Vampyr (1932)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Vampyr (1932) – C. T. Dreyer

Dreyer’s first sound film doesn’t contain jump scares and it isn’t as overtly spooky as Murnau’s earlier Nosferatu (1922) but it is quietly disorienting in its own special way.  For example, Dreyer (and cinematographer Rudolph Maté, later a noir director) don’t follow the usual rules of continuity, thereby making it difficult for viewers to get a proper layout of the houses where the action takes place.  The main protagonist, Allan Gray (played by “Julian West” a.k.a. Baron Nicholas De Gunzberg, the producer of the film), a student of the occult, stumbles throughout the film, turning corners and spying through windows into locations that contain some possibly supernatural things.  For example, the first part of the film shows us many disembodied shadows on the ground or wall, sometimes clearly divorced from their “human” counterparts.  But the real plot begins when an old man stumbles into Gray’s room and thrusts a package into his hands only to be opened upon his death – which of course soon happens.  The package contains a book on vampires, their habits and how to kill them.  But the vampire in question isn’t a suave Lugosi-type but rather a rather tame looking old woman who nevertheless has the local doctor under her control and has been sucking the blood from the daughter of the old man who died.  With the help of an elderly servant and the second daughter, Gray helps to eradicate the threat.  Although the German censors cut some of the most dramatic scenes (pounding the stake through the heart and the doctor’s horror as he is suffocated under pounds and pounds of flour in an old mill), these are available as extras now.  Perhaps not as potent as Dreyer’s other major works (The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928; Day of Wrath, 1943; Ordet, 1955; and Gertrud, 1964 – all highly recommended), this is still worth a look for its strangeness alone.