50
There are times when Dafoe's accent strays into Billy Crystal Yiddish, but the notion of Vlad the Impaler aging into a finicky old Jew has its own kind of piquancy.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Manages to turn a highly dubious concept into a subtle and deliciously mordant comedy.
88
He's (Dafoe) the stuff bad dreams are made of. He's also the best movie vampire since Schreck's original. He deserves a bloody Oscar.
75
New York Post by Jonathan Foreman
A clever, funny, extended joke about ruthless directors, method actors and the power of the cinema.
70
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Willem Dafoe's performance in Shadow of the Vampire is so irresistible it not only breaks that cycle but turns an otherwise just adequate film into something everyone will want to take a look at.
83
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Kicky, elaborately constructed fantasy.
70
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
A creepy, clever, film buff's delight of a fantasy.
67
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
For all its stentorian performances, though, Shadow of the Vampire is a bit much, from the detailed period sets to the final, bloody scene.
60
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
It's a marvelous, resonant joke that never quite succeeds: Stretches of the film resemble a Dario Argento horrorfest crossed with a Mel Brooks spoof. But the director, E. Elias Merhige, and his screenwriter, Steven Katz, occasionally bring some rapture to the creepiness, and Dafoe's vampire, with his graceful, ritualistic death lunges, is a sinewy, skull-and-crossbones horror who seems to come less out of the German Expressionist tradition than from Kabuki.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
"Willem Dafoe is Max Schreck." I put quotes around that because it's not just a line for a movie ad but the truth: He embodies the Schreck of "Nosferatu" so uncannily that when real scenes from the silent classic are slipped into the frame, we don't notice a difference.