Vampyr (The Criterion Collection) |  | Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Actors: N. Babanini, Albert Bras, Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg, Henriette Gerard, Jan Hieronimko
Studio: Criterion
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $25.84
as of 5/22/2012 01:43 MDT details
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Format: Black & White, DVD, Silent, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Subtitled), German (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 75 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.7 x 1.7
MPN: IMEDCC1757D
UPC: 715515030427
EAN: 0715515030427
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
With Vampyr, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery (as in The Passion of Joan of Arc and 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 at an inn outside 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.
In this chilling, atmospheric film from 1932, Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer favors style over story, offering a minimal plot that draws only partially from established vampire folklore. Instead, Dreyer emphasizes an utterly dreamlike visual approach, using trick photography (double exposures, etc.) and a fog-like effect created by allowing additional light to leak onto the exposed film. The result is an unsettling film that seems to spring literally from the subconscious, freely adapted from the Victorian short story Carmilla by noted horror author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, about a young man who discovers the presence of a female vampire in a mysterious European castle. There's more to the story, of course, but it's the ghostly, otherworldly tone of the film that lingers powerfully in the memory. Dreyer maintains this eerie mood by suggesting horror and impending doom as opposed to any overt displays of terrifying imagery. Watching Vampyr is like being placed under a hypnotic trance, where the rules of everyday reality no longer apply. As a splendid bonus, the DVD includes The Mascot, a delightful 26-minute animated film from 1934. Created by pioneering animator Wladyslaw Starewicz, this clever film--in which a menagerie of toys and dolls springs to life--serves as an impressive precursor to the popular Wallace & Gromit films of the 1990s. --Jeff Shannon
Stills from Vampyr (Click for larger image)
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