Skip to main content

Vampyr (1932)


Although this isn't a silent picture, it acts like one. 

I even found myself saying, "Gee, I like a movie that reads like a book." Not just because it has the place cards like a silent film, but because it has characters reading from a book. Maybe 5 or 6 times we stop and read a page out of the vampire book with the characters.

Maybe this was groundbreaking information -- Who the Vampires work for, what powers they have, how to kill them, etc. -- but reading a page of text on the screen is not the best way to use the film media. 

So, if you're not really into slow, 1930s pictures that don't know if they want to be silent, and don't know how to "show" more than they "tell," I wouldn't recommend this one. 

As one reviewer noted, it has absolutely no action. You will barely see a vampire. You will hardly see any blood. At one point, you will see a woman give a creepy smile. That's the extent of it. 

And I would be okay with that, but I really don't see the psychology. I'm not connected to Allan Grey (Julian West) whatsoever. What's his deal? If a weird old man enters your room and leaves you a package, do you just stay frozen in your bed? Why didn't he want Allan to open the package (the vampire book) until after he died? Why did he give it to Allan in the first place?

Who the heck is this Allan?

And is the doctor (Jan Hieronimko) a bad guy? A victim? I'm sure I will watch the supplemental materials included with the Criterion Collection DVD and learn everything I couldn't figure out on a first watch, but much of the story is opaque and just not that captivating as a result. 

In terms of the special effects, I do appreciate the early 1930s special effects -- the overlay of a face, the use of reversing the camera, the walking shadows. That's all pretty cool, and ultimately what raises my rating to 2.5 stars.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #4 -- The Federalist Radio Hour

I first heard of Sean Davis last week. He created an online magazine called The Federalist in 2011, and he currently has about 500,000 followers on X.  It was about last week that he posted something amazing. He suggested if the Supreme Court doesn't rule the way they should, not only should Trump just ignore the ruling, if they keep obstructing the administration, he should just dissolve the Court altogether.  And I thought, wow. This guy is saying outrageous stuff like that, and there's an audience for it.  So, I decided I'd listen to an episode of The Federalist podcast: April 17, 2025 -- Deportation, Due Process, and Deference to the American People (40 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deportation-due-process-and-deference-to-the/id983782306?i=1000703904873 In the 40-minute conversation, the host and guest discussed why due process wasn't required for illegal immigrants.  The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mentioned for a brief second, but...
Post a Comment
Read more

In Utero

  In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?” I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV. Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal? Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Must Betray You -- Ruta Sepetys

I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history.  She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process. 
Post a Comment
Read more