Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Shadow of the Vampire
Willem Dafoe gives an outstanding performance as usual. The rest of the cast also performed well, including Udo Kier, who has come so far from the camp/trash Andy Warhol horror flicks [[ASIN:B000R9UTHS Flesh For Frankenstein / Blood for Dracula 2 DVD Set Criterion PAL]]. I enjoyed watching him as much as Dafoe! But John Malkovich, plays John Malkovich. His acting here as in most of his movies is worst than Udo Kier in the Warhol films. By no means let this stop you from buying this movie because, not even Malkovich's terrible acting can ruin it. If you haven't seen Nosferatu with Max Schreck [[ASIN:B000VUQ4HW Nosferatu (The Ultimate Two-Disc Edition)]], it's a must that you see it first to appreciate Shadow fully. It's as important to the enjoyment of the film as seeing Plan 9 From Outer Space before watching Ed Wood. Then see Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's 70's remake of Nosferatu [[ASIN:B00005YJMX Nosferatu: The Vampyre/Phantom Der Nacht]] for another perfect performance.

Shadow Of The Vampire
Is it as close to the original movie Nasferatu? Is William DaFoe's portrayal of the vampire well done? YES YES YES .I absolutely loved it. One of the best movies I've sen in along time

Selling Your Soul to the Vampire
I hate to be a suck-up, but I gotta admit that very often when I see a posting on a given film's Amazon page by in-house critic Jeff Shannon, I have to wonder if I'll have much else to add to the discussion. What he--and several other reviewers--have observed about SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is pretty much on target. The movie would seem to have a lot going for it; its basic conceit is undeniably clever, the cast is just about perfect (in a po-mo stunt-casting kind of way), and the cinematography is all you could hope for, with letter perfect reduplications of scenes from F.W. Murnau's classic b&w NOSFERATU yielding to scenes of such vivid color and striking composition that the effect is actually jarring.

It's just too bad that the film is a one-joke affair. Its 90 minutes seem just a hair too long. Of course, few movies run much less than that--but you walk away from this one thinking that it well could have.

That one-joke, as most readers know by now (no SPOILER warning needed, I don't think) is that in this film, the actor assigned the part of Count Orlock, the vampire, really IS a vampire. Everyone in the cast and crew believe that this unfamiliar actor "Max Schreck" (whose very name should have tipped these native German speakers off that SOMETHING was fishy--or batty) is just this great method actor. It's a clever premise, high concept enough that you can see how it easily got green lighted by studio execs. But developing the story is another matter. Do you go broadly comic? scary comic? scary tragic? The answer is, in this case, a little bit of everything.

And you just know that the question of just who's the real vampire will always be lurking below the surface. F.W. Murnau, the ultimate obsessive artist figure, has literally made a pact with evil to achieve his vision of "a symphony in horror." He is all too willing to put the lives of his caste and crew in jeopardy to achieve cinematic immortality. We've seen this kind of character before, of course and are not surprised when the vampire character sneers, "We're not so different, you and I." In fact that kind of line seems de rigueur--mortis.