E. Elias Merhige

Edmund Elias Merhige is an American film director.

Career

Merhige is best known for his work on the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire and to underground audiences for the cult 1989 film Begotten. He has also directed music videos for Marilyn Manson.
Merhige started in the New York theatre scene, and first conceived Begotten as a work of experimental theatre, casting many actors from his company in supporting roles. Following the release of his last feature film Suspect Zero, Merhige has mostly returned to work in the theatre.

Eugene Thacker, writing about Begotten, placed Merhige's work "between genre horror and performance art," marking Begotten as a "ritual in cinematic time," and concluding that the next step in Merhige's art offering "presumably, would be to allow everything to dissolve - human into non-human, body into environment, image into emulsions of gelatin, crystal, and camphor."

Short film

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Notes
1983	Implosion
1984	Spring Reign
1985	A Taste of Youth
2006	Din of Celestial Birds				Also cinematographer
2022	Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera

Feature film

Year	Title	Director	Producer	Writer	Notes
1989	Begotten				Also cinematographer and special effects
2000	Shadow of the Vampire
2004	Suspect Zero
TBA	Howl				Filming

Music video