Summary Capsule
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Movie about vampire stars real life vampire, more or less
Summary Capsule
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It would be better to call SotV a historical horror movie with brushes of comedy, but that doesn't fit it either. Many of its in-jokes require knowledge of the production of "Nosfertu", and it never becomes "jump out of your seat" scary. Yet the movie remains disquietly odd. It fetishes the devices of silent movie production, as well as capturing the directing style of 30s movies. Look for the lack of cuts and pans compared to modern movies. SotV looks almost static in comparison. Stuck between the period when movies where just short filmed pieces and full feature length events, the 1930s movies have a look and style which is not quite modern and all dependent on the whims of a powerful director and a small crew. A look which is perfectly captured by SotV, to the delight of film buffs everywhere. Built around the basic "what if?", the movie follows the dictatorial Director Franz Munau has he struggles to complete his silent masterpiece. A great director, All the while, keeping the identity of his "high-maintenance" star hidden while the crew starts dropping like flies. William Dafoe vanishes into his makeup as the centuries old Count Oloch, clicking his nails and gravely tenor. The inspiration for Dafoe's "Green Goblin" in Spiderman is seen in Oloch's distorted sneer and voice. Malkovich delivers a performance that, on a lesser actor, would seem melodramatic and overwrought. His devotion to completing the film makes us wonder, who is the real vampire? Oloch? or the movie which demands more and more sacrifices to be completed? It's a film geek theory right at home in a movie about a movie, and provides another layer to an already layered film. Like the ornate art deco painting in the beginning of the movie, Shadow of the Vampire is at both beautiful, arcane, funny, horrifying, and indescribably odd. A one of a kind movie experience. |
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 2000 Rated R Hollywood Horror Director
Starring
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Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
Only for the creepy circus music.
The Movie Store! [proceeds go toward monthly MRFH upkeep]
Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]
Count Orlock (Willem Dafoe) recites Tennyson's poem 'Tithonus' at one point: 'The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, the vapors weep their burden to the ground...' This is apropos, because the poem is about a character from Greek mythology who was immortal even though he continued to age. Just like Orlock, this made him a tragic figure.
Cary Elwes has now starred in two film interpretations concerning Dracula, the other being 1992's Dracula.
The music played on the phonograph to set the mood for the actors in some of the scenes is the soundtrack of Dracula (1979) written by John Williams.
Official and Not-So-Official Websites
from his widdle nappie? |
F.W. Murnau: I will not allow you to destroy my picture!
Max Schreck: This is hardly your picture any longer.
Max Schreck: Did I kill one of your people, Murnau? I can't remember.
Murnau: They don't need to act. They need to *be*.
F.W. Murnau: If it's not in frame, it doesn't exist!
Max Schreck: I would like some makeup.
F.W. Murnau: Well, you don't get any.
Max Schreck: There was a time... when I... fed from golden chalices. But now... Don't look at me that way!
F.W. Murnau: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Max Schreck, who will be portraying our vampire, Count Orlock. As you no doubt have heard, Max's methods are somewhat... unconventional, but... I am sure you will come to respect his artistry in this matter.
Max Schreck: I feed like an old man pees -- sometimes all at once, sometimes drop by drop.
Max Schreck: I told you, I feed erratically, and often enormously.
[Asked what he thought of the book, Dracula]
Count Orlock: It made me sad.
Albin: Why sad?
Count Orlock: Because Dracula had no servants.
Albin: I think you missed the point of the book, Count Orlock.
Count Orlock: Dracula hasn't had servants in 400 years and then a man comes to his ancestral home, and he must convince him that he -- that he is like the man. He has to feed him, when he himself hasn't eaten food in centuries. Can he even remember how to buy bread? How to select cheese and wine? And then he remembers the rest of it. How to prepare a meal, how to make a bed. He remembers his first glory, his armies, his retainers, and what he is reduced to. The loneliest part of the book comes... when the man accidentally sees Dracula setting his table.
Greta Schroder: Hey, who died?!
Max Schreck: Go to hell, Murnau!
F.W. Murnau: Why would you possibly want to be in a play when you could be in a film?
Greta Schroeder: An audience gives me life. This...thing only takes it from me.
Albin: What is the most wondrous thing you ever saw?
Henrik Galeen: I once saw Greta Schroeder naked.
Albin: That beats ectoplasm!
F.W. Murnau: Go ahead! Eat the writer! That will leave you explaining how your character gets to Bremen!
F.W. Murnau: Death of centuries! Moonchaser! Blasphemer! Monkey! Vase of prehistory. Finally to Earth, and finally born.
F.W. Murnau: Albin, collect the wooden stake and return it to it's rightful place; it is necessary for the final frame, to remind us of the inadequacies of our plans, our contingincies, every missed train and failed picnic, every lie to a child.
F.W. Murnau: Time will no longer be a dark spot on our lungs. They will no longer say 'you had to have been there', because the fact is, Albin, we were.
[last line]
F.W. Murnau: I think we have it.
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DnaError's Rating: Doesn't Suck.