Vampyyri

Since I was a kid interested in foreign and older films, I've been haunted by this picture. I remember seeing a shot of the back of a woman's head. She slowly turns around to reveal black lips, darkened eyes, and a smile of someone possessed of the vampire spirit.

Later, in school, I had the pleasure of seeing more of Dreyer's work. He didn't make any more 'horror pictures' to my knowledge, but everything else I saw had the same brooding, eerie sense, the same lack of interest in a driving plot, and the same photographic expertise that kept me enthralled when I first saw this picture.

He's considered one of the masters. He's not to everyone's taste. But, with VAMPYR, he got to me before I ever learned how to say the word 'cinema.'