Vampyr (Masters of Cinema) DVD, 1932

The very first intertitle in the film tells us much of what we need to know: “This is the fantasy experienced by young Allan Gray, who engulfed himself in studies of demonology and vampire-lore. Preoccupation with crazed ideas of past centuries turned him into a dreamer and a fantasist, lost at the border between reality and the supernatural.” It is this border that the film itself inhabits. Suffused with enigmatic portent and a sinister sense of the occult, its characters are somnolent, sometimes even cataleptic, weighed down by dreamlike presentiments.

Gray (played by Julian West, aka Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg, who financed the film) arrives at a secluded riverside inn where a midnight visit from a preoccupied man draws him into a mysterious world of vampirism. Dreyer tells his story in a fragmentary approach that approximates to the dimly-apprehended uncertainty of unexplained horror.

Sometimes unsettling effects are achieved by the simplest of means, such as the shadow of a door opening; sometimes they come by ingenious methods, as with the shadows of men that take on life independent of their owners, or the ingenious set-ups and tracking shots. Sometimes however, it is simply sheer horror that comes to the fore, as with the terrifying charge delivered by Gray staring out of his own coffin and hearing the screws crunching down through the wood. Chance played a part in the look of the film too, when an examination of early rushes looked as if the film had been shot through a veil of mist. By shooting through gauze filters, this look was preserved and creates the film’s unique look of being engulfed by vapours, as if it has itself been leached of vigour by diabolical influence.
Although conceived as, in Dreyer’s words, “a commercial film, a thriller”, it found little initial favour in this regard. Instead, its effects were more profound. “I just wanted to make a film different from all other films,” said Dreyer after its premiere. “I wanted, if you will, to break new ground for the cinema.” And so he did. The history of cinema is filled with paths not taken, whose promise has yet to be explored. The new ground of Dreyer’s Vampyr remains one of the most enticing.


Gray (played by Julian West, aka Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg, who financed the film) arrives at a secluded riverside inn where a midnight visit from a preoccupied man draws him into a mysterious world of vampirism. Dreyer tells his story in a fragmentary approach that approximates to the dimly-apprehended uncertainty of unexplained horror. Sometimes unsettling effects are achieved by the simplest of means, such as the shadow of a door opening; sometimes they come by ingenious methods, as with the shadows of men that take on life, independent of their owners, ot the ingenious set-ups and tracking shots. Sometimes however, it is simply sheer horror that comes to the fore, as with the terrifying charge delivered by Gray staring out of his own coffin and hearing the screws crunching down through the wood. Chance played a part in the look of the film too, when an examination of early rushes looked as if the film had been shot through a veil of mist. By shooting through gauze filters, this look was preserved and creates the film’s unique look of being engulfed by vapours, as if it has itself been leached of vigour by diabolical influence.

Although conceived as, in Dreyer’s words, “a commercial film, a thriller”, it found little initial favour in this regard. Instead, its effects were were more profound. “I just wanted to make a film different from all other films,” said Dreyer after its premiere. “I wanted, if you will, to break new ground for the cinema.” And so he did. The history of cinema is filled with paths not taken, whose promise has yet to be explored. The new ground of Dreyer’s Vampyr remains one of the most enticing.

Graeme Hobbs on 14th August 2008
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