Man, it’s a nice thing when directors know what they’re doing.

Silent films are always difficult to write about and dissect because they rely so heavily on visuals. They’re not really made for people to dissect the plot and get lost in the characters. You’d think things would have gotten easier with the incorporation of sound and cinema, but for directors that led to a lot of mixed results. I still remember watching The Exile and being confounded at the awful sound mixing. But then again, the plot was at least trying to say something. Vampyr reads more like a vague fairy tale.

That being said, I really, really liked it.

Vampyr isn’t a groundbreaking vampire story by any means, aside from the misspelling of the title. It’s basically about this French student who’s invested in the paranormal and finds himself in a village that is being terrorized by a vampire. There’s a couple of girls who are in danger, there’s a lot of foreboding imagery, and that’s it. There’s very little else to go on. Yet I found myself strangely captivated.

Even though there is sound in Vampyr, I’d classify this film as more silent-ish. What words of dialogue are spoken are sparse and aim to convey terror and dread rather than move the plot forward. The images do most of the heavy lifting, and the images we do get are surprisingly stunning. There’s one sequence where the main character walks through the vampire’s lair, and the silhouettes of ghosts adorn the wall, dancing and spinning in the air. When the vampire comes in and yells “Silence!” everything stops. It’s an incredibly eerie sight.

Another interesting moment happens later on, when the protagonist and Giséle, one of the women being terrorized by the vampire, sees her sister being bitten by the creature in broad daylight. While it does spit in the face of vampire lore, it’s unnerving to see such a monstrous act committed in broad daylight. Moreover, the camera seems almost blinded by the sunlight, creating a fairy tale-like atmosphere that makes us second-guess what we’ve just seen.

And what would a silent-ish film be without some over-the-top acting that just makes sense for the genre? One character, Léone, is so affected the vampire she starts to wear a terrifying expression on her face as she feels the deathly influence wash over her body. It’s not quite a Kubrick stare, but it feels like one decades before the term was coined.

After watching a lot of arthouse films in a row, I had a distinct craving for some genre films, especially horror since there’s so many directions you can take a horror story. Vampyr proves how poetic you can take the vampire narrative. Vampires aren’t specific to any one culture–they can take a number of forms, often with different meanings that can change over time. Vampyr isn’t really trying to break the wheel or subvert any expectations, but that’s what makes it an engaging watch. By relying solely on images and atmosphere, Carl Theodor Dreyer proved that the transition between silent and sound films could be easily made.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• I was insanely jealous of Giséle’s eye makeup. I need eyeliner that smooth!
• It sucks that they made a Chopin a villain. He was a great pianist.
• Death by flour is an insanely funny way to go.