Edmund Elias Merhige, known as E. Elias Merhige, (born June 14th, 1964) is an American film director born in Brooklyn.
Merhige is best known to mainstream audiences for the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, and to underground audiences for the cult-classic 1991 film Begotten.
As he says in his audio commentary to the Shadow of the Vampire DVD, Merhige views cinema as the only meaningful art form of the present era. He regards literature and drama as once-needed forms which are past their time and which have been superseded by film. He is also very interested in the occult and the paranormal, and images and themes derived from these traditions suffuse his films.
Merhige currently lives in Los Angeles, California. —Wikipedia
Interesting homage to the original silent classic. It has it's flaws, but the performances keep everything together.
This movie is one of those loving homages that feels like Merhige wants to own the original as his own child; nevertheless the casting wins it over with Malkovich portraying Murnau as a sacrificial high priest of cinema and Defoe as an antsy, irritated aging vampire both camera shy and obsessed with the lead actress. It's not a very chilling movie but quietly crazy. --DiB
An outstanding concept that isn’t executed quite right. Out of the countless vampire themed films to emerge this past decade, this is one of the more original. Mehrige does a commendable job of maintaining… read review