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Shadow of the Vampire
Lions Gate Films


6.9

based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for some sexuality, drug content, violence and langauge

Starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard, Catherine McCormack, and Udo Kier

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)

GENRE(S):	Horror
WRITTEN BY:	Steven Katz
DIRECTED BY:	E. Elias Merhige
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 29, 2001 Video: May 29, 2001 Theatrical: December 29, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	93 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / USA / Luxembourg

Received two 2001 Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actor (Dafoe).

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's a mesmerizing spectacle.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Manages to turn a highly dubious concept into a subtle and deliciously mordant comedy.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Paints a vivid and darkly humorous picture of a world where directors are all-powerful and vampires are real; whether you want to buy into either fantasy is up to you. I did, and had a grand old time.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

"Willem Dafoe is Max Schreck." I put quotes around that because it's not just a line for a movie ad but the truth: He embodies the Schreck of "Nosferatu" so uncannily that when real scenes from the silent classic are slipped into the frame, we don't notice a difference.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

He's (Dafoe) the stuff bad dreams are made of. He's also the best movie vampire since Schreck's original. He deserves a bloody Oscar.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Might be the most original film of the year.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Kicky, elaborately constructed fantasy.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Diabolically amusing without plunging into the Mel Brooks zone, and it's smart without being pedantic. And it's genuinely scary at times.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Without question, Shadow of the Vampire is a stately and elegant horror film, interwoven with delicious strands of black comedy.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

At once wildly metaphorical and distressingly literal-minded, Shadow of the Vampire tries, with mixed success, to be scary, funny and profound all at once.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Hypnotic and fun.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Feast upon a career-peak Willem Dafoe performance as a bat-eared fiend who is foul, funny, ferocious, forlorn and unforgettable.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

His (Dafoe's) re-creation of Schreck is an Oscar-level performance, but more than that, it's an unforgettable one: great, scary, horrifically funny.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Malkovich is wryly amusing as German director F.W. Murnau, and Dafoe steals the show as a vampire playing an actor playing a vampire.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Works on several playful levels. Most obviously, it is a horror movie in which life imitates art on a movie set.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Dafoe never reverts to campy, movie-monster gestures but seems liberated, consumed by his character, inspired to give a performance that's intuitive and otherworldly.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

A clever, funny, extended joke about ruthless directors, method actors and the power of the cinema.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A creepy, clever, film buff's delight of a fantasy.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Willem Dafoe's performance in Shadow of the Vampire is so irresistible it not only breaks that cycle but turns an otherwise just adequate film into something everyone will want to take a look at.

Film.com Peter Brunette

It's a great ride, gorgeous, silly and deeply intellectual by turns, but, for all its inventive fireworks, sad to say, it finally doesn't quite work.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Malkovich and Dafoe play off each other with a devilish hamminess.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Built on an absolutely marvelous idea but manages to make only about two-thirds of a good movie of it.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

For all its stentorian performances, though, Shadow of the Vampire is a bit much, from the detailed period sets to the final, bloody scene.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A bit of a one-joke wonder.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Worth seeing for Dafoe's performance alone, a singular mixture of camp and pathos that echoes the tragic, romantic allure of vampires in literature and film.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

If only this movie were rich enough, strong enough to be worthy of this (Dafoe's) performance.

TNT RoughCut Andy Klein

In the end, the performances and the basic strength of the premise make Shadow of the Vampire a relatively diverting ninety minutes. But there is the inescapable feeling that it is a shadow of the great film it might have been.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It'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.

Slate David Edelstein

There are times when Dafoe's accent strays into Billy Crystal Yiddish, but the notion of Vlad the Impaler aging into a finicky old Jew has its own kind of piquancy.

Chicago Reader Mark Peranson

It's odd that a movie featuring a great classical director is notable for some extremely contemporary acting.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

An 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.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bruno gave it a 9:
One of the best gothic-horror movies of all time.

Mats W. gave it a 10:
Excellent movie. Really a great performance of Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck and John Malkovich as the filmdirector. Great effects. A tribute to the original film Nosferatu, made in 1922. This was a master piece in those times.

Nancy T. gave it a 5:
While the premise was interesting, the movie itself was very uninvolving. John Malkovich's narration was irritating, the characters were completely one-dimensional, and the ending was scattered and abrupt....or maybe too drawn out. Either way, it didn't work.

Emily C. gave it a 1:
Willem Dafoe's performance is probably the only thing that gives this dull movie some life.

Robin W. gave it a 10:
A superb movie!!

[Anonymous] gave it an 8:
Muy buen film, con una inteligente puesta en escena. Creo que define bien la persolidad "vampiresca" de Max.

Paula W. gave it a 3:
This deadly dull, self-stroking little exercise isn't half as clever as it seems to think. Oh, and there are really bad German accents. Stay away.

Shadow of the Vampire Lions Gate Films

Shadow of the Vampire
Lions Gate Films