Movie Reviews

A lot of film nuts would probably say that the most realistic vampire film ever made was also the first vampire film ever made: F.W. Murnau's 1922 film, Nosferatu (which admittedly I haven't seen). That film starred a man named Max Schreck as the vampire, Count Orlock (the film was basically an adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, but the Stoker estate disallowed the use of that name, so Murnau simply renamed Dracula to Orlock and continued filming what is otherwise the exact same story).

Shadow of the Vampire offers up a really cool set of "slight alterations" about the history of the filming of Nosferatu. In Shadow of the Vampire, it turns out that Max Schreck (played amazingly by Willem Dafoe) actually is a real vampire, who happens to have an unfortunate thirst for members of the film's production crew. The film also imagines that Nosferatu's director, F.W. Murnau (played also amazingly by John Malkovich) knows that Schreck is a real vampire, and is willing to sacrifice some of his crew -- including the star leading lady -- for the level of 'realism' that he wishes to achieve with the film. He comes across as quite an interestingly-deranged nut.

The wacky ideas of the film, and it's great acting (and also an awesome final sequence), are what really make Shadow of the Vampire a pretty darn good film. Aside from those elements, though, there's not really a whole lot going on in the film. It's a little light on plot, but it's totally worth watching, if only for the performances of Dafoe and Malkovich.