Review of Shadow of the Vampire (2000) by Jeffrey L — 02 Sep 2008

This vampire movie, staring Malkovich and Dafoe, is based off of the filming if the famous 1920's German version of Dracula, Nosferatu, and takes a 'What If' scenario in saying 'What if the guy that played the vampire, was a real vampire'?

Very interesting concept, and it was executed very well. Everyone played their parts perfectly, and parts of the movie, such as the vampire's first appearance, are creepy as hell. Another cool thing, is every bit of music used in the movie, was taken from the original 1920's silent movie.

There are a couple semi-negative things though. One being the ending: I just found the vampire wasn't threatening enough and there was no real struggle to stop him. The other being the gore factor. Why is this rated R? There's not a single drop of blood, nor a single swear word in this movie. There is one very brief scene of nudity, but plenty of PG-13 flicks have brief nudity. As far as I can tell, there is no reason at all for this to be rated so high. Hell, the Prom Night remake had more swearing and more blood then this, and that was PG-13.

Still, this was a very original, very creepy, very well-done vampire flick that I think more people should watch.