Movie Review- Vampyr 1932
Vampyr 1932 a review
Jorgen Jorgensons first talking film.
The movie has many qualities of the earlier silent film, in that you still get descriptive text frames to help you understand the plot. All the actors are speaking German but there are subtitles that allow you to follow the story, rather well. The subtitles are, in my opinion a little overdone and at times can hide the action behind them. But over all the movie is very enjoyable.
One of the things I found truly delightful in this old horror film was choice of location for the film and the used of shadows and lighting to create a sense of the macabre that is seldom or rarely seen in later films. Then there is the fact that the lines spoken in the film are delightfully few. It’s a film of pure acting, music to set a tone. The slow pans of the camera, and the heavy use of shadows really set this film apart from all its peers of the time, and even sets in a place of high regard and esteem even by modern standards.
If you find an opportunity to view this classic film, do everything in your power to see it, you will not be disappointed, if you can appreciate film art in its purest form.
About the film itself, the main character is a student of the occult that is wandering around Europe doing research. His name is Allen grey. He takes a room at the inn of the town he has just entered, during the night he is visited by a man that leaves him a letter, “not to be opened till after my death”.
Curious and afraid Allen follows the man outside but finds only shadows everywhere, dancing, working, or playing. He follows these shadows and meets the town doctor, who tells him there are no children or dogs in the town, even though, all you hear are dogs barking and howling in the night. He continues to follow the shadows and finds a large home secluded from the rest of the town and this is where the man that entered his room lives. As Allen walks around the large home to find a way in he sees a shadow shoot the man that he was looking for, and begins raising the house.
Here you find that the man has two daughters, one is ill, and raves about “the blood, the blood!” the house staff asks Allen to stay with them, as someone goes out after the doctor. There is much drama in the night as we find the Vampyr comes and claims the life of the old man and his daughter. You find out a fearful secret about the doctor, what is in the letter left to Allen grey by the now dead father, and the entire town as well.
Every moment in the film is drawing and hard to look away from, and in my opinion even more so than Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.
I Give this movie 4 out of 5 Bites
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Nice review.
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