Review of Shadow of the Vampire (2000) by Joshua L — 27 Jan 2012

One of the first vampire movies ever made was F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, a re-telling of the story of Dracula after Bram Stoker's widow refused to give up the rights of the novel and allow it to be filmed. Filmed in 1922, Murnau picked unknown actor Max Schreck to play the role of Count Orlok, the vampire. Apparently, Schreck was a very serious actor who sank himself into his role. Shadow of the Vampire plays on the idea that Schreck was an actual vampire causing havoc on the set of Murnau's movie.

This movie should really be called the Willem Dafoe show because he absolutely steals the movie. Dafoe plays Schreck and is almost unrecognizable. He plays Schreck with absolute relish and really plays up the creepiness. He really deserved the Oscar-nom. John Malkovich is also marvellous as Murnau, the director who worked a deal with the vampire to star in his movie. Cary Elwes is great as the substitute cameraman brought in after Orlok killed the previous cameraman.

The movie has some of the standard vampire fare: blood, sex, eeriness, etc. But I think Shadow of the Vampire goes above the norm in that it plays with a unique idea: taking a historic film and adding a fantastical flair to it. It adds a creepier element to the source film and furthers the legend attached to it.

This is a well-done vampire movie, mainly driven by Dafoe's great performance. Devoted fans of the vampire genre will appreciate the use of one of the oldest vampire movies and fulfilling the desires of wanting to see the standard bloodsucking and eroticism in other good vampire movies.