The Skinny On... Vampyr

The shadow of a one-legged man climbs down a ladder and re-joins its owner. Other shadows with no obvious source dance on walls and run through hazy fields. Piles of dirt fly up to meet a gravedigger’s shovel at the apex of its arc. A woman is pulled out of a solid wall. A room overflows with accruements of death – skulls, skeletons, and a disturbingly life-like bust, seen in a fleeting glimpse. Indistinctly, in the distance, an old woman hovers menacingly over the prostrate body of a young girl.

These are the images of Carl Th. Dreyer’s masterpiece of horror Vampyr (1932), which has finally been given a worthy DVD presentation. Criterion’s two-disc edition contains by far the most pristine restoration yet seen of this seminal film; a second disc with extra features such as a Dreyer documentary and a visual essay on the film; and a thick booklet with interviews, commentary on the film’s restoration, the original screenplay, and Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 story "Carmilla,” the film’s primary source.


If you haven’t seen Vampyr, it is not an easy film to describe. Indeed, you might find that it is not an easy film to watch. Dreyer has been quoted as saying he wanted to break new ground, to make a film the likes of which had never been seen before. He succeeded on such a level that the likes of Vampyr wasn’t seen before and hasn’t been seen since.

I don’t believe that a film can ever duplicate a dream, simply because dreams are so personal. However, Vampyr is imbued with the vagueness, disorientation, and dislocation of a dream state. The story of a man who unwittingly comes to a village haunted by the specter of evil, Vampyr supplants conventional narrative with an array of haunting, sometimes perplexing, images; a brooding mood and deliberate pace; and an overall sense of pervasive evil. However, there’s an eerie verisimilitude to even the most surreal images, which creates a disorienting dichotomy. Vampyr, like Nosferatu before it, creates a vividly authentic otherworldly environment, making it one of the most evocative cinematic depictions of the purely supernatural. In the end, not a lot happens during Vampyr’s 73-minute running time, but the film weaves a disturbing, mesmerizing mood tapestry that gradually envelops the viewer .

The new Criterion hi-def transfer looks great, eliminating much of the dirt and scratches of previous releases, and improving clarity immensely. However, Vampyr will never be a sharp-looking film because it wasn’t meant to be. Dreyer and cinematographer Rudolph Mate strove for a misty, indistinct look in many of the scenes to accentuate the film’s oneiric qualities. Thus, especially in outdoor scenes, the image can be quite hazy at times. The optional English title cards are an immense improvement over the gigantic abominations of the Image release. The film’s score, by Wolfgang Zeller, is light years ahead of Hollywood films of the same era and sounds great here. Compare Zeller’s magnificently evocative orchestral score to the music of such American films as Frankenstein, The Mummy or The Most Dangerous Game. It’s not even close.


Vampyr is a challenging film. I didn’t like it much upon my initial viewing years ago. But the images stuck with me. A few years later I tried it again. Hmm, maybe this isn’t so bad. In the years since I’ve probably seen it 10 times, and it gets better with each viewing. Without conventional narrative, a defined hero or heroine, or virtually any dramatic arcs, Vampyr transcends the typical expectations of a horror film, or any other kind of film for that matter. It's not like a dream, but perhaps it’s like a waking dream. You are conscious but you cannot speak. Things are happening all around you, but they don’t make any sense. People speak in low voices; their words have no meaning. You strain to hear faint sounds -- barking dogs, the distant cries of children. Something frightening seems to be just out of sight – around the next corner, behind a closed door.

You don’t simply watch Vampyr; you feel it to your core.