Review of Shadow of the Vampire (2000) by Jacob B — 28 Sep 2013

For all the efforts of the actors, designers, composer, etc - this film is actually very bad. One can feel it was cut out of a larger work, as logical inconsistencies abound. As well, the sense of dramatic flow is almost nil. The style of filmmaking feels way off for the departures they take from history, and so many opportunities are missed. Listening to the director's commentary on the dvd tells you two things - (i) this director knows exactly what's going on in every scene, and a lot of it is quite academic in its intention, even though a great deal of it is very silly (associating Murnau with realism, foreshadowing the Nazi party); (ii) he was the wrong director for this kind of project altogether.

I particularly praise Dan Jones' music. About a third of the score did not make the film, but the most beautiful cues did, and enrich the confused product.