Vampyr

Made in 1932, this was Carl Dreyer's first sound film, right on the heels of his silent masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc. Actually, though, this film is shot more like a silent film than a sound film. Only a few brief blurbs of dialogue reveal the era in which the film was made. In many ways, this is one of the most moody and atmospheric films I have ever seen. It does not so much tell a story as create a mood. In fact, along with both Murnau's and Herzog's versions of Nosferatu, this is the finest vampire film ever made. Dreyer takes the vampire and turns it into a spiritual war of the sacred vs. the profane. In most horror films, shadows are utilized to imply the presence of something sinister, rather than showing the sinister thing itself (think of the brilliant shadow work in Jacques Tourneur's Cat People), but in this film it is the shadows themselves that are the malicious forces. In many scenes, the vampires are portrayed as shadows with no body to cast them. It's beautifully eerie. Though it's never really scarey, it creates allegory and atmosphere almost unlike any other film I've ever seen.