'Shadow of the Vampire' brings off-beat horror

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Starring: John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Udo Keir, Cary Elwes, and Catherine McCormack
Director: E. Elias Merhige
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Eccentric silent movie director F.W. Murnau (Malkovich) drags the cast and crew to a crumbling castle in Eastern Europe to shoot "Nosferatu", an illicit adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula." Here, they find the actor playing the vampire, Max Shreck (Dafoe) has taken method acting to new heights. He's living the part to the point where crew members start mysteriously dying....

"Shadow of the Vampire" is a quirky movie that can't quite make up its mind between being a horror movie or a comedy. This is one of the rare instances where this sort of uneasy positioning works; I think in the end the film would have been stronger if it had been a tad more genre focused, but there's an air of moodiness and strangeness over everything that keeps things together.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is its commentary on movie making and the creative process in general. In the film, it becomes unclear who the biggest monster is... the vampire or the film director who is willing to sacrifice his actors and crew to it, just so he can create the ultimate movie. It's a question that gets harder and harder to answer as the film draws to a close.

"Shadow of the Vampire" is a fascinating, if odd, movie. It should appeal in particular to fans of old horror films, but I think anyone who enjoys a film that delivers the unexpected should have fun with it.

Trivia: This film is partially based on an urban legend that states silent film and stage actor Max Schreck was really a vampire.

'End of Days' is not cataclysmic

End of Days (1999)
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byrne, Robin Tunny, Kevin Pollack, Rod Steiger, and Udo Keir
Director: Peter Hyams
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Jericho Cane (Schwarzenegger), a world-weary detective, must fight against personal temptation, Satanists, a secret sect within the Catholic church,and Satan himself (Byrne) to protect a young woman named Christine (Tunny) and prevent the End of Days from occurring as the 20th century gives way to the 21st.


"End of Days" is a collage of cliched characters, stereotypes, and action scenes that resolve themselves pretty much as one would expect. It's to the supernatural thriller as "Predator" was to the monster movie, although not quite as expertly paced, nor as well acted. (While Gabriel Byrne makes for a great Satan, Schwarzenegger doesn't quite have the range that the part of Jericho Cane calls for--he can't pull off depressed OR religiously enraptured, and the role needs an actor who could have done both.)

The biggest weakness of "End of Days", which causes it to barely rate a Six, is that the director didn't know when it was time to start the climax of his movie. He seemed to feel obligated to cram in one more chase and explosion in the NYC subway even though dramatically the movie should have moved to its resolution once Jericho rescued Christine from the gathering of Satanists on New Year's Eve.

Although entertaining, and its creators deserve credit for attempting to make a different sort of action movie, "End of Days" is just too flawed to rise above average. You can easily save watching this movie until end-of-the-world mania comes back into style in 2011 and 2012.