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Shadow of the Vampire
Well, it wasn't as funny as I thought it would be from watching the trailers, but that doesn't mean it was a bad movie.
Here's the plot overview: John Malkovich as F.W. Murnau wants to make a vampire movie that is so realistic that he recruits a vampire to be his star. Chaos ensues.
Willem Dafoe as the vampire starts out somewhat hesitant to be dealing with mortals but gains confidence to stand up to Murnau's unreasonable demands
(Murnau makes unreasonable demands of everybody). I think the vampire is quite a sympathetic character, though maybe that's just because I'm a recovering Goth.
The vampire's best scene is when he starts drinking (booze) with two of the movie crew and explains why he thinks Dracula is such a sad story, taking time to suck a bat dry. Another touching scene is when he projects the film the movie crew have left behind so he can see scenes of daylight.
DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW THE MOVIE ENDS
Murnau is so determined to make his movie at all costs that it turns into a snuff film. Basically Murnau is the only one left standing at the end. The film crew dies. The leading lady dies (well, okay, I almost cheered when that happened). The vampire dies the true death. And there's Murnau, calmly filming it all.
Brian J. Wright has an English degree and I don't, so he caught the literary theme that Murnau is just as much of a vampire as his star. I just thought it was a good Happy Celtic† movie.
Score: 
† A Happy Celtic story is a story in which everybody dies. Some good examples are Hamlet, The Highwayman, and Glencoe.
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