Shadow of the Vampire

Shadow of the Vampire

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

Genre: Drama, Horror
Production: Lions Gate Releasing
  Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 14 wins & 24 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.9
Metacritic:
71
Rotten Tomatoes:
81%
R
Year:
2000
92
$7,518,962
Website
2,518 Views

Share your thoughts on Shadow of the Vampire's quotes with the community:

0 Comments

    Quote of the Day Today's Quote | Archive

    Would you like us to send you a FREE inspiring quote delivered to your inbox daily?

    Please enter your email address:

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this movie page to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Shadow of the Vampire Quotes." Quotes.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.quotes.net/movies/shadow_of_the_vampire_quotes_10206>.

    Know another quote from Shadow of the Vampire?

    Don't let people miss on a great quote from the "Shadow of the Vampire" movie - add it here!

    Shadow of the Vampire

    Soundtrack

    »

    Browse Quotes.net

    Quiz

    Are you a quotes master?

    »
    In which movie does this quote appear: "Houston, we have a problem"?
    A Star Trek Generations
    B 2001: A Space Odyssey
    C Conquest of Space
    D Apollo 13