The nameCarl Theodor Dreyeris probably not familiar to the average moviegoer. A Danish auteur whose almost 50-year career produced only a dozen movies, he was an ambitious pioneer of early cinema who always wanted to push the limit. In aletter he wrote to prospective backers in his early career, he said, “I will make it my goal to produce a work of art which will set a standard for future films,” and in his own unique way, he achieved this. As film historianCasper Tybjerghas lengthily chronicled, Dreyer was a determined artist who would do whatever it took to bring his ideas to life. Following his now-classic but contemporaneously disappointing run withThe Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer wanted to do something different, and through a number of interesting twists, ended up delving into the horror genre with his silent masterpiece, 1932’sVampyr. What he didn’t see coming was how the involvement of a wealthy baron namedNicolas de Gunzburgwould take his latest project from idea to finished product.
What Is ‘Vampyr’ About?
Vampyris the brief, simple story of a young man named Allan Grey, who is something of a spiritualist and prone to strange energies. When he lodges at a riverside pub in the French countryside, he is overwhelmed by some mysterious presence that troubles his days and disturbs his nights. A strange old man wanders into his room one night and places a parcel on his desk labeled “to be opened upon my death.” When ghostly shadows lure Allan to a country manor, he witnesses the murder of its occupant — and it is none other than the strange old man from the inn. The rest of the family invites Allan to stay with them, and he unwraps the mysterious parcel left for him to find a book on vampires, leading him to realize there is something supernatural at play that he must bring to an end.
‘Vampyr’ Is a Product of Early 20th-Century Artistry
It is a remarkably adventurous piece of cinema far more in keeping with the emerging surrealist art film movement of its time;Luis BuñuelandSalvador Dalíteamed up for two iconic surrealist pictures,Un Chien AndalouandL’Age d’Or, whileJean Cocteauwas exploring the avant-garde withThe Blood of a Poet. Such artists were breaking out and shaking off the constraints of the studio system that had, up to this point, largely governed feature film. As with any good indie production, this forced filmmakers to get creative, and arguably, try a lot harder than they would otherwise have to. Money was tight, so shoots were cheap, on-location affairs with minimal equipment and often unknown actors. Their interest was not really in making money — although that couldn’t hurt — but in creating something truly unique, in expanding their own artistic minds and exploring ideas in ways that audiences hadn’t seen before.
It was within this environment thatVampyrwas born. Tybjerg’s highly informative articleWaking Lifedetails the background and production of the movie, and exactly how and why it became what it was. It explains that after the financial failure ofJoan of Arc, the studio bigwigs Dreyer had worked with got cold feet about his bankability as a director, and pulled the plug on his next project. Far from deterred by this move, Dreyer took it as an opportunity to rethink his next step and having been increasingly inspired bySheridan Le Fanu’s seminal gothic horror novelCarmilla, he set his sights on bringing some sophistication to the then-fledgling horror genre, and the timing was perfect.
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The early 20th century was marked by a boom in spiritualism and curiosity in the supernatural. Séances and stage magic were becoming popular,Sir Arthur Conan Doyle— a man of science and logic —spent his life chasing the possibility of the supernatural, and was even fooled into believing that two little girls in Northern Englandhad captured photographic evidence of fairies. The occult and otherworldly matters were at the forefront of public consciousness, and evidently, this fed into the stories explored in the early years of cinema.
A Wealthy Aristocrat Financed ‘Vampyr’
So Dreyer had his idea, but what he needed now was money. Luckily for him, he happened to meet a flamboyant and very wealthy young socialite named Nicolas de Gunzburg. Up until this point,Gunzburg had lived a life of extravagance and leisure, attending and hosting lavish parties, enchanting guests with his skills as a dancer and raconteur, and rubbing shoulders with all the right people. According to aVanity Fairprofile of Gunzburg, his later life would see him discover such talents asLauren BacallandCalvin Kleinand act as editor for a number of influential magazines such asVogueandHarper’s Bazaar. But the arguable stepping stone into these later vocations was his meeting with Dreyer, who said he had a movie in the works if only he could find the money. And as it happened, Gunzburg had always fancied trying his hand at the old acting thing.
As many sources from Professor Tybjerg toVanity Fairregale, an agreement was reached between the two men: Gunzburg would fund a movie if he could act in it. This worked for Dreyer, and they set about makingVampyr. It’s one of those entertainment origin stories that has become a legend in its own right, an alignment of stars that went on to create something truly memorable. Although it would be Gunzburg’s one and only acting credit, his work onVampyr, both as an actor and producer, is one very eye-catching square on the astounding patchwork that was his life, and there’s no doubt that he put a lot of heart into what he was doing. Between Gunzburg and Dreyer, this movie was the product of mad artists doing things their way, and the pairing turned out a classic piece of cinema that is far more sophisticated and artistically fine-tuned than one might expect from a picture of its time and place.
‘Vampyr’ Takes a Surrealist Approach to Horror
Although you could never accuseVampyrof being scary by modern standards, there is an uncanny otherworldliness about it that is unsettling, and it is always going for a subtle and stylish approach that defies the conventions of horror as it is known today. It is all about drawing on the deepest human fears and conveying them in creative ways that draw a visceral reaction from the audience. A particularly brilliant sequence — one that leans fully into the Buñuel style of dreaminess — shows Allan having an out-of-body experience, and seeing his own death and burial. This is filmed from the perspective of his lifeless body, as he is carried out of the manor, looking straight up at the looming building and murky sky above, to the fields where he is buried. The scene demonstrates his deepest fears stirred by the undoubtedly supernatural goings-on, showing a glimpse of what being undead for eternity may look like and why it is so important that he bring the nightmare to an end. It is the perfect blend of relatable human fear and fairytale menace.
The heavy stylism with whichVampyris made is quite remarkable: in an era without the luxury of easily portable cameras, or much sense of physical freedom on set, the movie goes to considerable lengths to do something a bit different. There is much handheld camerawork from a perspective that refuses to sit still, and an eerily voyeuristic feeling is achieved. The camera follows characters as they walk, run, and leave rooms; it lurks behind furniture and objects as if spying on them. A surprising effort is given to shot composition and choreography, with many long-running shots that pan and swivel to follow the action. A particularly inspired sequence uses double exposure to give Allan a translucent ghostlike appearance as he investigates the wrongdoings of the crazy village doctor, someone he suspects may be playing a part in the mayhem. This cannot have been an easy thing to pull off so neatly, but the experienced director clearly had much heart and thought to put into this work, even if he didn’t have studio money. Despite the odd impressive set piece, there is a subtlety toVampyrthat really gives it its bite: it is always looking to throw the audience off by the tiniest margin, so that everything feels a little queasy, but not enough to attract any suspicion, like an old house built ever so slightly askew.
It is arguable that the film industry — even the wider art world in general — has reached several creative peaks since the start of the 20th century, and these have each been reactionary in nature. While the likes of Dreyer and Buñuel were relatively early figures in the history of cinema, in their time art was being turned on its head by countercultural movements, mostly in response to WWI.This was how Dadaism came about, in which any sense of logic and order was rebelled against in favor of radical expression by any means. It was essentially a giant middle finger to cultural norms, and this is often where the best kind of art emerges. It is all the more amusing thatVampyrwas made possible by the fanciful ambitions of an aristocrat who just wanted to be an actor, only to end up being an immensely impactful piece of cinema which now, in its hundredth year, is remembered as a classic that typified the best of its era and influenced the horror genre for decades to come.
