Shadow of the Vampire
| Shadow of the Vampire | |
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Promotional poster
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| Directed by | E. Elias Merhige |
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| Written by | Steven Katz |
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| Music by | Dan Jones |
| Cinematography | Lou Bogue |
| Edited by | Chris Wyatt |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Lions Gate Films |
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Running time
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92 minutes |
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| Budget | $8 million |
| Box office | $11.2 million |
Shadow of the Vampire is a 2000 metafiction comedy horror film directed by E. Elias Merhige, written by Steven Katz, and starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. The film is a fictionalised account of the making of the classic vampire film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, directed by F. W. Murnau, in which the film crew begin to have disturbing suspicions about their lead actor.
The film borrows the techniques of silent films, including the use of intertitles to explain elided action and iris lenses.
In 1921, German director F. W. Murnau takes his cast and crew on-location in Czechoslovakia to shoot Nosferatu, an unauthorized version of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Murnau keeps his team in the dark about their schedule and the actor playing the vampire Count Orlok. It is left to the film's other main actor, Gustav von Wangenheim, to explain that the lead is an obscure German theater performer named Max Schreck, who is a character actor. To involve himself fully in his role, Schreck will only appear amongst the cast and crew in makeup, and will never break character.
After filming scenes in a studio with leading actress Greta Schroeder, who is displeased about leaving Berlin, Murnau's team travels to the remote inn where they will be staying and shooting further scenes. The landlady becomes distressed at Murnau removing crucifixes around the inn, and the cameraman, Wolfgang Muller, falls into a strange, hypnotic state. Gustav discovers a bottle of blood amongst the team's food supplies, and Murnau delivers a caged ferret in the middle of the night.
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