Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Directed by E. Elias Merhige. Starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard, John Aden Gillet, Catherine McCormack, Udo Kier, Ronan Vibert, Nicholas Elliott, Sophie Langevin, Myriam Muller. [R]

A deliciously dark concept made into a fairly compelling film: the actor Max Schreck (Dafoe), so perfectly and chillingly cast in the title role of the silent horror classic Nosferatu, was in actuality a real vampire himself. And director F. W. Murnau (Malkovich) knew this when he cast him, believing that no one else would be better suited for the role, and so he makes the devil’s bargain with Schreck by essentially saying, “act in my movie, and you can feast on the cast and crew.” Stylishly filmed by director Merhige, creatively using color-to-black-&-white fades, iris lenses, intertitles, and more to hearken back to the era of early cinema. Despite the film’s compact running time, the narrative tends to meander here and there, but the running “joke” and performances keep things on track. Malkovich plays Murnau as dictatorial, merciless, a man possessed, which by all accounts was nothing like the real director; Dafoe, however, is simply extraordinary in appearance, mannerisms, and behavior, a caustically droll monster who uncannily recreates the film character’s expressionist gestures and poses. A vintage box camera seen here is the same one that Murnau actually used to shoot his movie (borrowed from a museum). Dafoe may be a walking corpse on the “dead” medium of celluloid, but he currently maintains immortality as the only actor to earn an Oscar nomination for playing a vampire.

78/100