The lone oddity in Dreyer's filmography which usually deals with such lofty topics as faith and the female role, his first sound film is nevertheless one of his finest achievements. Released a good four years after his silent film masterpiece 'The Passion of Joan of Arc', his choice of making a genre film had alienated his admirers who had been expecting something far more ambitious than an adaptation of '''Carmilla''' but time has revealed 'Vampyr' to be among the most dreamlike of Dreyer's films.
Allan Gray(Nicholas de Gunzburg) is an adventurer and traveler who's had a particular interest in the occult. He comes to a small town in Eastern Europe for a relaxing stay but things don't turn out very well because of a strong supernatural presence in the midst. The innkeeper where he's at is haunted by beings enslaved by local vampires. The entire area seems to be a kind of hell on earth as their shadows literally make merry. Their latest target are a pair of sisters living nearby whose father they murder but not before entrusting gray with a book on vampires and the safety of his children. Soon however one of them is infected and Gray has 24 hours to rescue her soul.
Plots are often not spoken in conjunction with Dreyer's films. For good reason to. His films rely on imagery and atmosphere and mood. 'Vampyr' was his first sound film yet with it's use of intertitles and spare dialogues it feels like a silent film. It would be a good 11 years later when with 'Day of Wrath', Dreyer changed his aesthetic completely doing away with the sparse sets and quick cuts for a tightly constructed mise-en-scene and use of long fluid takes that he has become synonymous with in his three sound masterpieces of 'Day of Wrath', 'Ordet' and 'Gertrud'.
Allan Gray(Nicholas de Gunzburg) is an adventurer and traveler who's had a particular interest in the occult. He comes to a small town in Eastern Europe for a relaxing stay but things don't turn out very well because of a strong supernatural presence in the midst. The innkeeper where he's at is haunted by beings enslaved by local vampires. The entire area seems to be a kind of hell on earth as their shadows literally make merry. Their latest target are a pair of sisters living nearby whose father they murder but not before entrusting gray with a book on vampires and the safety of his children. Soon however one of them is infected and Gray has 24 hours to rescue her soul.
Plots are often not spoken in conjunction with Dreyer's films. For good reason to. His films rely on imagery and atmosphere and mood. 'Vampyr' was his first sound film yet with it's use of intertitles and spare dialogues it feels like a silent film. It would be a good 11 years later when with 'Day of Wrath', Dreyer changed his aesthetic completely doing away with the sparse sets and quick cuts for a tightly constructed mise-en-scene and use of long fluid takes that he has become synonymous with in his three sound masterpieces of 'Day of Wrath', 'Ordet' and 'Gertrud'.