31 (or so) Days of Terror: Shadow of the Vampire

We've looked at a lot of different Horror films this month. We've looked at old stuff, new stuff, weird stuff. We've seen movies about Satanists, Demons, and even Zombie Chickens. So where better to end the month then with a Horror Movie about a Horror Movie? In particular, this 2000 film about our old friend F.W. Murnau and the making of his immortal classic Nosferatu.

The year is 1921. German filmmaker F.W. Murnau has begun production on his next masterpiece, an unlicensed adaptation of Dracula. Everything seems to be in order except for their vampire, the mysterious Max Schreck. Nobody one else has met Schreck and he won't even be on set until they arrive in Czechoslovakia for location shooting. Murnau has assured his crew that Schreck is simply a dedicated method actor, who's subsumed himself into the role of a vampire. But when the production arrives and members of the crew start turning up dead, they have to ask. Could their bizarre lead possibly be an actual vampire?

Murnau (John Malkovich) "directing" his star,
Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe).

What makes Shadow of the Vampire fun to watch is how without the vampire, this would play out like any other movie about a troubled film production. All the cliches of movie-making are here, from obnoxious actors to eccentric crewmembers to the control-freak director. This kind of inside baseball gives filmmakers a chance to poke fun at their own profession and that's exactly what they're doing here. Every successful film production is a minor miracle, so watching as so many different personalities clash in the creation of art as everything spirals out of control around them makes for easy comedy. Add in the fact that the movie they're making is a classy, critically adored masterpiece and their star is a real vampire, the irony just gets funnier. But that humor wouldn't go very far without some quality talent delivering it and thankfully that's not a problem for Shadow. The cast is full of character actors like Udo Kier, Cary Elwes, and Eddie Izzard who play their stock roles like ever-suffering Producer or artistically restrained Cinematographer with plenty of personality and one assumes first-hand experience.

Schreck durring his death scene.
Now that's method acting.

But it's not all fun and laughs. Shadow is deftly made enough to illicit other feelings from the audience, including terror. And a lot of that comes from Willem Dafoe's performance as Schreck. It's just as weird and offkilter as the silent performance he's emulating but there's an odd humanity beneath all the over-the-top mannerisms. Dafoe portrays Schreck almost as an Alzheimer's patient, someone who's memory failed them a long time ago and can no longer can interact with normal people. The courtesies are completely lost on him. He doesn't even seem to particularly like being a vampire, seemingly resigned to life in the dark and forgotten to the world. Which may explain why he acts like a petulant child around Murnau, Schreck sees him as an idiot. This dumb filmmaker tracked down a real vampire and thinks he can control him? Hell no, Schreck has the chance to live again and he knows Murnau's perfectionism will bend him to the vampire's will. It's a performance that's at turns creepy, hilarious, and tragic.

Murnau behind the camera.

Speaking of Murnau, the contrast between him and the vampire leads to the thematic heart of the film. John Malkovich plays Murnau with his usual restrained psychosis and really brings the director's obsession to the forefront. That's what lead him to find an actual vampire for his movie to begin with. But that perfectionism, and this is the thematic core, is not all that different from Schreck's vampiric hungers. Both are striving for immortality in the end, even if Schreck's is a bit more literal. At several points throughout the film does Murnau make filmmaking sound like an religious duty, as the expression of man's striving for knowledge. So all his controlling tendencies; his fussing with the camera and barking at his actors, are telling of his thoughts. To Murnau, what he captures on film exists forever so anything he can't control on film won't last. It's where his anger at Schreck attacking his crew comes from, the vampire is threatening his chance at immortality. So that's where the conflict lies; Schreck's hunger to maintain his own literal immortality is sabotaging Murnau's efforts at obtaining artistic immortality.

Befitting its title, Shadow is a very dark film. Literally dark. The majority of the film takes place and is shot at night, possibly as an attempt to evoke the monochrome of silent film. What it does is make the characters pop more, lone distinct figures in a sea of darkness. This is especially true for Schreck, whose dark wardrobe and bone-white skin make him appear as a hovering head and pair of claws, eyes darting about his co-stars. It's another layer of unsettling on top of Dafoe's performance. Shadow has some other great stylistic flourishes as well like period-accurate recreations of scenes from Nosferatu. In fact, a love of silent film suffuses the picture. It makes this clear through use of intertitles, iris lenses, and vintage lighting. It's that love of silents and Nosferatu in particular that elevates the film beyond the gimmicky premise.

Shadow of the Vampire is a joy for classic film buffs. The cast is clearly having fun with the material and Willem Dafoe is great as Schreck, being somehow both hilarious and horrifying. But beneath the Horror-lite surface, there are some interesting ideas about the permanence of film and how far we'll go to make great art. At 90 minutes, it does feel rushed though. Schreck only attacks about two people throughout the course of the film and the reveal that he's a real vampire is tossed off like they almost forgot to put it in. It really could have benefitted from another fifteen minutes or so to build up the tension more. Still, it's fun and has enough style to make up for it's weaknesses.

Recommended if you want a vampire flick that's less about the blood.

Final Score: 4/5