Scoop's comments:
I love a strange-off. Remember in
"Illuminata", when Ben Gazzara turned in such a
profoundly deranged performance that Christopher
Walken wasn't the strangest guy in the movie? Walken
lost the only strange-off of his career. Kind of like
a watershed in film history. John Malkovich, another
of the masters of strangeness, lost the strange-off in
this film. He was weird, but he wasn't even close to
Willem Dafoe. Dafoe was so strange that he may now be
the reigning king.
The premise is fascinating. Can you
remember if you have ever seen any scenes from the
1922 German expressionist masterpiece Nosferatu? You
probably have. It was a rip off of Stoker's Dracula,
because Stoker's estate wouldn't sell the rights to
his story, and it was one of the first vampire flicks
ever made. They always show clips from it in film
history documentaries. I've never seen the movie, but
I've seen the clips several dozen times.
For nearly a century, people have wondered how in the
world the lead actor, Max Schreck, managed to look so
creepy in the role. It is positively brilliant how
they created the impression of Nosferatu so long ago,
with the narrow mouth and the rat teeth, and the
pointed ears, and long fingernails, and so forth. This
guy looked really creepy.
Well, this movie posits an hypothetical answer: there
was no Max Schreck. The director (F.W. Murnau, played
by Malkovich) was so in love with his movie realism
that he hired a real vampire to play the part of an
actor playing a vampire. So how do you pay a real
vampire? You let him devour the beautiful leading lady
after the filming is over! Talk about an over-the-top
premise.
Of course, there was a Max Shreck, and he acted for
another decade or more in non-vampire films. And the
real Greta Schroder worked in one more picture,
noticeably still alive. But ignore all that. This
movie gives you a much more interesting explanation.
Willem Dafoe must have practiced for months in front
of a mirror to get this down, because he absolutely
nailed Max Schreck. They cut in some real footage from
the original Nosferatu, and they also show new
black-and-white footage with Dafoe, and you simply
can't tell when Dafoe ends and Shreck begins. Many
people have said that Dafoe is a shoo-in for an Oscar
nomination, probably in the Supporting division, and
it's hard to argue with the nomination. All actors
know that this kind of over-the-top role is easier to
do than realism, but Dafoe's impression is so accurate
that I feel it will be impossible to ignore.
The concept is basically played for very dark humor,
not serious drama. The director gets upset when the
vampire devours his photographer, so he confronts him
and asks him - why eat somebody essential like the
photographer? If he just had to eat, why not just the
script girl? The vampire's answer, "I'll eat her
later." When the director has to fly to Berlin to get
a new photographer, he tells the vampire not to eat
any more crew members, and Nosferatu replies, "I've
come to the conclusion that once the filming is
started, we really don't need a writer any more." You
get the idea.
I know it sounds kinda dumb, but they manage to pull
this off simply because (1) it's such a creative and
loony premise, (2) everybody really gets into it, and
(3) the film is only 90 minutes long, so they don't
overstay their welcome. It's an actor's dream. Drug
frenzies, flesh eating, larger-than-life leading
ladies, temperamental artists. Virtually every role
allows the actors their moments in the sun - er,
darkness - and they all chew the scenery. It's just
people having fun, and we get to watch with a
quizzical look on our faces, an occasional scare, and
an occasional belly laugh.