Carl Theodor Dreyer will always be a household name among directors for me after viewing his Passion of Joan of Arc, one of the most emotionally wrenching, stylistically groundbreaking, and thoughtful of religious treatises. There not only did he reveal the eye of a cinematic genius, but he also had Renee Falconetti, one of only several people to truly pull off a performance by using the eyes to talk more than the voice. So, I read up on Dreyer and found that he also directed several sound films after the tragedy that was the butchering and loss of Joan of Arc. One of them was this film, a piece of experimental horror/mystery dealing with the supernatural, the occult, the damned- Vampires.

The story at times becomes a little too hard to follow, even beside the point that the film is meant to be surreal or nightmarish or what-have-you. What I did make out of it was that a man named Allan Gray (Julian West) somehow gets lured by his own curiosity comes upon a chateau where an old man (Maurice Schultz, one of the finest hair/face-styling jobs I've seen in an old-style horror movie) and his two daughters reside. Inter-cutting between excerpts of a book detailing the ABC's of vampire facts, bizarre and sad occurrences go on in the chateau, both to Alan and one of the daughters.

I suppose saying that the film at times veers off into haunting imagery is almost a compliment, but for some audiences this could be a turn off. On top of the fact that the film contains fewer lines than in any other vampire film I can think of, the whole tone and look of the film is, not to put a snob touch on it, unique. This would not likely be the kind of film to hang out with adolescent friends and drink beers to (that kind of film in the genre would be From Dusk Till Dawn). The one minor flaw in the film as well is, unlike Joan of Arc, the performances are less than brilliant, outside of the girl in the bed and at times West (Schultz, while believable in the look of the character, is a little too 'shocked' in most scenes).

But what the film has going for it are two main elements- Dreyer and Joan of Arc cinematographer Rudolph Mate. Despite the film, when being viewed today on video and DVD, having a low-quality transfer with specks and scratches and all, nearly every image and camera move is perfect. For this kind of film, Dreyer takes an approach that lends the story and characters to another plane- these are people caught in the grip of a force that only has one purpose, to kill in a controlled state. Certain scenes are like terrifying little masterpieces of gothic torture- the droplets of blood falling onto the ground from the bed; the coffin point of view of the world; the close-ups; the way Dreyer moves around the chateau and outside; the creepy, somehow appropriate over/under exposure of shots. Overall, this is definitely a horror film with a an artist that doesn't sell himself short of the goods in his arsenal.

Vampyr is recommendable, if for nothing else (however the story seems like it would be easier to figure out on a repeat viewing, it would lessen the effect it leaves the first time),for the sheer vision. Although it has dated, Dreyer's take on the myths and terror of a group of citizens held in the grip of a vampire's grip is a technical landmark, and one of the early essentials alongside Nosferatu and Dracula. The dreadful score by Zeller is a good touch as well. A

Allan Gray has been studying the supernatural. He arrives at the remote town of Courtempierre. He encounters various weird characters in their mysterious world.

This movie has a lot of imagery and it uses shadows a lot. It's weird and eerie. The lead could be less stiff. The story needs more propulsive drive. There is a bit of Kafkaesque quality to this world. This is a movie that probably works better today than during its time. It's a surreal arthouse horror. The emphasis being surreal and arthouse. I would rework the text sections. I'd rather not read so much. This is a visual poem but the story telling does need work.

Okay, I'll admit that my summary will cause a few eyebrows to raise and irritate some of the readers and I am perfectly fine with that! I love old-time horror films and have seen practically every one there is to see--so I was very excited to see that this old Danish\French film was coming on TCM. However, while watching it I just couldn't believe my eyes--it was THAT bad! Instead of a film that was at least the equal to the great horror movies that had preceded it (such as NOSFERATU, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, Dracula or FRANKENSTEIN),I saw a very, very shoddy production that bored me half to death!

This wasn't a very good sound picture technically, as the film really looked like a silent film with some poorly added sound (it was also pretty hard to hear what was being said). Plus, in this English language version, so much of what WAS being said wasn't translated at all--as if the translators didn't think it was worth translating it!! And, the lines were subtitled in HUGE and annoying text blocks that obscured 1/3 of the screen! I actually understood some of these lines but couldn't believe they were left untranslated! And considering I am NOT fluent, I really wished I'd had a group of UN translators with me to help me understand what was said. In addition, while much of the dialog was left untranslated, the film, at times, was like a book! So, long, long, long stretches of the film consisted of page after page of text read by some old guy from a book about vampires! The viewer is allowed to read along with him--again and again. If I wanted to read a book, I would have done so--not watched this film, thank you! This isn't an exaggeration, as in the over 2300 films I have reviewed for IMDb, I have NEVER seen this sort of sloppy and dull work on a captioned film.

Okay, now these problems may be due to lousy production values by those who released the film in the English-speaking world and were not due to director, Dreyer--after all, it was not exactly his original vision. However, despite his sterling reputation as a perfectionist and great director, I would beg to differ. The camera-work, at times is brilliant and eerie (the end is magnificent as the man is shown in the coffin--this is the only reason I score the film a 3 and not a 1). However, the story is very, very disjoint, dull and technically the folks at Universal Studios (and even Murnau in 1922 with NOSFERATU) were head and shoulders above this film is just about every way. James Whale, the director for most of the greatest Universal horror films has pretty much been forgotten and the words "genius" or "master" rarely appear in regard to him, but technically his films were vastly superior to this dull mess concocted by Dreyer. While I am a huge admirer of foreign films, in this case, the American versions are just so much better. I am just so amazed that I hated this film on practically every level. It only improved, somewhat, towards the end, but not enough to make me feel like I hadn't wasted my time. A work of genius? You've got to be kidding! A semblance of a plot, decent characters and dialog and not just a hollow mess of special effects and dull expressions on the actors' faces don't indicate genius,...or even mediocrity for that matter!