Vampyr

With its fragmented plot, eerie imagery, and air of undefined menace this film more nearly realises the dream state than any other film I've seen.

The story, which follows a young man's discovery of vampiric doings while on a trip to the country, is secondary to the fascinatingly uncanny mood generated by the cinematography and effective use of sound and silence.

Yes, yes, it's old and unconventional, and requires either some extra concentration or complete surrender to its unique world, but the effort is worth it.

Vampyr should especially appeal to fans of cinefantastique, cinema history and maybe even the arthouse crowd.

Too often horror films are thought of as light-weight entertainment. Even the best are under-appreciated for what they can tell us about human nature. In the case of Carl Dreyer's "Vampyr," however, all you seem to hear is high-brow rhetoric about how the film's dream-like illogic makes it a meditation upon death. For just once forget all the intellectual mumbo-jumbo and watch this film for what it is, one creepy little flick and the pioneering vampire film of the '30s. It was in production a year before "Dracula" but released the year after, and is a better and scarier film, unless bats on strings scare you.

It's not a silent movie but feels like one - an exceptionally fine one. So if you are put off by non-talking films be warned, dialog is spare, cut to the bone; but the musical score is very good and sinister. The main attractions are the images: shadows that kill people, a spirit that leaves its body, a corpse-eye view of a burial, and other uncanny occurrences that lead young Allan Grey to a girl suffering from a mysterious illness, and to her doctor, a vampire's accomplice who supplies his crone-like patroness with fresh victims.

Possibly the film's poor reception by critics and audiences was because the 1930 soundtrack was too primitive to be appreciated by viewers in 1932, who by then were used to lots of chatter - and because the earlier release of "Dracula" blunted its impact. But with little dialog and without the stagnating influence of a stationary microphone our eyes feast on Hermann Warm's eerie art direction, and are guided by Rudolph Mate's camera, which keeps us off balance, misdirecting our point of view as when it pans to a door through which a nurse exits her patient's room, then pans back again to reveal an empty bed just before the victim's sleep-walking rendezvous with the vampire.

The film bears even less resemblance to its source (Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla") than "Dracula" does to Stoker's novel, possibly because it borrows from another story, Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Good Lady Ducayne," in which a young man comes to the aid of a young paid female companion of an extremely aged woman whose doctor draws the young woman's blood for his patient to consume. And if "Vampyr's" plot often seems incoherent, so does "Dracula's." The performances, however, are vastly superior. Sybille Schmitz in particular, as the vampire's victim, conveys with her subtle expressions emotions for which spoken language is inadequate.

For those who already know this film, Martin Koerber's restoration on the Criterion release eliminates the large, black-bordered, Gothic subtitles, and corrects the too-bright day-for-night scenes that were so distracting on the Image disc. For others seeing "Vampyr" for the first time, relax, don't think too much, and enjoy!

Brilliant! Breathtaking! This film was worth the long wait I imposed on myself to see it. It is not the most cohesive narrative about, but it has images that linger with you....haunt you. The film is basically a silent with some speaking. It tells a story about Allan Grey and how he was introduced into a vampire's conspiracy to kill two sisters. Grey is brought in for aid by their father who dies while trying to fight the infection coursing through his daughter's veins. What then follows is pure cinematic magic as Grey...opening a book that the father wrote was to be opened upon his death...begins reading the book on vampires whilst it is going on right around him. The mixture of action and the text from the book create a wonderfully eerie atmosphere and convey a feeling of dread and despair. There are many scenes in Vampyr, directed with fluidity by Carl Dreyer, that are incredibly well-done. The dream sequence in particular explores various camera angles, hitherto not used. As I said before, it is not the tightest story and it has some gaping holes in the plot that are never explained, but that really is not very important because the film succeeds as a film of haunting imagery...fear based on illusion and shadows.

It is understandable that many take issue with Vampyr due to an absence of conventional moviemaking factors that make an average film watchable. However, I believe that this is more a problem of the viewer than one with the filmmaker, and it all begins with whether or not one watches expecting to be frightened in a generic horror flick manner. This is not a scary movie; it is one that fundamentally blurs the lines between dreams and reality. It is not a silent film or a talkie, but something in between, and that fits in perfectly with the idea of it being an experience much like a bad dream. There are few professional actors (two, in fact, and neither would be considered the leading actors), and long takes that would drive a Hollywood film editor to distraction. They are selected more for their appearance and natural manner than for any exceptional gift as an actor/actress, and it is my belief that that adds more than detracts from the experience. The reactions of the characters are far more visceral and simple than in most films of this depth, and it helps create the mesmerizing, hypnotic effect few movies can create. It is designed, I believe, to be seen in a dark room, preferably alone and late at night, just prior to going to bed. If the viewer is a little sleepy, so much the better: for the true power of the film will only be revealed as you dwell on it afterwards while you struggle to go to sleep. Then,and only then, will the full might of Carl Theodore Dreyer's vision be revealed.

Simply: it's beautiful work of art. No action. No slasher scenes. There is almost less speaking then in Aki Kaurismäki's films. Master of silent movie, Carl Th. Dreyer, uses more silent film magic than any spoken voices. Movie's style is from another world. Living shadows, ghosts, vampire in the foggy wood and (of course) the famous scene where man watch himself to be buried alive. There is no way you can say what this film is true and what dream. It's like Dreyer would have put he's own dream in to the screen. Nobody have done anything like this later, perhaps because the gray light that is all the time in the film came by an accident. There is no movie like this and no way there is another horror movie like this! Vampire- movie fan can watch this with F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu. They are different film's, but strange way spooky at same way.