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movie review - Shadow of the Vampire

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This movie is about the filming of the German horror classic Nosferatu. In it, the cast and crew are joined by a 'method actor' named Max Shrek (Dafoe), who the director (Malkovich) has supposedly hired to portray the vampire in his unauthorised adaptation of Dracula. Schreck (whose name means fright in German) appears only at night, only in full make-up and costume, and only in character. He quickly convinces the rest of the cast and crew with his dedication and zeal, and then the bodies begin to pile up. Sooner or later, those who stay alive begin to believe that Schreck is the real thing.

The movie misses brilliance by only a narrow margin. Dafoe is horrifying throughout, and the mood is dead on. The sets are themselves quite disturbing, and the pace slowly builds until you find yourself sealed in a subterranean set with a vampire and a pile of corpses.

But Malkovich seems to be holding back, somehow. And some of the accents tend to slip from time to time in annoying places. And the movie is inconsistent. It's creepy, yes, and it's certainly an interesting period piece, but at its week moments, it comes across like a bunch of actors having fun with the concept of the movie.

Recommended.