Vampyr (Bfi Film Classics)

A disturbing narrative of vampirism, obsession, and posession of the soul, Vampyr der Traum des Allan Gray (1932) is one of the defining works of psychological horror cinema. It is also a film directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the revered and legendary Danish director of La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1927). Shot in France with private money and a largely nonprofessional cast and primitive sound equipment, Vampyr is to some extent a ruin. There is no definitive print and English versions are marred by poor image quality and subtitles. And yet it is unquestionably extraordinary, a vivid and haunting manifestation of Dreyer's power to make visible on-screen the inner human state.
In relation to Dreyer's long but often frustrated career, Vampyr is often thought of as an uneven or disappointing film. According to David Rudkin, this is a misunderstanding of what the film sets out to do, which is systematically to set the spectator adrift in a mysterious world. In a meticulous formal analysis of Vampyr, Rudkin expands on this contention, pinpointing the sources of the film's uniquely disquieting effect.