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Vampyr () is a 1932 Gothic horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. It was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 collection of supernatural stories In a Glass Darkly. The film was funded by Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, who (credited as Julian West) also played the starring role of Allan Gray, a student of the occult who wanders into the French village of Courtempierre, which is under the curse of a vampire. Most of the other members of the cast were also non-professional actors.

The film presented a number of technical challenges for Dreyer, as it was his first sound film and was recorded in three languages. To simplify matters, he decided to use very little dialogue in the film, and much of the story is told with title cards, like a silent film. The film was shot entirely on location, and to enhance the atmospheric content, Dreyer opted for a washed out, soft focus photographic technique. The soundtrack was created in Berlin, where the characters' voices, the sound effects, and the score were recorded.

After having its release delayed by nine months, allegedly so the American films Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) could be released first,

Cast

Nicolas de Gunzburg (credited as Julian West) as Allan Gray, a young wanderer whose studies of occult matters have made him a dreamer. Gray's view of the world is described as a blur of the real and unreal.
Maurice Schutz as the Lord of the Manor, Giséle and Léone's father, who offers Gray a book about vampirism to help Gray save his daughters. After his murder, he returns briefly as a spirit and takes revenge on the village doctor and a soldier who had helped the vampire.
Rena Mandel as Giséle, the younger daughter of the Lord of the Manor, who is kidnapped by the Village Doctor late in the film.
Sybille Schmitz as Léone, the older daughter of the Lord of the Manor, who is in thrall to the vampire and finds her strength dwindling day by day.
Jan Hieronimko as the Village Doctor, a pawn of the vampire. He kidnaps Giséle late in the film.
Henriette Gérard as Marguerite Chopin, the vampire, an old woman whose hold extends beyond her immediate victims. Many villagers, including the doctor, are her minions.
Albert Bras as the Old Servant, a servant at the manor house. When Gray is incapacitated after donating blood to Léone, he finds the book on vampirism and, aided by Gray, ends the vampire's reign of terror.
N. Babanini as the Old Servant's Wife
Jane Mora as the Nurse
Georges Boidin as the Limping Soldier with a peg leg (uncredited)

Production

Development

Carl Theodor Dreyer began planning Vampyr in late 1929, a year after the release of his previous film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. The production company behind Joan of Arc had plans to make another film with Dreyer, but that project was dropped, which led Dreyer to decide to go outside the studio system to make his next film. contributed to Dreyer's assessment that vampires were "fashionable things at the time", Vampyr draws from two stories in the collection: Carmilla, a lesbian vampire story, and The Room in the Dragon Volant, which is about a live burial.

thumb|left|alt=A black and white image of the film depicting the village doctor's hands and arms above flour as he presses up against a chain link fence.|The village doctor suffocates under flour dropped from the mill above. This scene was added to the script during the film's production. German [[Censorship in Germany|censors requested that the scene be toned down.]]

Most members of the cast of Vampyr were not professional actors. Jan Hieronimko, who plays the village doctor, was found on a late night metro train in Paris. When approached to act in the film, Hieronimko reportedly stared blankly and did not reply, but he later contacted Dreyer's crew and agreed to join the film. The entire film was shot on location, with many scenes shot in Courtempierre, France. The scenes in the manor house were shot in April and May 1930. The manor house also served as housing for the cast and crew during the filming, but life there was unpleasant, as it was cold and infested with rats. Dreyer originally was going to film Vampyr in what he described as a "heavy style", but changed direction after cinematographer Maté showed him a shot that came out fuzzy and blurred. The scenes that had to be toned down for the German version include the vampire's death from the stake and the doctor's death under the milled flour. the audience booed the film, and Dreyer reportedly removed several scenes following the first showing. Société Générale de Cinema, which had previously distributed Dreyer's Joan of Arc, distributed the film in France. Critical reaction to the film in Paris was mixed.

More modern reception for Vampyr has been more positive. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes 98% of 46 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.7/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Full of disorienting visual effects, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr is as theoretically unsettling as it is conceptually disturbing." Todd Kristel of the online film database AllMovie gave the film four and a half stars out of five, writing that it "isn't the easiest classic film to enjoy, even if you are a fan of 1930s horror movies", but, "If you're patient with the slow pacing and ambiguous story line of Vampyr, you'll find that this film offers many striking images", and saying that, although it is "not exciting in terms of pacing, it's a good choice if you want to see a film that establishes a compelling mood". Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote: "The greatness of Carl Dreyer's [Vampyr] derives partly from its handling of the vampire theme in terms of sexuality and eroticism and partly from its highly distinctive, dreamy look, but it also has something to do with Dreyer's radical recasting of narrative form". J. Hoberman of the Village Voice wrote that "Vampyr is Dreyer's most radical film—maybe one of my dozen favorite movies by any director".

In the early 2010s, the London edition of Time Out polled several authors, directors, actors, and critics who have worked within the horror genre about the best horror films, and Vampyr placed 50th out of 100. Andrei Tarkovsky considered the film a masterpiece and named it one of the 77 essential works of cinema.

Home media

Vampyr has been released with imperfect image and sound, as the original German and French film and sound negatives are lost. Prints of the French and German versions of the film exist, but most are either incomplete or damaged. This DVD includes Ladislas Starevich's 1933 stop motion animated short film The Mascot as a bonus feature.

The Criterion Collection released a two-disc DVD edition of Vampyr on 22 July 2008. This release includes the original German version of the film sourced from an HD digital transfer of the 1998 restoration, numerous special features, and a book featuring Dreyer and Christen Jul's original screenplay and Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 story "Carmilla". Criterion released this package on Blu-ray in October 2017.

A Region 2 DVD of the film was released by Eureka Video as part of its Masters of Cinema series on 25 August 2008. The Eureka release contains the same bonus material as the Criterion Collection discs, but also includes two deleted scenes and an audio commentary by director Guillermo del Toro. A 2022 Blu-ray release from Eureka Video made from a new 2K restoration of the film done by the Danish Film Institute contains two audio tracks, one restored and the other unrestored, and the same extras as their 2008 DVD release.

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Vampyr: From Carmilla to Carl Dreyer at Teleport City
Vampyr’s Ghosts and Demons an essay by Mark Le Fanu at the Criterion Collection