‘If it’s not in frame, it doesn’t exist…’
There have been so many Dracula movies that it’s almost impossible to find a new angle on what is a well-worn story. Shadow of the Vampire manages to find something fresh to add to the vampire myth whilst also only being partly successful…
F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) is a visionary who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of cinematic perfection. If that means bringing in an actual vampire (Willem Dafoe) for the filming of his latest magnum opus Nosferatu then so be it.
Anyone who has seen Nosferatu can attest to the fact that Max Schrek’s performance as the titular vampire is truly chilling, and so the concept of Schrek being an actual vampire isn’t as much of a stretch as one might think. How to take his iconic performance and make it even more chilling? Well, by bringing in Willem Dafoe, of course. And, as you can imagine, he is absolutely terrifying here, whether grabbing a live bat and eating it or chowing down on various crew members (including Eddie Izzard and Cary Elwes). Malkovich has a lot of fun also as Murnau and the whole thing works as a wonderfully camp and schlocky companion piece to Nosferatu – whilst also injecting new life into a moribund subgenre.
Director E. Elias Merhige, working from Steven Katz’s script, does a great job of capturing the German Expressionist aesthetic that defined Nosferatu without making this film a history lesson or something that can only be enjoyed by film nerds. Having said that, I would urge anyone thinking of watching this to watch Nosferatu first and enjoy them both together. Bottom line is, Shadow of the Vampire is a lot of fun.