E. Elias Merhige's SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000) – A Macabre Metafiction!

As part of their monthlong celebration of NOSFERATU's shdaowy legacy, 7th House is proud to welcome director E. Elias Merighe in person for a screening of his unforgettable, twisted and darkly hilarious metafiction SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000), followed by a Q&A with the director!

Merhige’s SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE is a wickedly clever fusion of myth and metafiction, a macabre jest turned serious meditation that imagines that Max Schreck, the eerie star of F.W. Murnau’s original 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu, was cinema’s most brutal method actor – a bloodthirsty vampire hired to play himself! The conceit allows for an astonishing performance from Willem Dafoe, who earned an Academy Award nomination for embodying Schreck with grotesque physical detail—slurping, twitching, slyly comic one moment and chillingly feral the next. Across from him, John Malkovich plays Murnau as a maniacal visionary, willing to risk anything, even lives, to achieve his art. Together they stage a duel of egos and hungers: one driven by immortal appetite, the other by ruthless artistic ambition. With supporting turns by Udo Kier, Eddie Izzard, Cary Elwes, and Catherine McCormack, the film layers period detail with a sly metafictional wink.

Merhige & Co's craft deepens the film's bite. Before turning to Shadow of the Vampire, director E. Elias Merhige had established a cult reputation with Begotten (1990), a brutal, near-mythic vision of creation and destruction shot in unsettlingly stark black and white. This style caught the eye of producer Nicolas Cage, who saw that Merighe was up to the task to recreate Murnau’s eerie dailies. Merhige and cinematographer Lou Bogue conjure a 1920s world drenched in dust, candlelight, and shadow, while the production design blends the trappings of historical melodrama with the uncanny air of horror.

At once parody, period piece, and philosophical inquiry, Shadow of the Vampire becomes a tale not only of monsters but of cinema itself—its strange appetites, its capacity for enchantment, and the sacrifices demanded to bring shadows to life. It stands as one of the most unusual tributes ever paid to a film classic and an audacious hybrid of history and fantasy.

Dir. E. Elias Merighe, 2000, 92 mins, United States, English, Rated R, Color, Digital.

Special thanks to the film's producer, Orian Williams.

Please email ZXZlbnRzIHwgcHJzICEgb3Jn or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

ETERNAL DARKNESS: A CENTURY OF NOSFERATU

• (1979)
• (2024) w/ special guests TBA
• October 23rd – E. Elias Merighe SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000) w/ director in person!

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