Vampyr (1934)

Fresh and Exciting

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Beautiful, moving film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Dreyer's first sound feature, VAMPYR is an archetypal induction of the blood-hankering undead onto the celluloid screen (but not in its stereotyped appearance), made in a time when the story is foisted to unspool predominantly through title cards with minimal dialogs (sound recording is still a nascent embryo in Europe then), the film's chiefly non-professional cast serves as props rather than fully embodies flesh and occurrences are sometimes painstakingly tardy in their paces. Yet, Dreyer's modus operandi prospers in the somber, eldritch and never-wracking mise-en-scène, dispersed with thanatological symbols (the Grim Reaper in the beginning betokens its mythos), enhanced by a dream-like soft-focus tactility, and most extraordinarily, Dreyer's legerdemain of coaxing shadow and light into his narrative, a coup de maître where a soldier emerges with his seemingly discrete shadow denotes the mystic separation and unification of body and soul. During the thick of its vampyr-myth debunking sequences, our protagonist, the spiffy young man named Allan Gray (played by the French scion and later illustrious magazine designer Nicolas de Gunzburg under the alias of Julian West, who invests the movie with his own money to secure his dabbling into filmdom, which is his only screen credit) is afflicted by an out-of-body experience and witnesses a burying ceremony of his own body, swapping between camera's (subjective/objective, body/soul) viewpoints, the film reaches its most eerie, preternatural actualization of a blurred vision between real and unreal. German actress, Sybille Schmitz, whose real-life tragedy inspires Fassbinder's VERONIKA VOSS (1982), leaves behind an indelible image as the mostly bed-ridden vampyr-bitten girl, by dint of Dreyer's stock-in-trade expressive close-ups. Poetic justice prevails in its simplistic ending (why the girl's father who is in possession with the book doesn't try to extirpate the scourge if he is assumedly equipped with the know-how? A title card explanation would be apposite), but the scene where the evil village doctor impelled to receive his comeuppance potently flags up Dreyer's ingenious flight of fancy, and this time, without being curtailed in the religious solemnity and rigidity, Dreyer's VAMPYR surges with its top-drawer German expressionist idiom and avant-garde techniques that have timely reappraised the cachet of a film maudit.

Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Vampyr" is a slow-moving, surreal film in which a student of the occult finds himself drawn into a world of murder, mysterious strangers, disembodied shadows, and an ancient vampire and her mortal henchman. The movie is designed to be unsettling, with numerous soft-focus and double exposure sequences, as well as some great 'independent shadow' shots (similar tricks were used effectively decades later in F.F. Coppola's "Dracula" (1992) and parodied in The Simpsons). The acting is fairly minimal and the dialogue limited but there still are some effective scenes (Sybille Schmitz is very creepy as a Leone, a victim of the vampyr who is now beginning to thirst for blood). The climatic destruction on the titular daemon and the death of her enabling servant are memorable. Early, expressionistic horror films are not to everyone's taste, but this is a must see for fans (or students) of the horror genre.

German expressionist vampire picture is not as great as Murnau's "Nosferatu," but it is far more surreal, atmospheric, and creepy. This was director Carl Theodor Dreyer's first talkie and is for the most part a silent film with a few moments of dialogue. Dryer still primarily uses title cards to and visuals to tell his story of a man who discovering a vampire is stalking a small town. The plot is rather thin, but in terms of style, the film is a visual feast. Some of the film surrealness includes unsettling reverse film shots, shadows not corresponding to their corporeal bodies, frightening dream sequences, astral projections, POV shots from a dead man, strange looking actors talking directly to the camera (ALA David Lynch), and many many more. The film's undoing is heavy handed symbolism and the lack of a strong plot, but I'm not sure that was really the focus of the filmmakers. Photographed by Rudolph Maté, this is a must see for fans of German expressionism.

Ah films about Vampires, you either get your blood thirsty crazy looking vampires or your calculated vampires whose thirst for blood is much more creepy than scary. Vampyr the film from Carl Th. Dreyer is really the creepy kind with its weird looking sets, surreal events and just characters whose emotions are conveyed through body language much more than by words. Dreyer somehow manages to get that dark underlying feeling all successful horror movies must have but in my opinion does not create any kind of masterpiece here, good, but not as perfect for me as some say this is. The story revolves a young man who is introduced to the world of vampires and the supernatural, as the plot moves on we see more about what they are and what they can do.Dreyer uses a cast not very well known if not in some cases at all and puts Nicolas de Gunzburg in the lead role as Allan Gray the young man whose fascination with the supernatural takes him to a small inn in the village of Courtempierre. For me the best character is the village doctor played by Jan Hieronimko who was found on a Paris metro train of all places and cast into the film among many other amateurs. I feel that Hieronimko's performance is similar to others in this too, I mean the acting here is not exactly great, don't get me wrong it's not bad at all but sometimes they just move around a little sluggishly, reactions are sometimes over the top. Dreyer knows though how to use his actors well though, even if they aren't too believable, he does this in a spooky way and although they move around just a little strangely, at times that strange movement can be kind of freaky and used to nice effect.Dreyer co-writes the film with Christen Jul and the script but in more specifics the dialogue is very well, not much there, but that is one reason this movie works so well. At such a short running time that this film is you can't be adding too much small talk, in fact this film dives into the plot very quickly indeed and it works well because it makes this so much more interesting, straight away you are hooked in on the story and that makes this at least very watchable. The film was not exactly met with positivity when it was first released and was considered a low point in Dreyer's career, the thing about this film though is that although I feel this is a little too clunky to be anything better than good, it is still well as I said, good, a must see for any fan of cinema or horror.Vampyr is not the best horror film but it is as I can see considered a classic among it so I can't finish this review without recommending it. It won't make you jump, in fact it won't probably make you feel scared at all but that I feel is not what Dreyer is trying to convey, it is the surrealism of it that he tries to make you see and tells a story that is highly original and a very smart yet weird story. All the characters Dreyer creates are well done and although I mentioned the acting before it is fair to say they all do a pretty decent job at least all together as a cast. Oh and one more thing and this is pretty important really, the camera angles, Dreyer works extremely well with Rudolph Mate and they create a film that looks not just creepy, but also looks extremely surreal as well.