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

This screening is part of 7th House's October series ETERNAL DARKNESS: A CENTURY OF NOSFERATU. See below for info.

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.

Tickets: $12 (In Person Only Event)

Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

ETERNAL DARKNESS: A CENTURY OF NOSFERATU

It was over one hundred years ago that NOSFERATU first crept from the darkness. Born of an unsanctioned adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, F.W. Murnau’s frightful and fevered 1922 Expressionist masterpiece gave the vampire its first cinematic form but was condemned, by court, to death. Yet like its cadaverous Count, it refused to perish, its immortality taking root to cast a shadow across eras, filmmakers, and forms, stalking our collective imaginations. From that cursed survival came a lineage of dark reflections including Werner Herzog’s NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979), a hypnotically haunted dirge of devotion and decay, E. Elias Merighe’s delirious metafictional nightmare SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, an uncanny imagining of the monster behind the mask, and Robert Eggers’s bold and visionary reimagining NOSFERATU (2024), a cinematically sumptuous elegy to Murnau’s undying myth. On Thursdays this October, 7th House’s ETERNAL DARKNESS: A CENTURY OF NOSFERATU unites these distinct, haunted visions, culminating with a special presentation of Murnau’s original masterpiece, NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR (1922) with an immersive live score by the haunting and elementally powerful CIRCUIT DES YEUX.

• October 9th – Werner Herzog's NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE (1979)
• October 16th – Robert Eggers's NOSFERATU (2024) w/ special guests TBA
• October 23rd – E. Elias Merighe SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000) w/ director in person!
• October 30th – F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR (1922) w/ live score by CIRCUIT DES YEUX

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With some exception, The Philosophical Research Society’s 7th House Screenings does not typically provide advisory warnings about potentially upsetting content or subject matter, as sensitivities are particular to each viewer. Please be sure to read event listings, research on the web, or visit Common Sense Media, IMDb, and DoesTheDogDie.com for thorough info on content and age-appropriateness. If you have any specific content advisory questions, please email events@prs.org.

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