Shadow of the Vampire provides just one of the most fun, most made-for-me concepts onscreen: what if Nosferatu’s Max Schreck was an actual vampire? Schreck being played by Willem Dafoe made me want to watch this instantly. German Expressionism and Willem Dafoe are things that give me so much joy to see onscreen, so mixing them both together is a match made in heaven. Right off the bat, this won’t come as a surprise at all: Willem Dafoe is just phenomenal here, getting a well-deserved Oscar nod. Beyond the remarkable makeup job that turns him into the original onscreen vampire, Dafoe is having so much fun here and embracing the theatrics promised in this out-there concept. Like the vampire takes over Max Schreck, Max Schreck takes over Willem Dafoe. He and the script are both smart to not take themselves so seriously—the premise is inherently a bit silly, and is not made out to be an outright comedy but the film treats the original film and Murnau with such reverence. Every scene makes it obvious that director E. Elias Merhige both loves and understands silent cinema, complete with brief intertitles and a lengthy, beautifully scored title sequence. But I was left wanting a bit more from the film, since the direction is a lot more conventional than I expected. It gets away with being somewhat stagey, given that it takes place in the early days of cinema, but it doesn’t have a very distinct style beyond mere recreations of the Nosferatu set. The dynamic between Murnau and Schreck is not leaned into so heavily until the third act, and after a beautifully done final scene the film simply ends. I also wish the film was a lot more unapologetically queer, beyond mere mention of Murnau’s relationship.
Shadow of the Vampire provides just one of the most fun, most made-for-me concepts onscreen: what if Nosferatu’s Max Schreck was an actual vampire? Schreck being played by Willem Dafoe made me want to watch this instantly. German Expressionism and Willem Dafoe are things that give me so much joy to see onscreen, so mixing them both together is a match made in heaven. Right off the bat, this won’t come as a surprise at all: Willem Dafoe is just phenomenal here, getting a well-deserved Oscar nod. Beyond the remarkable makeup job that turns him into the original onscreen vampire, Dafoe is having so much fun here and embracing the theatrics promised in this out-there concept. Like the vampire takes over Max Schreck, Max Schreck takes over Willem Dafoe. He and the script are both smart to not take themselves so seriously—the premise is inherently a bit silly, and is not made out to be an outright comedy but the film treats the original film and Murnau with such reverence. Every scene makes it obvious that director E. Elias Merhige both loves and understands silent cinema, complete with brief intertitles and a lengthy, beautifully scored title sequence. But I was left wanting a bit more from the film, since the direction is a lot more conventional than I expected. It gets away with being somewhat stagey, given that it takes place in the early days of cinema, but it doesn’t have a very distinct style beyond mere recreations of the Nosferatu set. The dynamic between Murnau and Schreck is not leaned into so heavily until the third act, and after a beautifully done final scene the film simply ends. I also wish the film was a lot more unapologetically queer, beyond mere mention of Murnau’s relationship.
