From The Blood Is the Life, published 2024

Can a film be both behind the times and ahead of them? Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr is an acknowledged masterpiece now, but its release in May of 1932 was a disaster. Panned by critics and booed by audiences, Vampyr could not escape the expectations set by Universal Studios’ Dracula and Frankenstein, which had been massive hits the year before. Dreyer’s style was just too weird for mainstream crowds.

To find a true stylistic peer, you have to go back to Luis Buñuel’s avant-garde Un Chien Andalou (1929) or forward to Maya Deren’s dream-logic short films of the 1940s. Technically, Vampyr has a linear story, but it feels like an afterthought, something Dreyer attached out of necessity but had little interest in.

Continue reading “Vampyr (1932)” →