Vampyr (1932)

A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.

Director:

Carl Theodor Dreyer (as Carl Th. Dreyer)

Writers:

Sheridan Le Fanu (based on a book by) (as J. Sheridan Le Fanu), Christen Jul (screenplay)

Stars:

Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Julian West	...	Allan Grey
Maurice Schutz	...	Der Schlossherr (The Lord of the Manor)
Rena Mandel	...	Gisèle
Sybille Schmitz	...	Léone
Jan Hieronimko	...	Der Dorfartz (The Village Doctor)
Henriette Gérard	...	Die alte Frau von Friedhof (The Old Woman from the Cemetery) (as Henriette Gérard)
Albert Bras	...	Der alte Diener (The Old Servant)
N. Babanini	...	Seine Frau (His Wife)
Jane Mora	...	Die Krankenschwester (The Nurse)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Georges Boidin	...	Limping Man

Storyline

Allan Gray arrives late in the evening to a secluded riverside inn in the hamlet of Courtempierre. An old man enters his room, puts a sealed parcel on the table, blurts out that some woman mustn't die, and disappears. Gray senses in this a call for help. He puts the parcel in his pocket, and goes out. Eerie shadows lead him into an old house, where he encounters a weird village doctor. The doctor receives a bottle of poison from a strange, old woman. Through the window of an old castle Gray recognizes the old man from the inn. A shadow shoots the man, who drops dead. Inside the house Gray finds his two daughters, Gisèle and Léone, and some servants. He opens the parcel, and finds an old book about vampires. Léone is seriously ill after being bitten by a vampire. Instead of helping her, the village doctor places the bottle of poison at her bedside table, and then abducts her sister Gisèle. An old servant starts reading the old book, and finds out that the vampire in Courtempierre is a ...

---

Plot Keywords:

vampire | gothic horror | doctor | book | servant | 

---

Genres:

Fantasy | Horror

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Germany France

Language:

German

Release Date:

14 August 1934 (USA)

Also Known As:

Castle of Doom

Filming Locations:

Abbaye de Braye, Braye, Aisne, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Tobis Filmkunst

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min (original) 70 min (DVD) 73 min (restored)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.19 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Carl Theodor Dreyer preferred to work with non-professional actors, and most of the actors which appear in this film were amateurs that he met on the streets of Paris. The only professional actors in the film were Sybille Schmitz and Maurice Schutz.

---

Goofs

At exactly 16 minutes (in the Criterion DVD) as the camera pans right, there is a reflection in a glass window of the camera operator cranking the camera.

---

Quotes

Léone: I'm afraid of dying. I am damned! My God! My God! My God!

---

Connections

Referenced in Fear in the Dark (1991)

User Reviews

Beautiful

Simply: it's beautiful work of art. No action. No slasher scenes. There is almost less speaking then in Aki Kaurismäki's films. Master of silent movie, Carl Th. Dreyer, uses more silent film magic than any spoken voices. Movie's style is from another world. Living shadows, ghosts, vampire in the foggy wood and (of course) the famous scene where man watch himself to be buried alive. There is no way you can say what this film is true and what dream. It's like Dreyer would have put he's own dream in to the screen. Nobody have done anything like this later, perhaps because the gray light that is all the time in the film came by an accident. There is no movie like this and no way there is another horror movie like this! Vampire- movie fan can watch this with F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu. They are different film's, but strange way spooky at same way.