Shadow of the Vampire Bites

By Teddy Durgin
Anyone who knows me knows that I love movies about movies. Recent examples like The Player, Ed Wood, and Gods and Monsters immediately leap to mind.  One of my great loves is for the 1922 silent film classic Nosferatu, one of the scariest freakin' movies ever made.  Scary for its silence, scary for its depiction of a grotesque vampire played by ACTOR Max Schreck.

A year or so ago, when I read that a film was being produced about the making of that great motion picture, I immediately put Shadow of the Vampire on my must-see list.  A cast was announced that included such favorites as John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, and Catherine McCormack.  So far, so good.  Then, I saw the first photo of Dafoe in full makeup as Schreck.  Oh, man, was I excited!  The makeup was perfect.  I had goosebumps already!

The film began showing up at film festivals as early as last spring.  Reaction was generally positive.  A December limited release in New York and L.A. qualified the movie for Oscar consideration.  Then, last week, I finally got my preview tape in the mail.  Like the hideous Count Orlock of Nosferatu, I scurried into my cave-like suburban apartment dwelling and popped the video into the VCR.  Ninety minutes later and...

DISAPPOINTED!!!

Sorry.  Had to have a Kevin Kline moment there.  I wish I could have pulled a full-on Otto and put two bullets in the tape machine, but I didn't have a piece handy.  So, instead, I went to the keyboard and fired off this little piece of venom.

Now, I am aware of the many urban legends that surround the original production of Nosferatu.  This was the cinema's first-ever vampire film, so strange stories were bound to pop up. Hell, I still know people who swear a guy hung himself on the set of The Wizard of Oz, and you can see him swinging in the background of the Tin Woodsman's set.  It didn't happen, but that doesn't mean rumors don't persist.  That is why it's not surprising that, to this day, some believe Schreck was a real vampire.  No actor could be that effective.

Well, Schreck was.

In Shadow of the Vampire, famed director F.W. Murnau (played by Malkovich) sets forth to make the perfect vampire film by casting ... a real vampire.  No, I'm not talking about those rather disturbed individuals who show up each Halloween on Sally Jesse, claiming to be bloodsuckers.  You know the sort: pale losers who come dressed in bad tuxedos and list their favorite beverage as Type O negative.  The concept of Shadow of the Vampire is that Schreck was a real, honest-to-goodness vampire.  In other words, the guy didn't cast a reflection in mirrors.  He feasted on people and small animals.  He lived for hundreds of years.  And he feared the light of day more than a carload of freshmen at Spring Break.

Sorry, folks.  I just can't buy that, and the film did little to make me a believer.  Maybe if director E. Elias Merhige had made the movie fictional, about a film that was loosely based on Nosferatu, I would have bought into it.  But when you basically take a movie classic and turn it into a distorted myth, no matter how good the filmmaking is, I can't go with you down the dark path.  Max Schreck WAS an actor.  He would go on to appear in more than 20 other German films.  He died of a heart attack, not extreme exposure to the sun.

Still, this film is getting rave critical reviews.  Yes, Shadow of the Vampire is well acted by Dafoe and Malkovich.  Yes, it has some devilishly funny dialogue.  And, yes, it does a great job recreating the ridiculously antiquated filmmaking techniques of the early 1920s.  Must I let my nitpicks get in the way of my enjoyment?

Well, yeah!

When a film like Shadow of the Vampire has the potential for greatness and falls short, I take it a lot harder than a movie that is just outright bad.  OK, maybe I am too close to the source material.  I love Nosferatu.  I also love E.T.  But if someone makes a film decades from now saying that Steven Spielberg really used a real-life extra-terrestrial from another galaxy instead of a midget in a zip-up creature suit, and moviegoers actually accept it as fact, I will rise from MY grave!

Here is what I thought Shadow of the Vampire was going to be about.  I thought it was going to be about a reclusive German Method actor who buries himself quite literally in the part of a killer vampire to the point where he and others start believing he is Nosferatu.  That would have been cool!  Then, you could take all the dramatic license you want to explain the strange stuff that went on with the production.

This has caused some bitter disagreements with several friends. Lovers of Shadow of the Vampire point to scenes like the one where Schreck is questioned by the film's inebriated producer (Udo Keir) and screenwriter (John Gillet) one night about his thoughts on Dracula, the Bram Stoker novel for which Murnau failed to secure the film rights.  Schreck says the book made him sad because Drac had no servants.  Consequently, how would he know how to receive guests, pick out cheese and meat, and make dinner?  Then, Schreck catches a live bat out of mid-air and proceeds to drain its blood.  I wanted more scenes like THAT!!! More scenes of wit and genuine menace, where Schreck is allowed to just talk and the characters are forced to interact with him. Instead, we get shlocky subplots about how Schreck bargains with Murnau to kill the screenwriter, then the leading lady. Shadow of the Vampire plays more like a self-important spoof than a serious exploration of a great film classic.

Actually, Shadow of the Vampire reminds me very much of Chaplin, the 1992 biopic that Sir Richard Attenborough directed about the life of Charlie Chaplin.  Like Shadow, the film featured elaborate recreations of classic film moments at the birth of the movie business.  Also like Shadow, Chaplin wasted an absolutely astonishing lead performance (Robert Downey Jr. in the title role) in a vague and meandering film that failed to do justice to its subject matter.

Like its disastrously slow opening credits, Shadow of the Vampire fades in and out of focus.  Some moments are truly amazing.  The first appearance of Schreck to the actors.  Schreck rising from his coffin.  Eddie Izzard's uncanny performance as Gustav Von Wangerheim, the leading man of Nosferatu.  There are great moments in Shadow.  But that's all they are.  Moments. Most of the film is a head-scratching disappointment.  Ugh!  Like those awful German accents that some of the actors affect!  I half-expected Colonel Klink and Schultzie to show up.

Ah, Werner Klemperer.  Now, HE would have made a cool Max Schreck!