Vampyr
1932 ‘Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey’ Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Synopsis
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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This early sound horror film from master director Carl Theodor Dreyer is much like cinema itself, a world of light and shadows. One that manipulates and utilizes atmosphere and visuals to toy with its viewers. To make indistinguishable from the reality we are present and the fantasy we imagine.
Vampyr is one of the first effective horror films ever made, even more so than the famous Murnau take on the vampire story in Nosferatu from 1922. Most of that may be because of technological advances within the span of those ten years which provided many of the fundamental flaws that Nosferatu suffered from. Vampyr being made in the early era of sound cinema, took on more of the visuals of…
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What is missing most in 21rst century film-making? Look no further than Dreyer's work for the answer. This is pure cinema (minus the over-reliance of title cards), or, in 1932 terms, an ever-evolving new art form that casts aside familiar characteristics that make up literature and theater and solely relies on film techniques to relay abstract emotions through a montage of images and sound. This is the very essence of the art form. The best silent films were already doing it for 20 years, but films like Vampyr would continue to push the boundaries of sight and sound as abstract art. The result is quite chilling at times, and it'd make a nice European counter-watch to Hollywood's awesome The Old Dark House from the same year.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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Making you realise that what the previous year's Dracula was really missing was a man suffocated by flour, Vampyr is like the bad dream that you have after seeing the Browning classic. It is light on plot, heavy on atmosphere, and - perhaps because that makes it less easy to parody - has dated well, retaining the power to shock. Aside from the flour scene (a genuinely horrible death) there is an unsettling sequence involving a man witnessing his own burial through a small window in his coffin - which manages to make the sound of a screwdriver utterly grisly. Throughout there is a disorienting feeling of nightmare logic, events that don't make any sense in isolation but are somehow…
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I'd like to personally thank Adam Cook for recommending this film based on how much I liked Nosferatu (another amazing film) and like Nosferatu, this made for a very interesting experience to say the least.
While the film will most likely alienate viewers for it's very different way of storytelling and incoherent narrative, what makes this film so interesting is it's surreal visuals. It's like a bad dream that's so creepy you just want to wake up from it. These visuals are the stuff nightmares are made up and will probably stay in your mind long enough to give you nightmares. The atmosphere is chilling and you get a really eerie feeling throughout the film thanks to the gothic scenery.…
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I've always thought that the finest horror experience is like being thrown into a darkened room: you lose awareness of the physical space around you and never know if even your own senses can be trusted. Dreyer tosses us into a strange, semi-surrealistic narrative and never allows us the pleasure of comfort with it. He employs some startling images of remarkably harrowing power, inserting visual references to mortality and death at every opportunity. Frightening though it is, and I really was creeped out quite a bit, its lack of narrative coherence is a little too alienating and makes it a tad difficult to stick with. Dreyer's first sound film, it makes heavy use of intertitles nonetheless, and so feels conflicted in its own approach to what it wants to be. I find myself wishing it were more consistent, but even so it's a haunting horror directed with a real sense of eerie fatalism.
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Movie #393 of "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die".
Spine #437 of "Criterion Collection". -
haunting and gothic
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Vampyr is critically respected, and it deserves a spot in monster movie history for some of the lore that it establishes. But will a modern viewer enjoy it? Sadly, there’s not much here for the modern-day film fan. The sleepy pace the film takes for the first two thirds can be a bit off-putting, and the dream-like qualities of the last third (particularly the actual dream sequence), while very well done, contribute to making a hither-to straightforward plot a little confusing. I have to say that this one is for diehards only, people who want to be strongly versed in old-school vampire movies. Read full review.
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horrifying
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Tough review...
Absolutely amazing creepy visuals, effects and cinematography - but from an entertainment standpoint this is an excruciatingly dull film. Sorry, it just is. I'm man enough to admit I couldn't follow the mostly-silent plot logic, but savvy enough to blame it on the presentation.
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This early sound horror film from master director Carl Theodor Dreyer is much like cinema itself, a world of light and shadows. One that manipulates and utilizes atmosphere and visuals to toy with its viewers. To make indistinguishable from the reality we are present and the fantasy we imagine.
Vampyr is one of the first effective horror films ever made, even more so than the famous Murnau take on the vampire story in Nosferatu from 1922. Most of that may be because of technological advances within the span of those ten years which provided many of the fundamental flaws that Nosferatu suffered from. Vampyr being made in the early era of sound cinema, took on more of the visuals of…
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Based in part of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'In a Glass Darkly', 'Vampyr' is Carl Theodor Dreyers first sound film. Although recorded in three different languages it still makes use of the intertitle cards that were prevalent during the silent era.
Planning for the film had begun in late 1929 after Dreyer's earlier' The Passion of Joan of Arc', and he had gone to England afterwards in order to study sound film and it was here that he met the Danish writer Christian Jul. Dreyer decided on creating a supernatural story for his next film and began reading a large number of mysteries, during which he found a number of re-occurring themes. Then with the success of Universal Pictures 'Dracula'… -
Protams, pie mūsdienu realistisko šausmeņu pieradusī uztvere, šo netver kā šausmeni, bet gan kā atsevišķu elementu kopu. Etalonu kadrējumam un baisas atmosfēras uzbūvei.
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What an odd thing memory is. My first (and prior to this, last) viewing of "Vampyr" was in 2007, just over five years ago. The film left many impressions and one of them was the falsehood that this was a silent film. Perhaps it's because the dialogue is so sparse and almost entirely unneeded and all the important plot points are portrayed either visually or through written words, or perhaps it's because the film is so cinematically brilliant, with such masterful use of tracking shots, pans, and light and shadow that it's hard to believe this was made in the early days of talking cinema and not the pinnacle of silent cinema. "Vampyr" as you probably have guessed from the…