Shadow of the Vampire

Rating:
Summary: This is a terrible mess....
Review: This is a case of where the TRAILER is a way better than the movie itself. It is hard to imagine that someone could make a mess out of the story of the making of Nosferatu but E. Elias Merhige has managed to do exactly just that. There is "nothing" happening in this movie what-so-ever except for the director complaining about his production and Willem Dafoe as the actor Max Schreck trying to manipulate him as some "accidents" (of which there are very few) happen on set. Schreck is interesting for the first two minutes and then simply becomes just plain Disney. It is unintentionally funny when it is not meant to be. It is not funny when it tries to be. Dafoe thinks he is in a pantomime most of the time and it looks like one too. His performance is clumsy even at the best of times. You will see through the latex in the first five minutes. It looks cheesy and fake.

John Malkovich is back again playing an early 1900's version of......... John Malkovich.

BAH! Why bother even writing this review. This was just a mess of a film that looks restrictive in every department.

In short if you want to see a movie about the production of old horror classics then watch "Gods and Monsters" instead of this terribly ill-directed and misplaced mess. There, go do that instead. You will thank yourself for it.

Rating:
Summary: An underrated gem
Review: Shadow of the Vampire was released with little fanfare, and the film was too quirky to earn any real money at the box office. The first time I saw Shadow of the Vampire, I was amused by the weird humor and thought it was pretty decent. Watching Shadow of the Vampire for a second time, I realize that I vastly under-appreciated this film. Shadow of the Vampire is stunning.

This film is a loving homage to silent filmmaking. Though I haven't seen all of the original silent film "Nosferatu", I've seen enough to know that Shadow of the Vampire did a great job of recreating the art direction in Nosferatu.

The humor in Shadow of the Vampire is obvious, but subtler is Willem Dafoe's sad portrayal of bizarre actor Max Schreck. Dafoe's performance can be overlooked because of his makeup and his amusing facial expressions. However, underneath the humor is a sad, lonely man. "How can you hurt me when I don't even know how to hurt myself?", asks Max. To me, that means that Max is a tortured soul that has no way to end his suffering.

The ending of Shadow of the Vampire is questionable. Did the film need to end in such a dark manner? Maybe not. But even if one questions the choices of director E. Elias Merhige and writer Steven Katz, the first 70 minutes of Shadow of the Vampire should not be dismissed. Shadow of the Vampire is simultaneously touching, funny, bizarre, and tragic - and well worth seeing more than once.

Rating:
Summary: Not a bad vampire film
Review: When I fist saw the original Nosferatu a few halloweens ago,I had no idea what I was getting myself into.The portray of this animalistic vampire was played beautifully.Shadow of the Vampire was another movie I wanted to see but after seeing Nosferatu I just didn't have the guts to see it.Years later I worked up my nerve and sat through this movie.I was well impressed especially with Willem Dafoes part as the mysterious Max Schreck.I recognized him as the Green Goblin in spider-man so it shouldn't have been to bad.After I saw this movie I did sleep with a nightlight for about a week (how embarrasing).But this movie is a delightful horror treat.I heard Dafoe was nominated an oscar for his role in this,if that's true than he sure deserves it.However the ending just left me with too many questions.That was pretty much the only problem with this movie.
I'm not a fan of horror by any means,but occasionally I'll enjoy a good horror flick.I ended up seeing this movie because it was halloween night,and it was on.I'd love to see it again,and I strongly recommend it to fans of horror,or just in the mood to be creeped out.

Rating:
Summary: Fun and original-minded work: heightens the original's magic
Review: There is a fear to be had in this kind of work. Because it's not only delving into such a monumental piece of motion picture history but purporting to shed new 'light' on that movie's making, 'Nosferatu' purists are likely to avoid it on the grounds that it may de-mystify their beloved pic. Given the added features on the Special Edition DVD of that 1922 classic, it's easy to see that 'Nosferatu' is not just a movie anymore but a gateway into that cosy, misty, first impression of movie Transylvania our species ever got to see. How could anyone do such a heinous thing as cut through that sense of eerie escapism?

That's the risk. If you approach this DVD without ever having seen 'Nosferatu', you'll find it an intriguing work of horror that will make you wonder about the 'what if's. So much can be read into a picture that is 80+ years old now - where nearly all the actors must now surely be no more and where the first Dracula representation was such a freak of nature to behold. This film takes full advantage of its rickety, grainy subject and exploits all that can be exploited to the hilt.

The good news for those who have seen (and cherish) 'Nosferatu' is you will probably experience the same wonder. 'Shadow ...' doesn't denigrate a thing about 'Nosferatu'. Instead, it presents creaking secret compartments within the castle that was 'Nosferatu'. The two should one day be twinned on the same DVD release, or tripled with Herzog's remake of the silent classic.

The cast are brilliant - Dafoe and Malkovich interplaying particularly well. The 'German' accents are immaterial - the essence of the work itself is everything. This is like taking what 'Burden of Dreams' is to 'Fitzcarraldo' and adding yet another dimension.

Its genre is 'horror'. It's an impossible documentary, also - what happens when you view a magical object through a magical lens. All in all, an overdose of beautifully crafted movie mythos.

Rating:
Summary: Almost good
Review: I was prepared to enjoy this film, because the premise and range of actors is promising. Overall, I think it was a good idea that was not that well executed. What specifically turned me off was the preoccupation with the director, and production problems, and the whole filmmaking process. To me, it's in poor taste to constantly reference the industry while trying to make a damn movie. Nevertheless, there are some truly funny moments, and anyone that has seen or cared about Nosferatu will want to see this. Best of all is Werner Herzog's remake of the original, with Klaus Kinski playing the Count. Now that is some fine filmmaking.

Rating:
Summary: Classic!
Review: This is the second best vampire movie after the original Nosferatu. They are great to have together as a set.

Rating:
Summary: You mean he wasnt an actor?
Review: This film was a total joy, not in only in the cast of fine actors but the theme of the movie. Much like "Return of the living dead" was to "Night of the living dead", so is SOV to Nosferatu. A ficitonal dramatization to show the true story behind the, eehh, fiction!

The settings gave me the same creeps as the original and what I liked doing was playing a couple of scenes from the silent feature and then continuing with SOV to compare the details.

All in All great fun and at times disturbing, if you liked the original Nosferatu. Well done Mr Cage, thank you for this film

Rating:
Summary: Good, but it falls short of Great
Review: A good combination of creepy and quietly funny, this movie showcases a brilliant makeup job on Willem Dafoe, who is by turns unsettling, ridiculous, sad, and threatening--maybe the most realistic vampire on film, and very different from all the others I've seen (and I've seen a lot).
If you've seen the 1922 silent film "Nosferatu" then you will be able to appreciate how amazingly scenes from that movie have been re-enacted and integrated here, but you don't need to have seen "Nosferatu." Basically the plot here concerns "Nosferatu" director F.W. Murnau (a nicely dictatorial Malkovich), who hires an unknown actor named Max Schreck to play the vampire Count Orlock. However Murnau tells his cast and crew that Schreck is an obsessive "method" actor and will appear only in his makeup and must be addressed at all times as Count Orlock... and the result is one of several priceless moments: the look on Eddie Izzard's face (playing one of Murnau's normal actors) when he first meets his eerie costar Orlock and wonders a little fearfully "is this guy for real?"
The situation sets up some pretty sharp Hollywood satire about a star hijacking a director's movie, and how the director is powerless to stop it (because in this case the star may be a blood-drinking fiend...) and opens questions about different kinds of immortality: is it more satisfying to be an actually eternal Count, or to appear forever as one on film?
This is all great, but too much of the movie lacks focus for it to be capital-g Great; the Cary Elwes character is fun to watch, but the movie doesn't make good use of him, and all the accumulating creepiness never builds to a real scare or true horror. The director's commentary track is interesting but at times really tiring, talking about "the artist's mission" and overly impressed with various ideas and jokes which the movie tries to include (i.e. trying to show the impact in 1921 of new techniques of filmmaking through Elwes's gun-toting cinematographer) but which don't quite gel onscreen. There is, also, the age-old problem: if your movie takes place in Germany, should everyone speak with a German accent? Yes, is our answer here. That makes for a rough first 5 minutes as you adjust to it, and the ludicrous ending makes for a rough final 5 minutes. But go ahead and enjoy what this movie has to offer in between: some creeps, some laughs, a memorable vampire.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: Long and drawn out. Good dark sets, and good acting, but that doesn't make up for the boredom.

Rating:
Summary: Whole exceeded by sum of parts
Review: Shadow of a Vampire's premise is first rate, as is its cast, cinematography and much of its acting, but despite this huge promise and, in its various departments, considerable delivery, Shadow of the Vampire really doesn't work.

It's a smashing premise: in casting his legendary silent horror Nosferatu, German director FW Murnau hired a real vampire to play Max Schreck, the actor playing the vampire in the movie. A ready made excuse, therefore, to run plenty of footage from the original film, visit and re-stage many of its scenes, all of which is done with relish. You can just imagine the meal John Malkovich makes of the obsessive, laudanum tooting director, and he signally fails to disappoint, but is nonetheless royally outdone by Willem Dafoe - *almost* unrecognisable - chewing scenery (as well as cast and crew) as the vampire.

Well made-up though he may be, I don't think Dafoe captures Max Schreck awfully well: he's uglier and more angular, for a start, whereas Schreck had a sort of Chaplinesque goofiness about him which lent a fair bit of pathos to his character. And Dafoe's rendition tends (when "off screen", at any rate) to pull faces unshakably reminiscent of Wilfred Bramble, (the "dirty old man" from British comedy classic Steptoe & Son).

But this is small stuff. The big problem the film has is coherence: superficially it's all fine, but director Merhige is clearly getting at something a little more substantial than black slapstick, but for the life of me I couldn't work out what it was.

Partly what confuses is the acting: Malkovich and Dafoe are both so over-the-top that it is difficult to treat them as anything other than comedy performances, but this in turn undermines a markedly heavy denouement, in which both feature prominently. And Dafoe is often hard to make out - many of his critical lines are uttered not just in cod Transylvanian, but sotto voce as well (I searched in vain on the DVD for English subtitles but alas there were none!)

Lastly, the narrative is very disjointed - partly, I suppose, as a result of having to follow the film around the different scenes and gel with the historical facts of the production - but it is a director's job to smooth out and explain - to create an indelible and coherent memory, as Murnau himself might say, and I don't think this was done.

Definitely a fascinating film, but far too many loose ends to judge an unqualified success.