The Best (And Weirdest) Vampire Movie Isn’t Available For Streaming Anywhere
The 2000 Willem Dafoe film Shadow of the Vampire is not available on any streaming platform.
Vampire movies have been around nearly as long as the medium of cinema itself, with the undead bloodsuckers taking center stage in everything from gory horror to goofy comedy to stylized erotica. However, one of the best and strangest vampire movies ever made is currently unavailable to stream on any service, which is absolutely criminal. That movie is 2000’s metafictional black comedy Shadow of the Vampire, which stars Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck, the star of the original vampire film Nosferatu.
Or, at least, sort of. Shadow of the Vampire (directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven Katz) posits that the groundbreaking 1922 German Expressionist film Nosferatu starred an actual vampire, who director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) passed off as an unusually dedicated actor who remained in character at all times. While Murnau’s film production is initially impressed by the ability of “Max Schreck” to play a disturbing, rat-like creature of the night with such commitment, it becomes increasingly clear that the director has made some kind of dark bargain to secure the services of his star.
As the production of Nosferatu goes on, Shreck/Orlok (his true name, if he even remembers it, is never revealed) begins to pick off members of the crew to feed on, all while Murnau is tirelessly dedicated to the completion of the film at all costs. Tellingly, while Shadow of the Vampire’s ostensible villain must brutally kill and feed in order to sustain his own wretched existence, it is the director who willingly brings him victims in the name of art.
Shadow of the Vampire can be described as alternately historical fiction about the making of an iconic film, a satire of the ruthlessness of show business, or a monster movie, and all of those are correct. But the real draw of the movie is the magnificent performance at the center of it: the vampire himself.
If there was ever a movie star that was born to play Shreck/Orlok, it is Willem Dafoe. Even under layers of makeup and prosthetics to replicate the iconic look of the original film, the once and future Green Goblin manages to express pathos and sensitivity that the Robert Pattinson and Brad Pitts of the world could only hope for. Shadow of the Vampire never lets viewers forget that its title character is a murdering, literal monster, but also gives you a glimpse that he himself was once human.
Shadow of the Vampire makes no attempt to square the events presented in the movie with actual history, much to its audacious benefit. Multiple real-life members of the crew (including vampire movie veteran Udo Kier, who has been in everything from Blade to Blood for Dracula) killed during the movie went on to lengthy careers in the actual world, while the presentation of Murnau as an autocratic, obsessive collaborator with the forces of darkness has little to do with the actual filmmaker, whose films frequently dealt with the horror of war and violence.
But Shadow of the Vampire is not interested in being historical, when telling a story this strange and darkly funny is much more fun. Maybe someday more people will get a chance to stream it.
