Shadow of the Vampire starts at 'Jofa Film Studios, Berlin 1921' where acclaimed German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (John Malkovich) is filming various indoor scenes for his latest production, an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula here called Nosferatu with the lead vampire name changed to Count Orlock to get around copyright. After the scenes are shot Murnau & his small crew travel to the small town of Wismar where they prepare to begin filming scenes with Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) the actor who is to play the part of Count Orlock the Vampire, however there is a great air of mystery surrounding him as none of the cast know of him & Murnau says he lives the character's he play. When he finally makes an appearance Schreck is tall & thin, has long fingernail's, fangs & is completely bald. Schreck also has the unnerving habit of telling everyone that he is a real Vampire which creeps everyone else on set out, the mood doesn't improve when Schreck unexpectedly attacks the cameraman & bites his neck in the middle of a shot...
This American, British & Luxembourg production was directed by E. Elias Merhige & I thought it was a really good film that I really enjoyed watching. The script by Steven Katz is a rather fun lighthearted concept that doesn't take itself too seriously & is a fictional idea based upon the filming of the classic 1922 horror film Nosferatu, so basically it's a fictional film based on the filming of a fictional film, got that? Good. The first thing to say is that I don't think it has much historic accuracy which means the filmmakers can have fun here with the supposed myth that actor Schreck was a real Vampire which he obviously wasn't but I think it's a fascinating film to watch, a great idea, something a bit different & a very engaging & entertaining film. The character's are all brilliantly written with great care & attention right down to the lesser ones, the dialogue is good & at less than 90 minutes in length it moves along at a good pace & is never boring. I consider myself a huge horror film fan & as such maybe I'm a wee bit biased about a film which sets itself around the filming of an absolute classic horror film such as Nosferatu but I genuinely liked Shadow of the Vampire as a film in it's own right, I honestly didn't think I would as I thought it was going to be a dull factual biopic but as it turns out it's a throughly charming, watchable & likable film. I didn't think I would but I really liked it.
Director Merhige does a fantastic job, the look & feel of the film is brilliant with evocative 20's production design. Shadow of th Vampire could have become bogged down with trying to portray how good Murnau, Schreck & the film Nosferatu itself are & I'm sure that would have made for a very dull time but this has a clear individual story of it's own & thankfully it doesn't seemed to bothered by sticking to every last historic detail.
With a supposed budget of about $8,000,000 Shadow of the Vampire has immaculate production values & I love the outfits that the film-crew wear, they end up looking like scientists with their white-coats & dark goggles although I'm not sure why they wore them, apparently it's either because of debris flying from the camera or the fact that they had to light the sets of these really old films so brightly it was almost literally blinding. They both sound false to me... The acting here is top-notch from a great cast including Dafoe, Malkovich, Eddie Izzard, Cary Elwes & the ever fantastic Udo Kier pops up as well.
Shadow of the Vampire was on of those unexpected gems, one of those films I thought I was going to hate, I ended up loving it. As with most things in life & cinema I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me & to be fair I could see how someone may not like it but, well, I don't care as I thought it was great. Definitely worth watching, in my opinion anyway.
This American, British & Luxembourg production was directed by E. Elias Merhige & I thought it was a really good film that I really enjoyed watching. The script by Steven Katz is a rather fun lighthearted concept that doesn't take itself too seriously & is a fictional idea based upon the filming of the classic 1922 horror film Nosferatu, so basically it's a fictional film based on the filming of a fictional film, got that? Good. The first thing to say is that I don't think it has much historic accuracy which means the filmmakers can have fun here with the supposed myth that actor Schreck was a real Vampire which he obviously wasn't but I think it's a fascinating film to watch, a great idea, something a bit different & a very engaging & entertaining film. The character's are all brilliantly written with great care & attention right down to the lesser ones, the dialogue is good & at less than 90 minutes in length it moves along at a good pace & is never boring. I consider myself a huge horror film fan & as such maybe I'm a wee bit biased about a film which sets itself around the filming of an absolute classic horror film such as Nosferatu but I genuinely liked Shadow of the Vampire as a film in it's own right, I honestly didn't think I would as I thought it was going to be a dull factual biopic but as it turns out it's a throughly charming, watchable & likable film. I didn't think I would but I really liked it.
Director Merhige does a fantastic job, the look & feel of the film is brilliant with evocative 20's production design. Shadow of th Vampire could have become bogged down with trying to portray how good Murnau, Schreck & the film Nosferatu itself are & I'm sure that would have made for a very dull time but this has a clear individual story of it's own & thankfully it doesn't seemed to bothered by sticking to every last historic detail.
With a supposed budget of about $8,000,000 Shadow of the Vampire has immaculate production values & I love the outfits that the film-crew wear, they end up looking like scientists with their white-coats & dark goggles although I'm not sure why they wore them, apparently it's either because of debris flying from the camera or the fact that they had to light the sets of these really old films so brightly it was almost literally blinding. They both sound false to me... The acting here is top-notch from a great cast including Dafoe, Malkovich, Eddie Izzard, Cary Elwes & the ever fantastic Udo Kier pops up as well.
Shadow of the Vampire was on of those unexpected gems, one of those films I thought I was going to hate, I ended up loving it. As with most things in life & cinema I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me & to be fair I could see how someone may not like it but, well, I don't care as I thought it was great. Definitely worth watching, in my opinion anyway.