#437: DREYER, Carl Th.: Vampyr (1932)

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DREYER, Carl Th. (Denmark)
Vampyr [1932]
Spine #437
DVD


With Vampyr, Daniksh filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath) was for once applied to the horror genre. Yet the result — concerning an occult student assailed by various supernatural haunts and local evildoers in a village outside of Paris — is nearly unclassifiable, a host of stunning camera and editing tricks and densely layered sounds creating a mood of dreamlike terror. With its roiling fogs, ominous scythes, and foreboding echoes, Vampyr is one of cinema's great nightmares.

73 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
in German
1:19:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2008
Director/Writers


From the book In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu.
Screenplay by Chrislen Jul and Carl Th. Dreyer.

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-eight page booklet featuring essays by critics Mark Le Fanu and Kim Newman, a piece by Marlin Koerber on the restoration, and a 1964 interview with producer and star de Gunzburg.

Commentary

Featuring film scholar Tony Rayns.

Carl Th. Dreyer (1966)

A documentary by Jørgen Roos chronicling Dreyer’s career.
Visual essay

By scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer’s influences in creating Vampyr.
Radio broadcast

From 1958 of Dreyer reading an essay about filmmaking.
Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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