Rish's Reviews
Man, I hate it when movies don't get any Skulls! It makes me feel like I'm not doing my job, or something. Well, just for that, I'm going to give Shadow of the Vampire one of my shortest reviews ever.
Yes, this is an arthouse flick. Sorry. It had a very good premise: In 1922, director F.W. Murnau made Nosferatu, a classic of German expressionism and the granddaddy of all horror films. But in this retelling, the actor who played Count Orlock, Max Schrek, was in actuality a vampire, discovered and manipulated by Murnau (John Malkovich) to appear in the film. His nocturnal appetites grow as the production goes on, as does what is perceived by the crew to be his increasingly unorthodox "acting" style.
Willem Defoe absolutely steals the show as Schrek. Well done. I have this theory that John Malkovich is scary when he's playing a heroic, dramatic, or comedic role, and funny when he's playing a scary one. Nicolas Cage produced this. But why should anyone care?
One of the awful questions I must ask myself each and every time I review a movie is, "What if this isn't Horror?" Sometimes I go ahead and review the film anyway, sometimes I curse and kick in my television set, sometimes I curl into a ball and hum "Heart and Soul" by T'Pau until the orderlies bring me another film to watch. Where was I? Oh yes, Shadow of the Vampire tries to be many things: Comedy, Period Drama, Horror, Social Commentary, Docudrama, I don't know. And it succeeds in many ways. But as a horror film? Nah. It's not shite, by any means. But still...
It's a fine film, I'm just not sure it would offer much to the average Horror fan.