a review of 吸血鬼魅影

HOOPTOBER ONE NIGHT NINE: Actually better than I had remembered, everybody talks about Dafoe's turn as Schreck (as they should, he is remarkable), but Malkovich and Kier and Elwes all do fine work here as well. I like how Merhige depicts Murnau as a variety of mad scientist, having his assistants refer to him as "Herr Doktor" and plotting to capture the vampire's image in his diabolical moving picture box, even if I have no idea whether that concept has any basis in F.W. Murnau's life or career. I think I'm going to need to seek out Merhige's other movies, because 1) it doesn't look like he made many more after this, and 2) as much as I like this one, he sounds like he's a little high on his own supply in interviews that he gave around the time (declaring cinema to be the ONLY important art form, etc.), and I'm wondering if he was just being wildly pretentious or can actually back up some of that talk with his own movies.