen leads Grau, Fritz Wagner, and another woman to the hidden chamber near the inn which houses the vampire's coffin. He says he found it when he followed Murnau there one night, and though the coffin is empty when they open it, he tells them he now believes that Schreck really is a vampire, seeing as how it's an original coffin filled with earth from his native land. Of course, the others don't buy it, but Galeen is sure of it, saying that Murnau is so intent on authenticity that it wouldn't be at all shocking for him to find and use a real vampire. However, he's not present when the three skeptics learn he's right, and arrives at the studio on Heligoland with the rest of the crew after Murnau is the only one left alive.
The initial cinematographer, Wolfgang Muller (Ronan Vibert), doesn't have much screentime before he's first attacked by Schreck, and he becomes progressively ill as the movie then goes on. However, at the start, while he's very much aware of Murnau's sexuality, he's surprised when he learns he's already gone to Czechoslovakia and filmed some exteriors without his knowledge. Moreover, when Gustav reveals that Murnau apparently told him everything there is to know about Schreck, Wolf seems disturbed by it. During their first night at the Han Budala Inn, he's attacked offscreen by Schreck, with Gustav then finding him in a bizarre, trance-like state. As filming goes on, he becomes more lethargic and unresponsive, and often looks totally zoned out. Following Schreck's first appearance at the castle, Wolf is found to have collapsed in the same tunnel that Schreck disappeared into after shooting his scene. When brought back to the inn, the landlady recognizes what's happening to him and proceeds to cross herself and utter, "Nosferatu." By the following evening, when they're filming the dinner table scene, Wolf is just barely functioning, and another attack from Schreck nearly finishes him off. Though Murnau talks about taking him to the hospital when he goes to find a replacement, Wolf is last seen sitting in the car's backseat, shivering uncontrollably and breathing heavily. You never learn if he lived or not.
His replacement is Fritz Arno Wagner, whom Cary Elwes portrays as a charismatic young hotshot. Arriving at the location via biplane, where he's met by Galeen, he immediately gets to work, shooting a scene of the villagers portraying a torch carrying mob. He goes to the camera, and while he's disappointed that it's 35mm, which he's not a fan of, he opts to make it work. He then asks if the camera is loaded, and when told yes, says, "Ah, good. So am I." He gives the two assistants some instructions about where to point it, then tells them to wait for his signal. Said signal turns out to be his firing a gun into the air to get the desired reaction from the villagers, and after they've gotten the shot, Wagner laments that he didn't have time to film in slow motion, saying, "It would have been incredibly moving." When he meets Max Schreck himself, he, like the others, is fascinated by his "technique." Looking at him while he's lying in his coffin in-between shots, Wagner tells Murnau, "In the war, I saw men two weeks dead who looked more alive than him." Talking with Schreck about the work of Plato, he ends up annoying him when he proves to be utterly skeptical of the supernatural, thinking that anything can be faked by slight of hand. Thus, when Galeen tries to make the others understand that Schreck really is a vampire, Wagner is especially dismissive, telling him that vampires don't exist in the first place. (It also doesn't help that he seems to be drunk and has a woman he met at the Wismar inn fawning all over him.) But when they get to Heligoland, Wagner, as well as Grau, hear it from Murnau himself that Schreck is a vampire, as well as that he promised to let him feed on Greta. Furthermore, Wagner has learned that the plane's fuel tanks empty, meaning there's no way off the island and they'll have to shoot Schreck's final scene in the movie. After their attempt to expose him to sunlight fails, Wagner shoots him several times but that, of course, does nothing, and Schreck promptly breaks his neck.
Though his role becomes increasingly minimal as the movie goes on, Gustav von Wangenheim (Eddie Izzard), the actor cast as Hutter in
Nosferatu, is the one who, at the beginning, tells the crew what Murnau told him about Max Schreck. He tells them that Schreck is a character actor who was with the Reinhardt Company when Murnau was directing there, studied under Stanislavsky, and his method is to completely submerge himself into the character he's playing. After they arrive at the Han Budala Inn, Gustav complains about what an awful journey it was, moans about possibly having a large workload the next day, and is incredulous at Murnau's decision to use the villagers as extras. More significantly, he's the first to see signs that something isn't right, as he finds the bottle of blood hidden among the crew's food supplies, and awakens in the middle of the night to find Wolf seemingly missing, with his room's window open. Investigating the room, he finds him off to the side and quickly heads back to his own room. But that's nothing compared to how unnerved he is when he meets Schreck while filming the scene at the castle ruins. As if his freaky appearance and behavior weren't enough, Murnau then tells Gustav to follow after him into the castle, as per the scene. He does as he's directed, but once they cut, he comes running back outside and says, "My God," in absolute terror. It takes him a few moments to compose himself, but once he does, he starts to realize his performance in the moment was quite good. When he has to work one on one with Schreck, he admires his "talent," and later telling Murnau and Galeen that he's forgotten he's an actor, but finds his preparation to be rather strange. But the next day, Gustav gets the shock of his life when Murnau causes him to slice his finger open and Schreck lunges at him, trying to suck the blood. He continues assaulting Gustav as the equipment malfunctions and the lights go out, as Gustav yells, "Jesus Christus! Get this Scheißkopf off me!" Schreck is then caught feeding on Wolf when the lights come back up, and Gustav calls him a "Stanislavsky lunatic." Grau tells Gustav to take the female crew members to the car, to which he exclaims, "I am
not happy!" He continues acting in the movie but, fortunately for him, isn't present during the climax on Heligoland.
The same can't be said for Ellen Hutter's actor, Greta Schroder (Catherine McCormack). A real prima donna, Greta, in the opening scene, not only makes it clear that she doesn't care for the movie she's making, but also prefers to act in the theater and is not happy that she has to leave for Czechoslovakia just as Berlin's theater season is beginning. Murnau flat out asks her why she would want to be on the stage rather than on film and she answers, "The theatrical audience gives me life," then points at the camera and adds, "While this thing merely takes it from me." Murnau, whom it's suggested used to be in a relationship with Greta, softly, and even slightly sensually, tells her, "Ellen is a woman who discovers the ultimate expression of love, in the most exquisite pain imaginable. Does that sound familiar? It's a very demanding role. It is the role that will make you great as an actress. Consider it a sacrifice for your art." Though she travels with them to Czechoslovakia, Greta doesn't have much to do until the third act, when the cast and crew head to Wismar. Arriving at the local inn with her two little dogs, whom she pawns off on Grau and Wagner, and complaining about Murnau's insistence on filming on location, she grumbles, "Is there anything here that even vaguely resembles a cabaret? I mean, I'm suffering for my art, Albin, believe me." She doesn't immediately recognize Wagner, despite the two of them having met in Morocco, where he brought her "treats." She says he looks "vaguely familiar," and finally does come to remember him, though she recalls his first name as "Fritzy." Wagner and Grau later find her completely doped up on morphine in her room, which Wagner suspects is Murnau's doing. Unbeknownst to them, he likely did it to protect her from Schreck, who's desperate to have her. She doesn't actually meet him until they arrive at Heligoland, and when she does, she's, naturally, creeped out by him, especially given how eager he is to get at her. That feeling turns to sheer horror when she sees he casts no reflection in the mirror and realizes that he is a vampire. She becomes hysterical, so Murnau injects her with laudanum, and as the drug takes effect, she thinks back to when he said the role would be a "sacrifice for your art" and seems to realize what he meant. For the rest of the movie, she's completely at Schreck's mercy, as he repeatedly feeds on her, and by the end, she's likely just as dead as her character, as well as everyone but Murnau.
Wanting to create the look of old film, E. Elias Merhige and his cinematographer, Lou Bogue, shot
Shadow of the Vampire on a type of film stock that has a very coarse grain to it, further enhanced by using it in Super 35mm and then enlarging it to anamorphic. It helps to give the movie a very dark, shadowy look, with the nighttime interiors tending to come off as quite murky, with an overall dark brown color, whereas the exteriors feature streaks of white light, possibly meant to be moonlight, while everything else is often all but pitch black. Fittingly,
the movie makes good use of shadows, not only through Max Schreck's long fingernails but also by sometimes hinting at them when he's not around or even before he's actually been introduced, like in that exterior shot of the Han Budala Inn. The buildup to his first appearance is quite well constructed. as his presence is first alluded to when Gustav looks into Wolf's room. From his POV, you see a shadow quickly run across the opposite wall, accompanied by some inhuman sounds. A few minutes later, there's an out of focus shot of Schreck as he approaches the
caged ferret that was left for him to feed on, with the clearest look at him being his fingernails. And his first true appearance, when he slowly emerges from the dark tunnel at the castle ruins, right in front of Gustav, does his first bit of acting with him, and then immediately disappears back into the dark, is quite creepy. Going back to the aesthetic of this being shot like an old film, there are instances where the camera pans through the set's walls, following someone as they go from one room to another, reminding me of
something James Whale often did in his classic horror films. And there are also occasional intertitles establishing what's going on in the story, like at the very beginning, and the location captions have a very old timey look to them as well. The transitions to and from some of these are visually interesting as well, like when the camera pans across the countryside and, right before it stops on an exterior shot of the castle, the image fades to the intertitle box, while the shot of the castle appears in the box's right side and is
centered there. At the same time, the intertitle establishes that Murnau had a replica of the ship built at the castle, which is revealed in full when it transitions back to the actual shot. Later, when Fritz Wagner arrives to replace Wolf, an opposite effect is created, as the intertitle appears first, with the shot of Wagner's plane in the sky in the left corner. Then, the rectangle expands until it encompasses the entire frame and the plane flies over the camera, before it cuts to the shot of it landing and Wagner disembarking. And when the film's setting moves to Wismar, the location caption appears on a piece of silent film footage (which may actually be from
Nosferatu).
One thing that's very interesting is how the aesthetics of filmmaking during this period are baked into both the story and the film itself. We not only see the old-fashioned cameras that Murnau and his cameramen use, often wearing goggles, but when they're filming a scene, you can see that the actors have makeup applied to their faces that makes their skin come off as white and the area around their eyes dark on black-and-white film. I also like the touches of Murnau having to tell the actors what their characters are thinking, talking them through their scenes, and using
a phonograph to create a mood for them (according to the IMDB trivia page, the music that the phonograph plays is made up of bits of John Williams' score for the 1979
Dracula), all of which makes sense, given how the movie will be silent. Most notably, the audience is sometimes allowed to look through the camera, with the shot transitioning from reality to scratchy, black-and-white film, with the lens irising towards the middle of the screen. A reverse of this transition occurs during the climax, when Schreck, hearing the crew yelling outside the studio, stops
feeding on Greta and walks over to the edge of the stage, only to recoil when the sunlight begins streaming in through the large metal door. This transition is quite subtle, and you might not even realize it's happening until it's almost finished. There are also a number of instances where we watch the scene in
Nosferatu that's being shot play out like this (the movie opens up with one), and they're so close to the actual movie that, had you not seen it, I don't know if you'd be able to tell the difference. In fact,
they do occasionally use real clips from it and, save for the moments of silent footage of Schreck, as you can tell it's Willem Dafoe (there's only one shot of the real Max Schreck and it's when his face is covered), it lines together pretty seamlessly. During the climax, as Murnau films Schreck's destruction, we not only get major close-ups of the camera's lens, but also its inner mechanisms. And when Schreck is actually destroyed by the sunlight, it's visualized by his film image turning negative and then burning up.
The opening credits sequence is very unusual, as it's made up of a montage of bizarre architectural patterns, which the camera is continuously zooming into and panning across, and which the film itself dissolves to or fades to black between. Many of these shapes are vaguely humanoid, and you can make out a number of faces, some of which look normal and others which are monstrous; figures like knights in armor, some of which look fairly demonic, and horses, both mounted and unmounted; and details like pillars, corridors, and doorways, which may be meant
to evoke the castle. Most notable of all are these shafts of light that spring upwards, into the vague shape of Schreck's long fingernails, and which appear in a pattern where they criss-cross over a face in the background when the movie's title appears onscreen. It's a very bizarre opening sequence, indeed, and does set the offbeat mood for the movie you're about to watch, but my big problem is that this sequence goes on for nearly six full minutes.
Shot entirely in Luxembourg,
Shadow of the Vampire, much like
Nosferatu itself, features a good amount of real location work, although it opens in a Berlin studio, where Murnau films Greta and Gustav in his film's opening scene, set within the facade of their characters' early 19th Century home. We don't see much of the cabaret that Murnau heads out to once filming is done, as the entire scene there is less than a minute long, but it's clearly a seedy place, with murky lighting and a tacky color scheme, decadent images on the walls, suggestive decorative statues, and spots
where people can meet for anonymous sex, and full of people in various types of bizarre costumes and body-paints. Once the cast and crew head to Czechoslovakia, we get a nice-looking montage of their train traveling across the forests that cover the countryside, and we get to see these both during both the daytime and at sunset. After they disembark from the train, and travel the rest of the way via car and some horse-drawn carriages, it feels as they've literally entered the world of
Nosferatu, given how
the latter are used to transport their luggage and equipment, and also due to the ambience of the setting in and of itself. That's especially true when they arrive at the Han Budala Inn, which looks like something out of the Dark Ages in how primitive it is, with no electricity, and the landlord's genuine superstition about vampires. It's small wonder why Murnau both uses it as a filming location and the villagers themselves as extras.
The most memorable setting is definitely the ruined castle. When they first get there, they shoot a scene where Hutter walks through the castle's creepy outer gate, then head into the courtyard, where they film the moment where he first meets Orlock when he emerges from the dark tunnel leading into the castle's interiors. We spend quite a bit of time inside the castle (the interiors of Vianden Castle), as they shoot the dinner table scene in a chamber they've rigged with the prop furniture, and also where they stash their equipment. Later, they shoot the scene in the crypt
where Hutter finds Orlock lying in his coffin. Schreck's actual den in the castle is a separate chamber with a couple of stone benches atop a small rise, and a back area that seems to lead into a tunnel with a unique, sun-like pattern on the wall. And out around the castle's front gate is where they build the deck of the ship in order to accommodate Schreck when he refuses to actually film on one. This is where, in a scene I remembered from the TV spots, he feeds on a crew member and throws him over the
side. After that, the film crew moves to Wismar, which proves to be a bigger, more expansive town than the small Czech village, and the inn they stay at is more luxurious and modern in its accommodations. Nearby is the chamber where Schreck stays in his coffin filled with dirt from his homeland, and the movie's final setting is the small studio on Heligoland, wherein they build the set of Ellen's bedroom and the facade of the surrounding city outside the window. There's also a small inn on the island where the crew stays, and is where Murnau shoots up, leading to his admission that Schreck really is a vampire.
In recreating the period of Germany in the early 20's, they also incorporate the way the performing arts were changing at the time into the story. A major part of this came about due to both the advent and growing sophistication of film, and the various ways it was affecting people For instance, at the beginning, you have the disconnect and even conflict between those who prefer the theater, like Greta, and those who feel that film is the more effective way to create art, such as Murnau. There's also a fascination with it in some of the characters, including Schreck himself,
as he fiddles around with the projector in his castle. And, when Fritz Wagner joins the crew and brags about what he could accomplish if he had more time, he then explains to his curious, younger assistants how effects such as slow motion are created. Then, there's the conflict between traditional theater performances of the time and, thanks to Stanislavsky, the emerging practice of method acting. When Gustav first explains to the crew that Murnau says Schreck was with Stanislavsky in Moscow, Henrik Galeen has an incredulous attitude about it. And while everyone,
initially, feels that Schreck's performance is turning out well, they find his apparent Daniel Day-Lewis level of immersion to be really strange and off-putting. But then, it becomes downright freakish and unsettling, particularly for Gustav, whom Murnau forces method acting onto by making him cut himself and arouse Schreck's bloodlust. And by the end of the movie, this notion is turned on its head when you learn that a real vampire was doing the ultimate stint of method acting by pretending to be an actor whose role is that of a vampire.
Needless to say, historical accuracy isn't something this movie is interested in, not only in its depiction of Max Schreck as an actual vampire, but also in how John Malkovich's portrayal of Murnau is a total caricature (and I can't find any evidence that he actually had drug addictions, either) and that
Nosferatu ultimately becomes a snuff film. But it is interesting how, in some cases, reality and fiction do blend together. For instance, the circumstances of the real Greta Schroder's death are very mysterious, with some confusion as to when she even died (some
sources say 1967, while others say she lived as late as 1980), so it lines up with how mysterious her death will seem in the aftermath of the movie's events. Also, while it's barely touched upon, Albin Grau's occultist background does come up briefly during his drunken conversation with Galeen, and Murnau's real life homosexuality is hinted at thematically, given how Greta is the only major female character in the movie, as well as Murnau's relationship with Schreck, as their confrontations can come off as lovers' spats if
you care to look at them that way. (Murnau does kiss Grau on both cheeks in one scene, but I think that was just due to how the Europeans aren't as uptight as us Americans.) Speaking of Murnau and Schreck, I read somewhere else that you could almost view their relationship as a take on that of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski during the making of the 1979
Nosferatu, given Herzog is willing to do just about anything for a movie, and Kinski was, well... Kinski. And finally, there's the idea that some of the more well-known scenes in
Nosferatu, like Orlock's shadow gripping Ellen's heart and his disintegration in the sunlight, were actual supernatural events that Murnau filmed.
However, at the end of the day, as much as I can give Shadow of the Vampire props for its direction, cinematography, and acting, I can't say it's a film that I actually enjoy watching, and that comes down purely to taste. I was always interested in it because I really dug the concept but, much like Steve Katz in his Screenwriter's Utopia interview, what I wanted out of it more than anything was a really good vampire movie, perhaps with an intelligent, slightly meta flavor. While I did get that in some respects, to
directly quote Katz, the movie that E. Elias Merhige made was, "
An art film about the nature of creativity, and the relationship between the director and his film." Katz has said that was an aspect of his screenplay, but only as subtext, whereas Merhige, along with input from Nicolas Cage and John Malkovich, brought it to the forefront. Now, make no mistake, the notion of F.W. Murnau being so determined to create what he thinks is compelling art that he's willing to make a literal deal with the devil and sacrifice anyone and anything is a nice premise, and it
draws an interesting parallel between himself and Schreck, which the
latter comments on. But it also makes for quite an unlikable
protagonist, especially since, in the end, he succeeds in making his movie (though he'll likely be charged for the murders of Greta Schroder, Albin Grau, and Fritz Wagner). And then, as much as I called him the greatest thing about the movie, your other protagonist, despite Willem Dafoe's compelling performance and the pathos they do give him, is still a vile, blood-sucking monster who needs to be destroyed. I guess what I was expecting, and wanted, was a story that focused on the cast and crew slowly learning there's a real vampire in their midst, that Murnau is willing to sacrifice any of them in order to make his movie, and spending the rest of the movie figuring out what to do. Again, we do have some of that, but it's pushed to the side to focus on Murnau and Schreck.
Not only do Murnau and Schreck not make for the most appealing protagonists, but, for one reason or another, the other characters aren't much better. I do really like Wagner, mostly for the self-assured quality and charisma that Cary Elwes brings to him, Grau for how he's desperately trying to hold the production together, and Gustav, as he's probably the most down-to-Earth of the lot, with the most relatable reactions to the crazy stuff he sees and experiences, but none of them have enough screentime or development to get me truly invested in them. During the climax, I like
that Wagner and Grau are conspiring with Murnau to destroy Schreck as they film his last scenes, and when their main plan goes down the drain, they try to kill him then and there, but I'm not that crushed when they themselves die, either. I also like Galeen for how he sees early on that Murnau is becoming totally obsessed with making this movie, no matter what, and he's smart enough to find Schreck's lair in Wismar and deduce that he really is a vampire. But he's not even present during the climax, so... The only other
major character is Greta, who's a snobbish prima donna, and while it is horrific that Murnau promised to let Schreck feed on her, and seems willing to let him go through with it if it's vital to finishing his movie, she's hardly someone I care about that much, either.
Finally, there's the issue of tone and pacing. Though he hasn't made that many films, Merhige does have his own unique approach to filmmaking, which he established with
Begotten. I haven't actually seen that, but the trailer alone told me it wasn't something I would enjoy, and while
Shadow of the Vampire isn't as bizarre, unsettling, or experimental (though there are images in it that remind me of what I saw in that trailer), and has more of an actual narrative than
Begotten seems to, it's still quite unusual for a film of this type, with a very offbeat tone and dark
sense of humor. I can definitely appreciate how Merhige has managed to find his own directing voice, and I have complimented him on the visual style he brought to the film, the performances he got out of the actors, and the instances of humor, but his way of doing things is ultimately too off-kilter for me. And while it's a short movie, at just 95 minutes, there are sections that I find to be a little too slow, mainly during the latter half, when the filmmakers move to Wismar, and the climax at Heligoland, which I feel goes on a little longer than it should.
As most of the makeup work was focused on making Willem Dafoe look like Max Schreck, and also likely due to Merhige's disinterest in the horror genre, there isn't the large amount of blood here that you would expect from a modern day vampire movie; in fact, you see
very little. The nastiest moment is probably when, as he's talking to Grau and Galeen, Schreck snatches a bat out of the air and feeds on it, but even that isn't as gruesome as it may sound. The only other time you see anything substantial is when Gustav cuts his thumb open. Even though Schreck is brought a
bottle filled with blood and, early on, a ferret is left outside for him to feed on, you never see him indulge in either. Similarly, all the times he bites people's necks and drinks their blood occur either offscreen or are partially obscured, and even when they're not, you barely see anything, save for maybe a little bit of blood around his mouth.
Going back to the movie's strange tone, a major contributor to it, as you may have guessed, is the score by Dan Jones, whose overall career has been just as un-mainstream (some of his other scores include Max with John Cusack, Manolete with Adrien Brody and Penelope Cruz, Jericho Mansions with James Caan, and In Transit, another John Malkovich film). For instance, his music for the opening credits is just as strange as the sequence itself. It starts with an airy, ethereal piece that sounds like it's being played from a phonograph, evoking what Murnau does while shooting, but then transitions into a more unsettling, mysterious, and downright creepy theme, which becomes bigger and more orchestral as it goes on, eventually reaching a big climax, before going back to the quiet, eerie sound it began with. The score does indeed manage to be quite spooky when it has to, like when Gustav sees Wolf after he's first been attacked by Schreck, and this very eerie, atmospheric theme that plays when Schreck appears at the castle, as well as when he watches them leave after he's fed on Wolf for the second time. Some pieces of the score also just sound ethereal and otherworldly, and fit well when played over silent film footage, which has that quality in and of itself. But there's also some really quirky music, like this theme you hear following Murnau's first confrontation with Schreck, that gets into the movie's offbeat nature, as well as a full-on heroic-sounding one for when Wagner arrives in his biplane. And the music that Jones comes up with for the ending fits well with the idea of Schreck finally being destroyed, sounding quite epic, but then becomes strange and unsettling again, getting into the idea that Murnau has completely snapped in his obsession with his film.
If you're a fan of the original
Nosferatu or have an interest in the production of movies back in the silent era,
Shadow of the Vampire does deserve at least one viewing. It is a well-made movie, with memorable performances by a number of superb actors, chief among them being John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe, it's very visually interesting and often incorporates the aesthetics of both silent movies and their filming into the film itself, it features many great sets and location work, has great moments of atmosphere, some dark humor, the music score is definitely unsettling and eerie, and you can tell there is a lot of respect and reverence for
Nosferatu on the part of the filmmakers. However, if you go into this looking for a full-on vampire flick, you're going to be disappointed as, while Max Schreck is a big part of the story, the movie is more interested in discussing the themes of creativity and obsession in that regard, as well as examining the relationship between Schreck and F.W. Murnau. Thus, you're not going to get a lot of gory kills or a story that centers on the cast and crew realizing there's a vampire among them. Moreover, the movie does tend to get pretentious, the two protagonists may be well acted but they're hardly likable, none of the other characters are that effective either, and the slow pace and weird, offbeat tone that E. Elias Merhige goes for may be a turnoff for some. Again, it does deserve to be seen once, but know who you are and what you're getting into before diving in.
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