The life sucked out of a film classic

High-concept filmmaking goes indie? That certainly seems to be the case with "Shadow of the Vampire." An indie flick with a high-profile cast -- John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe -- "Shadow" offers an intriguing premise, but never delivers on it, pretty much coasting through its 90 minutes on one film-buff in-joke.

And what is that joke? Well let's go back, waaaay back, to 1922 and the F.W. Murnau silent film "Nosferatu," which many regard as the classic vampire film of all-time. Shot in grainy black-and-white, the film's highlight was actor Max Schreck, who played the vampire Count Orlock. Stooped, bald, bug-eyed, with gnarly teeth, clawlike fingernails, cadaverous skin and slavering after his victims with a disgusting blood lust, Schreck was all too convincing in the role.

Who was "Max Schreck," really? What if this previously unknown actor wasn't acting? What if "Nosferatu" was, in fact, a documentary disguised as fiction? That's the high concept for "Shadow," and director E. Elias Merhige -- who has previously displayed his Gothic tastes as a maker of Marilyn Manson music videos -- manipulates Schreck's obscurity to cast a shadow of suspicion around him.