This year’s October Horror Film Diet began with one I hadn’t seen - 2000’s Shadow Of The Vampire. It tells an imagined version of the filming of the first vampire film ever made - 1922’s Nosferatu. John Malkovich is director F. W. Murnau and Willem Dafoe is Max Shreck - the actor who played Count Orlock in that silent film.
This film imagines that Max Shreck was a real vampire who made a deal with Murnau to play a vampire on screen. While the full details of this deal are not fully revealed until later in the picture, we soon find part of the deal is for Shreck to not feed on Murnau’s crew. Of course teptation is too much and Shreck cannot hold up to this part of the bargain. This predictably causes all sorts of issues for both the film and the crew. Malkovich plays Murnau like an arrogant Dr. Frankenstein of Film, willing to risk any danger for his masterpiece. He is even often wearing a lab coat, further evoking this director as mad scientist effect. Dafoe meanwhiel portrays "real" vampire Shreck with creepily demented glee. The sets and production design have hints of the German Expressionism that was one of the earliest major film movements at the time of Nosferatu's filming. (Interestingly the 1922 Nosferatu itself was not drenched in this expressionism nearly as much as other films at this time, like “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” - perhaps the most famous and dramatic example these delightfully nightmarish celluloid worlds).
Not so much a traditional horror movie, Shadow plays more as a dark comedy played very straight. Of course it would appear that many things in real life have been changed for the film. By several accounts the real life Murnau was much more a self doubting artist than dictatorial mad scientst. The real Shreck, though apparently a specialist in creating creepy characters, was never reported to have any vampiric tendencies and was heavily made up as Nosferatu, complete with prosthetic nose and chin. And reportedly no crew actually died on the set of this film.
Incidentally Murnau and company made Nosferatu because Bram Stoker’s widow would not give them the rights to Dracula. But apparently the production company went bankrupt after releasing the film as the widow Stoker sued them for similarities between the film’s story and Dracula.
All in all this was a good choice to start our October Horror Film Fest - one that I'd recommend. Watched streaming on Amazon Prime.
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