The young Allan Gray studies the devil worship and vampires. Preoccupied with superstition of the century past, he becomes a dreamer whom the line between the real and the supernatural become blurred.
He wanders every night late without a destination to a reclude inn by the river in a village called Courtempierre. In detail, the light of a candle illuminates a macabre picture with skeletons. It is an eerie moonlight night. Light , shadow , voices and faces seem to take on hidden meaning. Allan Gray feels a sinister force descend upon him.
The door opens and another gentleman enters, leaving a letter to him to be opened at his death . Allan thinks that a soul of mortal distress was crying for help and a voice told him to answer that call.
He follows a shadow of a soldier until he meets the real soldier on an attic whose shadow dissociates and moves differently.
On the attic the shadows dance and an orchestra plays. Another man arrives and asks if he has heard the sound although there is nobody. Allan comes out and enters a lady; upon her arrival, accompanied by the man, the skulls animate and move.
He follows the fleeting shadows and came to a large estate where he lives the man who appeared at the inn to bring him the letter .The old mysterious man does not feel well and dies.
In this gothic movie the acting highlights the expression of the feelings of the actors in a different way compared to the extreme gestural exasperation of the German Expressionism.
At the death of the mysterious man, Allan opens the letter that is a book called: " The strange history of vampires".
A sick girl goes out and is found unconscious on the ground outside the estate. In a close-up the girl is in a suffering between onirism and physicality and grinds teeth for bloodlust. The doctor arrives and finds the vampire girl in serious condition because she needs blood.
The boy offers her his blood and soon faint.
In the dream he has a nightmare where a skeleton offers him a small bottle of blood. Camera movements, carts and alternate editing show the rooms and objects of the mysterious house.
From the outside of the estate the shadow of Allan awakes and enters the house and finds his body in a coffin. Allan 's head is visible through a glass of the coffin and an alternate editing correlates the image of the estate from all angles. Allan is dead because the "glass" of his metaphysical distorted vision of reality. The servant reading the book discovers the truth and sticks a stake in the heart of the old vampire, so that Allan recovers and moves away on a boat with the girl who is no longer a vampire.
This is one of Dreyer's first sound films.
He wanders every night late without a destination to a reclude inn by the river in a village called Courtempierre. In detail, the light of a candle illuminates a macabre picture with skeletons. It is an eerie moonlight night. Light , shadow , voices and faces seem to take on hidden meaning. Allan Gray feels a sinister force descend upon him.
The door opens and another gentleman enters, leaving a letter to him to be opened at his death . Allan thinks that a soul of mortal distress was crying for help and a voice told him to answer that call.
He follows a shadow of a soldier until he meets the real soldier on an attic whose shadow dissociates and moves differently.
On the attic the shadows dance and an orchestra plays. Another man arrives and asks if he has heard the sound although there is nobody. Allan comes out and enters a lady; upon her arrival, accompanied by the man, the skulls animate and move.
He follows the fleeting shadows and came to a large estate where he lives the man who appeared at the inn to bring him the letter .The old mysterious man does not feel well and dies.
In this gothic movie the acting highlights the expression of the feelings of the actors in a different way compared to the extreme gestural exasperation of the German Expressionism.
At the death of the mysterious man, Allan opens the letter that is a book called: " The strange history of vampires".
A sick girl goes out and is found unconscious on the ground outside the estate. In a close-up the girl is in a suffering between onirism and physicality and grinds teeth for bloodlust. The doctor arrives and finds the vampire girl in serious condition because she needs blood.
The boy offers her his blood and soon faint.
In the dream he has a nightmare where a skeleton offers him a small bottle of blood. Camera movements, carts and alternate editing show the rooms and objects of the mysterious house.
From the outside of the estate the shadow of Allan awakes and enters the house and finds his body in a coffin. Allan 's head is visible through a glass of the coffin and an alternate editing correlates the image of the estate from all angles. Allan is dead because the "glass" of his metaphysical distorted vision of reality. The servant reading the book discovers the truth and sticks a stake in the heart of the old vampire, so that Allan recovers and moves away on a boat with the girl who is no longer a vampire.
This is one of Dreyer's first sound films.