- Studio: Lions Gate Films Home Entertainment
- Release Date: Dec 29, 2000
- Starring: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe
- Summary: A witty, atmospheric, and deliciously feverish tale inspired by the great German film director F. W. Murnau and the making of his unforgettable "Nosferatu." (Lions Gate Films)
- Director: E. Elias Merhige
- Genre(s): Drama, Horror
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 25 out of 31
-
Mixed: 5 out of 31
-
Negative: 1 out of 31
-
100It's a mesmerizing spectacle.
-
80Without question, Shadow of the Vampire is a stately and elegant horror film, interwoven with delicious strands of black comedy.
-
60It's a marvelous, resonant joke that never quite succeeds: Stretches of the film resemble a Dario Argento horrorfest crossed with a Mel Brooks spoof. But the director, E. Elias Merhige, and his screenwriter, Steven Katz, occasionally bring some rapture to the creepiness, and Dafoe's vampire, with his graceful, ritualistic death lunges, is a sinewy, skull-and-crossbones horror who seems to come less out of the German Expressionist tradition than from Kabuki.
-
30An academic exercise driven by adolescent ideas that never shape themselves into a narrative: in short, a movie that can never dislodge the art fatally wedged up its butt.
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 6 out of 10
-
Mixed: 2 out of 10
-
Negative: 2 out of 10
-
6
-
-
5
-
Trailers
Related Articles
-
Published: October 28, 2010From Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" to more comedic efforts like "Shaun of the Dead," the past decade has seen a number of solid new entries in the horror canon. We run down the 15 best-reviewed horror movies from the past ten years.
-
Published: June 28, 2010While it's unlikely that this week's "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" will merit consideration on our list, here are the ten movies it would have to beat out to be considered the top vampire film since 1980. We've added five additional vampire movies from the other end of the quality spectrum, but there aren't any "Twilight" films among them ... yet.