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Criterion Collection: Vampyr [DVD] [1932] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Julian West (Actor), Maurice Schutz (Actor), Carl Theodor Dreyer (Director) | Format: DVD

4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product details

Actors: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko
Directors: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Writers: Carl Theodor Dreyer, Christen Jul, Sheridan Le Fanu
Producers: Julian West, Carl Theodor Dreyer
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Region: Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.)
Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
Number of discs: 2
Classification: Unrated (US MPAA rating. See details.)
Studio: Criterion
DVD Release Date: 22 July 2008
Run Time: 75 minutes

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

ASIN: B00180R06I
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 57,639 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

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Young traveller Allan Grey arrives in a remote castle and starts seeing weird, inexplicable sights (a man whose shadow has a life of its own, a mysterious scythe-bearing figure tolling a bell, a terrifying dream of his own burial). Things come to a head when one of the daughters of the lord of the castle succumbs to anaemia - or is it something more sinister?

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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Vampyre needs resurrecting 7 July 2006

By Richard Bowden

Format:DVD

What happens when a world-class director unblushingly makes a scary movie? It's less of a silly question than one might think. There have been great horror films or course, and great horror film directors. But conscious contributions to the genre, especially of the gothic kind, from the stratospheric likes of say Fellini, Ford, Eisenstein, and Renoir are hard to find. Kurosawa, for instance, comes close to the spooky intensity required with Throne Of Blood, his successful and atmospheric reworking of Macbeth. Cocteau's Beauty And The Beast is full of necessary fairytale terror and awe; Hitchcock produced in Psycho a terrifying thriller with strong horror overtones; Bergman included a terrifying dream sequence in Wild Strawberries, and so on. But while there are memorable outright contributions here and there, notably from the likes of Polanski and Kubrick, genre pieces at this level of artistry can be unexpectedly hard to find. One reason is that the greatest talents in world cinema have tended to work outside of, or to confound, genre expectations. Another is that they often reject the 'commercial' project in favour of something more personal, more amenable to an outstanding creative nature.

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 as 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 disconnectiveness 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. Read more ›

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A soul in fear of death 16 May 2008

By E. A Solinas HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A human soul in fear of death 1 May 2008

By E. A Solinas HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:DVD

The rat-toothed Nosferatu and the charming Transylvanian Count are the best known examples of early vampire movies, mostly because there weren't very many others at the time.

But more often than not, "Vampyr" gets passed over when you talk about early vampire movies -- and that's a shame. Carl Th. Dreyer's masterpiece (loosely based on the works of J. Sheridan Le Fanu) is a straightforward little story wrapped in a hazy cocoon of dreamlike imagery and haunting direction. From the very beginning, this movie clings to you like a spiderweb.

Occult student Allan Gray is staying at a hotel in the French countryside. But after being woken by a strange old man's cryptic warning, he finds that the inn is swarming with eerie supernatural happenings, including shadows that move independently. After he departs, a strange old man lets an ancient crone out of a closet.

And when Allan arrives at a nearby chateau, he finds that the owner has been murdered, and his daughter Leone is suffering from mysterious wounds. After the girl is rescued from a strange old crone, she begins acting predatory toward her sister Gisele -- and the weird old doctor says that only a transfusion will save her. But the doctor is in league with the vampire -- and is working to destroy Leone...

"Vampyr" has a pretty simple storyline, loosely based on a couple of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's short stories (including the classic "Carmilla"). But it's not the plot that makes this movie a classic -- it's the powerful, ghostly visuals that permeate it. And the beautiful real-life settings (the inn, chateau and church) don't hurt the atmosphere of it all....

In many ways, "Vampyr" is like a silent movie -- the characters are quiet, text cards intersperse the scenes, and several minutes are taken up by printed text from the "History of Vampires" book. In addition to this, the visuals are so powerful that it's almost a shock when one of the characters actually speaks out loud. Even then, nobody says anything unless it's actually necessary.

Dreyer films this movie as if it were a choreographed dream, letting the camera drift through ornate rooms and hazy hills. And he often fixed on striking images -- pale feverish faces, still windvanes, cloudy skies, scythes, and the movement of shadows on walls and the ground. And there are some spectacularly creepy moments, such as when Leone starts baring her teeth gleefully at Gisele, or Allan watching the view from inside a coffin.

And he steeps the entire movie in dreamlike effects -- hazy countrysides, skeletons, floating girls, and shadows that can dance and move independently. These strange effects are done almost effortlessly, adding to the feeling that you're surrounded by the unreal. Dreyer even puts a note of humor in from time to time, such as the dancing shadows with their little folk band.

Julian West (aka Nicolas de Gunzburg) does a pretty solid job as our unflappable hero, although I question how his suit remains pristine all through the movie -- and he does a glorious job in that bizarre dream sequence. Sybille Schmitz has a small part, but is wonderfully feral as she starts to turn vampiric, and Henriette Gérard is unspeakably creepy as the ancient, stone-faced vampire who wants other people to suffer as well.

Criterion is apparently giving "Vampyr" the treatment it sorely needs, cleaning up the prints in an effort to restore the clarity. It's also got new subtitles, loads of information about Dreyer, his filmmaking and the creation of "Vampyr," articles about it, the screenplay and one of Le Fanu's short stories. Nice to see this underrated little movie is getting the attention is deserves.

Carl Th. Dreyer's "Vampyr" is a rarity among vampire movies -- all haunting images and ghostly, subtle horror, with excellent acting and exquisite directions. It's a cinematic classic that should not be overlooked. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A story with flour power.

Allan Grey (Julian West) has a fertile imagination and we get to fertile along with him. He is on vacation. He chooses a strange building to vacate in. Read more

Published on 3 April 2010 by bernie

5.0 out of 5 stars Subtitles that Trust the Audience

Criterion's 2008 release of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) illustrates how subtitles may integrate within a film to improve the whole. Read more

Published on 16 Feb 2010 by D. Bannon

4.0 out of 5 stars A story with flour power.

Allan Grey (Julian West) has a fertile imagination and we get to fertile along with him. He is on vacation. He chooses a strange building to vacate in. Read more

Published on 1 July 2007 by bernie

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