"Imagine that we are sitting in a very ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. Instantly, the room we are sitting in has taken on another look. The light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. This is the effect I wanted to produce in Vampyr." (Carl Dreyer) If in other Dreyer films a stark materialism opens the door to the spirit, here the material world is as gossamer as fear itself: people glide through walls, shadows have no owners, dogs bark and children cry though there are no dogs or children to be seen. Characters, like sounds, dissolve into the wild play of light and shadow. Into this wanders the loner David Gray, stopping at an inn and a château where he encounters the two daughters of the groundskeeper, a seemingly pleasant old lady, and desire in its most feared form: vampirism. Originally shot as a silent film, with sound added afterwards, Vampyr was made by Dreyer in three original versions, German, French, and English.
• Written by Dreyer, Christen Jul, based in part on In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan le Fanu. Photographed by Rudolph Maté. With Julian West, Henriette Gerard, Jan Hironimko, Maurice Schutz. (75 mins, In German with English electronic titling, B&W, 35mm, From Cineteca del Commune di Bologna, permission Janus/Criterion Collection)
