Cheap Shadow of the Vampire (DVD) (John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe) (E. Elias Merhige) Price

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Customer Reviews of Shadow of the Vampire

I Swear Hubby Needs Me As Laugh Track....
When given a totally straight delivery, hubby has a tendency to watch a film in equally literal fashion. Thus, he was about to miss the fun of this film entirely. However, I started ROTFLMAO and it occurred to him, "Hey, this is funny." Yes, this film is absolutely hilarious and it is more about the lengths people will go for their passions and needs than it is about vampires. John Malkovich plays filmmaker Murnau making the original "Nosferatu" back in the '20s, a silent film. Willem Dafoe plays the lead actor Max Schreck, who is actually a vampire hired by Murnau to play the part as the ultimate touch of authenticity for his film. Murnau only has his film on his mind. He will and does do anything for it. Schreck only has feasting on blood on his mind, both cast and crew's but ultimately the leading lady as the piece de resistance. The cast and crew, in turn, are so used to being around crazed artistic types that Schreck's insisting on remaining "in character" and only shooting at night and in "full costume" strikes them as his "sacrifice" for his acting craft! Willem Dafoe is absolutely fabulous, as usual, and certainly deserved his long overdue best actor Oscar nomination. Malkovich does his usual solid job but the role isn't that different from his other roles. This film reminds me of "Barton Fink" and "The Muse," which also covered the far out behavior of creative artists and the prices they are willing to pay. What makes all three so good is that they are not exaggerations in the slightest. Doubt my word? Check into a live-in summer art studio course for several weeks and you'll come home knowing no exaggeration is necessary. The DVD has some fascinating extras on it including Dafoe getting made up for the role.

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Good Parts...But "Out of Frame"...
John Malkovich...essaying "madman" Director F. W. Murnau... proclaims at the "maximum snuff"climax of his Monster-from-the-Id production NOSFERATU: "If it's not in the frame...it doesn't exist!" This is my assessment. Director Merhige has filmed MIRAGE not a movie. His effort is, indeed, a shadow. Sometimes less is not more. Reviewers applaud fine acting; eerie sets;and tremendously effective art direction. The meld-seque photography...with interspersed frames of the silent film classic....is often startling. But that's also the point. SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is a consummate example of PM Deconstructionist Self-indulgence/Self-homage. Startling is the intention of pornography...not art.

In my estimate SHADOW is intellectual pornography. The hedonism clip in the film's opening does nothing revealing or surprising in the vein...if you'll permit... of character development. It does, however, hint of perverse TWISTs for the sake of perversity that are coming, and thoroughly characterize a movie that is provocative for all the wrong reasons. The masturbatory/drug swoon sequence (of Catherine McCormack's "Greta")summarizes everything WRONG, irrelevant, and annoying about a film pretending to be about one thing and reveling in another. "LIFE is not a cabaret!" old chums. And A SHADOW is neither about Vampires or an allegedly great eccentric director. It is about "nosferatu"...if you accept its translation as "the diseased". The film has good parts. ((The "Interview with the Vampire" scene is funny and hip)) But the entire project is an "out-of-frame" celebration of decadence proposed as substitute for Life and Art. To me this is PM-BS. Remember how pathetic characters in the film...deluding themselves about what was going on...seemed embracing evil; and imagining they're in control of "entertainment" that proved to be such deadly folly.....

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A film you can't miss.
Before we start, let's talk about the film's plot. This film takes place in 1929, were there filming the classic film, Notferatu(I think that's spelled wrong). The gut has hired a REAL vampire to play the part. What he doesn't know is that the Vampire is really evil and planning to kill the entire cast. I thought this was a great film because it makes you think that this actully happend. Yep not joking, you forget this is just a film some times. I thought Notrferatu was cool in this film. If you liked the classic film Notferatu, you'll like this film!