So, mrAru and I are enjoying watching the original Nosferatu on TV right now, and we are sort of musing about the movie Shadow of the Vampire, which is a vision of what if Max Shreck was actually a vampire.
I am wondering about something about “Max Shreck” in Shadow. He currently at the time of the making of Nosferatu can not make another person a vampire, and he can not remember how he was himself made a vampire. Did he ever turn someone into a vampire?
And we were wondering, it doesn’t really seem like a horror movie, there really isn’t anything too bloody until the end other than he sucks the blood out of a bat. [Actually his character even though a bit of a jerk was pretty sympathetic, especially the scene where he is watching the sunrise in the editing machine.]
Wow, in the original there is actually incorporated footage shot through a microscope! There is stuff in this particular film that they normally had been cutting out! I may have to see if it is available on DVD, the one I have is missing scenes =(
It is implied that he never created another vampire. In the scene where he is drinking schnapps with the producer and screenwriter, he says something like “although I seem to remember I never could”.
It’s actually one of my fovorite films. It’s a psychological horror rather than a gore fest, and also something of a comedy. However, the ending is truely horrific, on many levels.
I love both the original Nosferatu and Shadow Of The Vampire.
I wouldn’t classify SOTV as a horror film either. I’d say it’s more of a post-modern art film. Off the toppa my head
“I feed like an old man pisses- erratically and in spurts.”
“How do you think you can destroy me when I can’t even destroy myself?”
I love how the vampire in SOTV is genuinely flummoxed by so many things and often nearly panics in social situations.
RE Missing Scenes
I don’t know if there is a complete version. Despite the changes to the material, courts (correctly IMO) ruled that Nosferatu infringed on the copyright of Dracula. Most copies were rounded up and destroyed. To me that is the one flaw in SOTV. I would have ended with a final title screen of “In (whenever it was) the courts ruled that Nosferatu infringed on Stoker’s copyright. All copies were ordered destroyed. But a vampire is not so easily done away with.”
Note- besides a few adaptations of Mernau’s film (most recently Silent Screamer’s did one. IMO IT was marred by the modern narrator using modern expressions and slang)) there was a continuation done a few years ago. In it (no spoilers) a knight on his way back from the crusades ends up freeing an imprisoned Orlock. Orlock somehow makes the knight immortal and they hunt each other over the centuries. MUCH MUCH better than it sounds. Sadly, I’m not having any luck searching for it online and I know my collection is currently in too much disarray to find it. Look for a four issue black and white series with a meditation maze on the back cover.
I’ve been watching al the versions of Dracula the past few days, and started with Nosferatu. It does indeed have a microscope shot. There’s some crude stop-motion, and some effects work.
The definitive edition of Nosferatu still hasn’t been released. I have one of the better versions, but it still lacks crucial tinting, and probably some scenes.
Despite what some people have said, there DO exist pictures of Schreck without his vampire makeup. David Skal includes one in his Hollywood Gothic and another, larger one in his V is for Vampire. Plus, the guy made a lot of other films, at least some of which ought to be extant.
I liked Shadow of the Vampire, but don’t think of it as a horror film, despite the fact that one of the characters is a vampire. It’s just a hoot to watch them toss off lines as if this were perfectly normal, and to watch the producer and director screw the vampire over like any other actor.
Written by Mark Ellis, the title is alternatively given as Nosferatu-Plague Of Terror or Nosferatu- Plague Of Darkness.
Here’s a page
Whee, fodder for my christmas present list =)
I love SotV, I try to catch it every time it is on cable, and I have it stored on my DVR.
I have to admit, I love Cary Elwes’ line in the conversation:
Fritz Arno ‘Fritzy’ Wagner: Is the camera loaded?
Paul: Yes sir
Fritz Arno ‘Fritzy’ Wagner: Good, so am I…