Shadow of the Vampire

The title Shadow of the Vampire may be misleading, for if you think a traditional horror film awaits you, well, you are wrong. The shivers are of course also an important ingredient in the film, but the artistic ambitions take pride of place.

The slender plot follows the shooting of another film, namely the silent classic "Nosferatu", which the director F. W. Murnau made in 1922. The actor who played the lead role of Nosferatu, the in the most literal sense bloodthirsty vampire, had a name that could well set the imagination going, namely Max Schreck.

Out of these facts screenwriter Steven Katz has spun an an atmospheric story. In Katz's game with history, Max Schreck is in reality a vampire who has agreed not to play the role but to be the role, provided he gets a bite of the film's female star in the final scene. The director F. W. Murnau will not make any artistic compromise, and he thereby embodies a central theme of the film. Even though the vampire gradually kills off the film crew, he is determined to get the last scene in the can, even if it costs him his life.