User Reviews

"Vampyr", one of the first horror movies with sound, is the work of the highly influential danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. After directing the monumental "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" in 1928, Dreyer decided to make this modest film based on the novel "In a Glass Darkly" by Sheridan Le Fanu; while this is indeed his first movie with sound, it was conceived as a silent film, and the movie contains very few dialog.

I must admit that as many, I was left with a big question mark in my face as the story was progressing; but the apparently disjointed storyline do make sense, as it is worked as a surreal experience of the lead character, it is as if Dreyer had filmed a nightmare, complete with the haunting images and eerie atmosphere.

The movie is about a traveler, named Allan Grey (Julian West), who gets involved in a nightmarish plot when the owner of the inn where he is staying asks him for help to save his family from what he believes is a vampire. We follow Allan Grey in his surrealistic trip to madness as he finds out more and more about the supposed vampire that haunts the manor turned inn.

The highly inventive camera work is truly outstanding, the combination of light and darkness is among the finest work in a black & white film and alone makes the movie worth a look; the movie not only has the structure of a nightmare, it also looks like one. The Gothic manor and the lonely rural exteriors increase the haunting atmosphere and the beautiful images Dreyer conceived are the work of a genius.

The structure of the script may be complicated, but it shows its influence over David Lynch and other filmmakers with similar surrealist story lines and dreamlike sequences. It is probably not a masterpiece of the likes of the aforementioned "Passion" or the more well-known "Day of Wrath" (Vredens dag, 1943), but "Vampyr" shines with its own light as one of the finest horror movies of that period.

The only real flaw in my opinion, was that the lead actor, Julian West, was probably not the best choice for a lead role, as his acting seems unnatural and not believable. I'm not sure if this was intended that way or had more to do with the fact that West produced the film, but it is my only complain about "Vampyr".

This modest masterpiece is a must see for any horror fan or anyone who likes silent movies. It is a nightmarish trip to the darker parts of the subconscious mind. 8/10

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!

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.

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.

Vampyr is an excellent historical study of the development of film atmosphere. Each scene is thick with visual context. It is eerie and spooky, but also fairly empty. The plot is minimal so that we can focus on the cinematography. This is fine, but films do have to have a number of good elements or else they are not successful. I would rate this film a success, but a minor one. Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera (1925) and even Blood of a Poet are far better dream-like efforts. I believe that the film highlights the fact that the early 1930's were not a good time for film in Europe (in general). Besides Renoir, most directors were moving to America and doing their best work in Hollywood. In light of the cesspool that is modern day Hollywood, it is hard to believe that it was ever a leader in world cinema, but at this time it was. Check out Browning's Dracula or Whale's Bride of Frankenstein and it becomes clear that advances beyond the level of Vampyr had been made. Still, the film is a textbook display of early film atmosphere and for that it is worth a look.

The major figure of Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of a select group of directors deemed 'transcendental' along with the likes of Ozu and Bresson. Paul Schrader and other critics identify them as those filmmakers who habitually suggest spiritual intensity by ordinary means. Characteristically austere, often using non-professional talent in their films, they find universal truths through a gradual un-dramatic revelation of interior life. All this means in this context is that one would think such directors far away from the flashy supernaturalism and ghastly melodrama normally making up so much of the traditional horror film, a genre where its the extraordinary providing the revelation for the audience, not the mundane. But then one remembers that both Dreyer and Bresson made memorable versions of Joan of Arc, where their representing of terrifying events showed how disturbing an emotionally stark and restrained approach could prove. And, in 1932, about as the first great Universal horror cycle was getting into its stride in Hollywood, Dreyer made his Vampyr.

It is interesting to compare Dreyer's great work with that of Murnau, the only other great director who made a broadly comparable title. Both the German director and the Dane took their inspiration from literary horror classics. Murnau based his Nosferatu (1922) on Dracula while, for his inspiration, Dreyer too turned to an English author: Sheridan le Fanu and his novel Carmilla. But the evil thrill of Nosferatu is that it takes place in a concrete 'reality' of sorts, ghostly special effects notwithstanding. By contrast Vampyr is a strange, dreamlike film, one virtually silent or subdued, despite its soundtrack. Moreover it mainly exists in variable prints, the poor state of which merely adds to the strange dislocatedness of unfolding events portrayed. Dreyer's terror lies in a world of shadows, surreality amplified by some remarkable cinematography, the roots of nightmare ever subtle, where camera movement can excite as much dread and anticipation as any vampire out clawing at a victim.

Vampyr's story, such as it is, tells of Allan Grey (Julian West), a man studious of vampires. In a small French town, he takes a room at an inn. His sleep is interrupted when a strange man (Maurice Shutz) comes into his room speaking disturbingly about death, then leaves a small package with instructions that it should be opened upon his death. Allen gets out of bed, and prowls around the inn and its spooky surroundings in search of an explanation. Eventually he wanders onto a nearby estate where he finds the mysterious man living with his two daughters. A vampire has bitten one of his daughters, and the house is shrouded in death...

Once seen and felt, the peculiarly eerie atmosphere that characterises Dreyer's work is never forgotten. Indeed, Vampyr's influence arguably began at once, for a similar tone of silent mystery pervades some scenes in White Zombie, incidentally one of Bela Lugosi's best, made just the same year - another film which made in sound which often plays like a silent. Like Vampyr, White Zombie includes several wordless sequences which are startlingly eerie and atmospheric. (Both this and present film are much better than Tod Browning's famous version of Dracula also made at about the same time, which these days seem positively wooden by comparison.) And, years later, Ken Russell was to mimic the premature burial sequence of Vampyr, glass windowed coffin and all, in his uneven Mahler while arguably a similar, dreamlike, touch can be found in the work of the French horror auteur Jean Rollin, who in the 1970s made of soft tinted vampirism almost a genre of its own.

Of his original film Dreyer said, "I wanted to create the daydream on film… to show that horror is not a part of the things around us, but of our own subconscious mind." To help achieve this, he and his cameraman Rudolph Mate shot much very early in the morning and frequently through fine gauze - a creative decision increasing the sense of mystery surrounding events. The resultant shimmer and softness which fell over scenes suggests the supernatural confusion felt by the hero, and add a spooky disconnectedness to events. Allied to this, as already noted, this is a work where one is acutely aware of camera placement and movement, of shadow and light. Dreyer's sensitive direction means that the lens becomes a lurking accompaniment to Grey's, and therefore our, unease.

Main actor Julian West, who also financed a lot of the picture, makes a suitable impression; part of the mood in what is his only significant film. Forty years later he again appeared again on screen, but with less impact. In retrospect nothing could compare to his appearance here, his pale, Lovecraftian features perfectly in tune with the gloomy goings on. His anonymous freshness as an actor makes of him an everyman, a dramatic unknown fitting in exactly with the director's preferred casting with the undemonstrative and normal. And unlike Nosferatu's celebrated settings of castles, doom laden ships and spectral carriages, Vampyr's unease is primarily set amidst the domestic: an inn, a to-do private home or in common place out-buildings.

Dismayed by distracting subtitles, often faded visuals and poor soundtrack elements, admirers of Dreyer's masterpiece have long cried out in vain for a restored version, especially now that the later films of the director have been reissued. Even such earlier silents such as the lesser, decidedly more obscure, Master Of The House (1925) have lately arrived with a five star treatment on disc. Whether or not this lapse is due to a fatal absence of original materials I am not sure, but fans of one of the very finest horror films, and a rare one by a great director to boot, will not be satisfied until this Vampyr at least is resurrected and given the new life it deserves.

When you hear the word " masterpiece " you often have to take cover to the hyperbolic superlatives aimed at that film . Has there ever been any film released that hasn't had someone screaming " MASTERPIECE " . I think someone have said WORLD WAR Z was a masterpiece of Zombie horror . Someone said TRANSFORMERS is a masterpiece of explosions and CGI whilst someone else said PACIFIC RIM was a masterpiece in toilet cleaners . Maybe and why not ? VAMPYR by Carl Thedor Dryer is another film considered a masterpiece in 2013 but a quick internet search will inform you that the film was booed by everyone who saw it 80 years ago and it's easy to see why when you stop to think about it

Picture the scene . It's 1932 and you're sat in the cinema a cigarette in one hand and a bag of pop corn in another . Sound is a recent invention and you're still reeling from James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN from the previous year and this film promises to match if not surpass the spine chilling shock of Whale's movie . The film starts and you notice something very strange - hardly anyone talks . Protagonist Allen Grey walks around and insert cards inform us he's an expert academic in the undead . Hold on wait a minute didn't we get caption inserts in silent movies ? Surely we've moved on ? As the story continues we get spooky images of ghost like figures . Slightly impressive but didn't we get that from that French bloke Georges Melies ? What's happening now ? More caption inserts where nobody says anything . Whoa you expect us to pay for a cinema ticket at 1932 prices and what you're doing is showing us a film that looks like it was made 20 years ago ! Surely there is a consumer protection act here somewhere that states if you spend money on a cinema ticket in 1932 then you're entitled to see a film that looks like it was made in 1932 . Pop corn is then thrown at the screen . All together now " BOOOOOOO "

When you watch this in 2013 you'll almost certainly be in two minds about it . One is you'll be impressed by the atmospheric mood of VAMPYR that is truly expressionistic . However that's perhaps the only impressive aspect to the film where everything else is lacking . The narrative has an implausible structure , things go unexplained and after the story reaches its natural climax there seems to be another ten minutes added that seem to have come from a different film . The lighting in the film is good but apart from that the camera-work is rather static . No doubt this is a film that is essential viewing in film classes but apart from that you can understand why some people had a very negative reaction to it in 1932

Carl Theodor Dreyer will always be a household name among directors for me after viewing his Passion of Joan of Arc, one of the most emotionally wrenching, stylistically groundbreaking, and thoughtful of religious treatises. There not only did he reveal the eye of a cinematic genius, but he also had Renee Falconetti, one of only several people to truly pull off a performance by using the eyes to talk more than the voice. So, I read up on Dreyer and found that he also directed several sound films after the tragedy that was the butchering and loss of Joan of Arc. One of them was this film, a piece of experimental horror/mystery dealing with the supernatural, the occult, the damned- Vampires.

The story at times becomes a little too hard to follow, even beside the point that the film is meant to be surreal or nightmarish or what-have-you. What I did make out of it was that a man named Allan Gray (Julian West) somehow gets lured by his own curiosity comes upon a chateau where an old man (Maurice Schultz, one of the finest hair/face-styling jobs I've seen in an old-style horror movie) and his two daughters reside. Inter-cutting between excerpts of a book detailing the ABC's of vampire facts, bizarre and sad occurrences go on in the chateau, both to Alan and one of the daughters.

I suppose saying that the film at times veers off into haunting imagery is almost a compliment, but for some audiences this could be a turn off. On top of the fact that the film contains fewer lines than in any other vampire film I can think of, the whole tone and look of the film is, not to put a snob touch on it, unique. This would not likely be the kind of film to hang out with adolescent friends and drink beers to (that kind of film in the genre would be From Dusk Till Dawn). The one minor flaw in the film as well is, unlike Joan of Arc, the performances are less than brilliant, outside of the girl in the bed and at times West (Schultz, while believable in the look of the character, is a little too 'shocked' in most scenes).

But what the film has going for it are two main elements- Dreyer and Joan of Arc cinematographer Rudolph Mate. Despite the film, when being viewed today on video and DVD, having a low-quality transfer with specks and scratches and all, nearly every image and camera move is perfect. For this kind of film, Dreyer takes an approach that lends the story and characters to another plane- these are people caught in the grip of a force that only has one purpose, to kill in a controlled state. Certain scenes are like terrifying little masterpieces of gothic torture- the droplets of blood falling onto the ground from the bed; the coffin point of view of the world; the close-ups; the way Dreyer moves around the chateau and outside; the creepy, somehow appropriate over/under exposure of shots. Overall, this is definitely a horror film with a an artist that doesn't sell himself short of the goods in his arsenal.

Vampyr is recommendable, if for nothing else (however the story seems like it would be easier to figure out on a repeat viewing, it would lessen the effect it leaves the first time), for the sheer vision. Although it has dated, Dreyer's take on the myths and terror of a group of citizens held in the grip of a vampire's grip is a technical landmark, and one of the early essentials alongside Nosferatu and Dracula. The dreadful score by Zeller is a good touch as well. A

Based on a collection of short stories by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, "Vampyr" (Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey) is an early Experimental approach on the vampire onscreen. An effeminate geek finds himself in a decrepit lodging. Coming across strange, bizarre, even grotesque characters he seeks to find the meaning behind the puzzling situation and comes across discoveries that are surreal as they are otherworldly. Lauded director Carl Theodor Dreyer uses mostly silence and a slow, languid pace to convey the eerie and unsettling vibe and atmosphere of the story. Unfortunately the glacial motion highlights the weakness of the film with the overall tedious effect. While the acting is fine and to Dreyer's credit as most of the actors were non-actors the cheap set and amateurish handling of the story and film make this a slow burner of the snooze-inducing kind. While watchable this is one of those clunkers enshrined by posterity and the audiences who first viewed this back in '32 got it right. For hardcore film fans and historians only.

"Vampyr" is unlike any other movie ever made, and certainly unlike any other "horror" movie ever made. It's a spectral masterwork in which poetic audiovisual allusions create suggestions of events, as in the scene where the shadows get up and dance, or the ghostly scene when the vampire strikes her victim. It is a film of atmosphere, of light and shadow, played out on themes of death and rebirth.

The dream sequence in which Allan Grey sees himself being brought to his own funeral in a coffin, is one of overwhelming beauty. It reminded me of some nights when I was lying on the backseat of a car as a child, or on a bed in a couchette and watching the clouds moving slower then myself from below – at dusk, not sleeping but not really awake either. Dreyer has captured this feeling perfectly.

I am not a particular fan of vampire stories, and to be honest I couldn't quite figure out the plot of this one – Who died because of what? Who was that bad old lady from the vampire book, and who was a vampire after all? But visually it is absolutely astonishing, regardless of its age. And I liked the idea of a man who kinda `sets off in search of the meaning of fear'.

Four years after his visually stunning and moving masterpiece,

THE PASSION OF JEANNE D'ARC (1928), Carl Dreyer's next movie (his first talkie) was this disappointingly weak effort. Aside from several minutes where the camera has us view the world looking up and out a window from inside a coffin, this visual master has displayed none of his genius. The bulk of the film is claustrophobic. Shot with little camera movement in a house of small rooms and short ceilings(not the typical horror mansion) where the scariest thing is the fleur-de-lis print wallpaper . The actors were mainly amateurs and it's painfully obvious. Most people who see this film think they are seeing a "bad print" as I did at first. There are black borders on the side and the film appears grey and grainy. I now know this is the way Dreyer shot the film, purposely exposing the film to light and then under-developing it by necessity for "atmosphere".

Die hard students of early European film may still wish to subject themselves to this. All others beware!

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.

A conventionally Gothic vampire movie? A Surrealist dreamscape? A Borgesian labyrinth? A study of identity and its dissolution? A Christian parable about innocence and evil? A dramatisation of the mind? Too many horror films are unworthy of the name. They may have genuine scares and surprises, but their horrors are comfortingly contained in genre, in a recognisable place, with recognisable characters - the source of the horror is either crushed or resuscitated for the sequel, and if you actually await the return of a horror, it's not very horrible (honorable exceptions include THE SHINING, REPULSION).

If you were to use one word to describe the director of DAY OF WRATH and ORDET, it would not be generic. And yet many of his admirers are slighttly embarrassed that he followed his shattering, spiritual masterpiece THE PASSION OF JEANNE D'ARC with a Victorian potboiler. The ingrediants are depressingly familiar to anyone who's seen even half a dozen horror films - a Westernised foreigner (played by the film's aristocratic financier; this is not it's only point in common with Cocteau's THE BLOOD OF A POET) with an interest in the supernatural visits Eastern Europe; he stays in a decaying mansion-turned-inn where mysterious events occur, involving girls in trances, vampires and mad doctors.

The problem with most horror films is that they are too neat - their forms do not embody a content filled with decay, dismemberment, sensation, confusion, ambiguity, inexplicability. Anyone in love with Dreyer's formal purity will be shocked by how 'messy' VAMYPYR seems. Much of this may be the fault of the poor print I saw - a bleached frame that makes the credits illegible (although Mate's filtered blinding lighting is one of the sources of the film's unease); disjointed editing that suggests an ornery distributor's hand; the feel that this print is actually an assemblage of different prints - German language scenes alternate with dubbed English ones, the music seems to halt with jarring regularity.

Normally this kind of vandalism is simply unacceptable to any work by a master, but somehow this butchery adds to the film's enigma. The film IS a Surrealist dreamscape - the mansion has no social reality, it is a rarefied space through which wander dreamlike characters. The images frequently have no narrative basis, but together create a chilling oneiric atmosphere - the bellringer with the scythe; the repeated motif of active shades; the waltz of the shadows, one of the most remarkable, unaccountable scenes in all cinema.

The film is also a labyrinth on many levels. Its hero is not one in the active, heroic sense - he wanders as if 'impelled', he is always looking on, or too late, and when he finally tries to act he succumbs to possible evil, the blood seeped out of him, his wholeness divided, until he finally watches from his own funeral. He spends most of the film walking, through corridors, stairs, doorways, out in the sheds and meadows, always framed, minimised, going nowhere, as in a maze, right back to where he started from.

The gliding camerawork, complex and astonishing still today, unthinkable in the stagy, clumpy early days of sound cinema, makes the fixed house, decor, genre seem fluid, unstable, alive. The film's structure is labyrinthine too - narrative traits begin and are quickly dropped, or simply don't make sense, becoming non-sequiters. The 'reality' of the film is thoroughly undermined - we have difficulty separating the real and the imagined/dreamed, the innocent and the guilty. Plot, linear, frequently evaporates into unconnected imagery, circular, a series of motifs. The film itself, Dreyer's first sound film, features little dialogue, and is in many ways shot like a silent, with intertitles, stylised acting, and flickering, chiaroscuro imagery, further making ambiguous the status of what we see, the music and sound effects being vital.

Unlike most horror films, VAMPYRE does not move towards explanation of mystery and resolution of rupture. On the contrary, it is increasingly baffling, and if the big house in horror movies is often a signifier for the mind, then what we are watching is surely a visualisaiton of madness and breakdown. And yet the vampire plot itself seems to suggest peace and redemption to at least one of the sufferers. Whatever the meaning(s) of this quite extraordinary and beautiful film, you can bet the le Fanu novel isn't a patch on it.

This vampire film is highly unconventional. It is not scary for highly suspenseful due to the basic lack of dialogue. It highly resembles a silent film because it mostly has music. Since this film was made in (Denmark?), the cast doesn't speak English, but occasionally there are no subtitles for their lines. However, that will never prevent you from keeping track of the film. It is just as easy as watching silent films (which are easy to follow and have made me an avid fan).

Secondly, there is virtually no plot (or action, for that matter). It is fairly suspenseful, dreamy, and slow. The action builds up toward the end (from the funeral scene on). It is only 72 minutes long, so it isn't unwatchable, but the blood transfusion scene should have been cut from the film (it only adds more time). A serious horror (or classic) film buff will enjoy it. But, you may want to stop the movie for a minute or two, occasionally because it will probably make you feel like you're dreaming. It is gorgeous to look at (particularly the perpetually misty outdoors that always resemble most a foggy dawn). The acting is all right, but the non-victimized daughter of the Lord of the Manor is somewhat broad and unusual.

I guess pun intended. Moreover though, the movie looks quite stunning (at least in the Criterion Collection I had the pleasure of watching). The framing, the way the shots are set up - especially considering when this was made, it quite amazing if you think about it.

The pacing may feel weird for some, the constant text or pages the viewer has to read may annoy some but it is a testament of the time, the movie almost would have been made without sound, first movie of the director where he used sound as the extras are telling us. There is also a lot of material that has been lost - good features on the Disc. It might have been a different even more daring piece of cinema - it didn't work out that way. Still this is quite the movie all things considered, if you can and are willing to do that. Technically it seems ahead of its time, even if that sounds weird or false if you watch it.

Allan Gray has been studying the supernatural. He arrives at the remote town of Courtempierre. He encounters various weird characters in their mysterious world.

This movie has a lot of imagery and it uses shadows a lot. It's weird and eerie. The lead could be less stiff. The story needs more propulsive drive. There is a bit of Kafkaesque quality to this world. This is a movie that probably works better today than during its time. It's a surreal arthouse horror. The emphasis being surreal and arthouse. I would rework the text sections. I'd rather not read so much. This is a visual poem but the story telling does need work.

Vampyr was a French/German film production. Produced and directed by Carl Dreyer. Dreyer's classic film portrays a dreamlike world seen through the eyes of a young man, portrayed by Julien West. This film is very nightmarish, and has a lot of dreamlike sequences. Also, this film is loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu's classic "Carmilla". The cast is unknown, and, from what i understand, made up from a lot of his friends/supporters. I know, it's slow moving, however, pay close attention to the part where David Gray watches himself being buried alive in a coffin complete with a glass window. What a scene! Sit back, enjoy and, as i, you may have to watch it a couple of times to get the full impact. John R. Tracy

After reading all the reviews on this film, I considered it a 'must watch' event. However, I can honestly say that I was not as impressed as others.

The story was good, the action was great and the feeling of horror was extreme. But I found the film hard to follow.

It seemed that Allan Grey was going from one situation to another without explanation. One scene he is in an inn and the next scene he appeared to be following shadows in another building. He sat on a bench and the next thing we see is an out-of-body experience that seemed to be crucial but we are not sure of the reason.

Carl T Dreyer, in my opinion, is one of the best directors in early cinema. But this film appears that he might have been holding onto the 'old-ways' too long. By 1932, films had somewhat good sound and the use of lighting excellent. But this film, or at least the copy I saw, reverses all the tends of film making. The appearance of the film felt more like 1922 than 1932.

The film does stir strong emotions of evil and doom. The camera is used to let the viewer feel like they are part of the events on the screen. But at times we have to guess at the event.

It's a good film and an fair watch. But be prepared to say "What just happened" during parts of the movie.

First off, anyone looking for modern scares along the lines of The Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby, look elsewhere. Vampyr is incredibly creepy, in a way that gets under your skin and stays there long after you finish viewing the film. Don't let the fact that it is nearly 70 years old, and that there is virtually no dialogue put you off. This is a great film, plain and simple.

From what I understand this movie was originally filmed in German, French and English but for some reason the English version was either lost or destroyed. As a result, the movie I watched was in German but had English subtitles. Now normally this wouldn't be an issue but the director (Carl Theodor Dryer) chose a unique film style which incorporated both silent and sound techniques. Flash cards were used on occasion and what dialogue was available was somewhat minimal. Likewise, the film quality was a little blurry in some areas but surprisingly this tended to blend in with the overall plot rather than detract from it as the director made excellent use of shadows to create a dream-like state. Or in this specific case-something resembling a nightmare. Be that as it may, although I am not particularly fond of silent movies, for some odd reason this film proved to be the exception to the rule as it seemed both artistic and surreal. As a result I have rated this movie accordingly. Above average.

The movie is truly original and has a beautiful dreamlike setting with an interesting direction. However, it is too slow, too abstract and it is not really clear if there is a vampire. At the end, everything vanishes. The background music is always the same, without real beauty.