Flak Magazine: Review of Shadow of the Vampire, 2-9-01

Shadow of the Vampire starts with a wonderfully promising idea: German silent-film director F. W. Murnau strikes a bargain with a genuine vampire in order to achieve absolute realism for his horrifying 1922 movie, Nosferatu. While being based on history — Murnau’s Nosferatu is a real movie featuring an enigmatic and peculiar-looking lead actor — the movie is a surprisingly timely spin on the old Faust mythology, and while the basic plot is good, the story doesn’t quite reach the tremendous potential it has.

Most critical to the success the movie achieves are the wonderful performances. As vampiric “actor” Max Schreck, Willem Dafoe is both pathetic and creepy in the appropriate places. John Malkovich gives a powerful and witty performance as Murnau. Even Eddie Izzard does an admirable job as a foppish actor.

The actors are well served by the script’s truly exceptional moments — dark humor runs through many of Murnau’s lines. When a concerned crew member asks about Schreck, Murnau explains that his performance “is like love games. It seems real at the time, but it stops just short of anyone getting hurt.” The situational comedy is balanced with the intense performances to provide some moments of amazing tension. Although there are a number of movies in the comedy/horror genre, it is rare to find one both this funny and this unsettling.

It may seem like there is little in the movie to disappoint, and there really isn’t much that is genuinely bad; the problem is more that it doesn’t quite hit the heights it could. In the age of reality television, a movie about the quest for authenticity regardless of the danger that authenticity might pose is a fantastic chance for insightful commentary, but Shadow of the Vampire hangs back a little, opting for sheer entertainment value. In some of its stronger moments, the conflict between Murnau and Schreck explores the unpredictability of absolute realism. Schreck’s whole motivation is to get ahold of the famous actress Greta Schröder (Catherine McCormack); whatever the film ends up being is merely a sidenote to him.

Similarly, the movie itself, the art, is all that’s of importance to Murnau. The human cost is meaningless to him. Although Murnau is shooting for true art rather than ratings, the careless tossing around of his underlings (and even his producer) echoes in a meaningful way the lives bartered daily on television, from talk shows to the “World’s Most Dangerous Police Chases.”

This dichotomy of being put on a pedestal yet made a spectacle of comes through even more strongly in Murnau’s attitudes toward the locals, which he uses as extras. Alternately praising their realism — “They don’t have to act, they just have to be.” — and berating them for their simplicity — “A native has wandered into my frame.” — the feeling is clearly to use them to further his own art and them dispatch them as quickly as possible.

By the end, however, the joke has mostly played itself out. The abruptness of the ending raises the question of whether this was where the script was going from the beginning, or whether screenwriter Steven Katz felt that there was nothing else left to do. It feels like the film was stopped instead of being allowed to reach its own logical conclusion. The ending leaves the motivation of Murnau, and even some of his crew, highly ambiguous, and while the ambiguous reaction of characters is an often-used, and sometimes highly effective, tool, too much doubt can leave the viewer with mixed feelings as well.

Still, the movie is genuinely entertaining. The general tension produced by Dafoe’s expressive performance and the frazzled nerves of the crew produces nervous laughs. In addition, there are a number of fine images; the long, bony hands are as creepily effective as in Nosferatu. Alas, while Shadow of the Vampire is funny, and even scary, it is not nearly as terrifying as the prospect of future episodes of “Temptation Island.”

— Zeke Jarvis (ecjarvis at uwm dot edu)