By SCOTT MURRAY

It was with some trepidation that I accepted this assignment from Renfield.

On paper it may seem simple enough, a young man comes to the aid of two young women under the spell of a a vampire and it's mysterious followers. If you're familiar with Carl Dreyer's 1932 early sound classic Vampyr, however, you'll understand that someone of Edgar Allan Poe's caliber would be better suited to conveying what happens within.

However, it seems that Poe isn't likely to be seduced out of, er, retirement anytime soon.  And there are those (I'm sure) who would say I'm ideally suited to relating the tale of a man who spends half the time in another world.

I first heard of this unusual vampire film in a book about vampires in legend and media. A few years later, I bought the UK video release on the Redemption label (a good source in the mid-1990s for Euro-horror).  The cover art depicted the back of a hooded figure with a scythe. Like many a Redemption video cover though, this striking black and white photo wasn't actually from the film.  The print is a bit on the murky side (which seems to be typical for this film) and this isn't helped by the fact that director Carl Dreyer deliberately had the film "fogged" (by exposing the negative to daylight) to create a more otherworldly look to the film). This is an interesting and inventive idea and adds to the film's unique and unusual atmosphere.

However, with less than perfect prints, it can make much of the film hard to see (it's worth mentioning here that there's supposedly a really terrible US dubbed version of the film called Castle Of Doom that apparently cuts about fifteen minutes and has some narrator actually dubbing the character's voices--probably best avoided).

A case in point would be the opening titles, which are very hard to make out and appear over the blurry black silhouette of a skull. We're then told via an opening scroll: "There are those predisposed towards the fantastic and supernatural."   Seemingly, David (Allan in the opening titles) Gray is one such person and is susceptible because of his researches into age-old superstitions.

We then see David Gray (Julian West, also Dreyer's co-producer) arriving at a secluded inn by the river of the village at Courtempierre. Gray, carrying a fishing or butterfly net and wearing a hat and a suit, gets a room at the inn.  We also see a man carrying a scythe ringing a bell for the boat to carry him across the river.  In his room, David Gray examines a bizarre picture depicting illness and death. Hearing a raised voice, Gray goes into the hallway to investigate.  He begins to go up the stairs but draws back as a disfigured man approaches, mumbling incoherently.  Slightly creeped, Gray returns to his room and locks the door.

Gray now goes to sleep, but is awoken by knocks at his door.  To David Gray's surprise, the door opens and a grave old man in a smoking jacket enters. Initially ignoring the room's occupant, the man (Maurice Schutz) eventually turns to David and says "She mustn't die." He then leaves a package for David, with a note for it to be opened on event of the man's death, and departs. This strange visitation will reveal itself to be more than just a dream and is an example of how the film sometimes leaves the viewer to fill in the blanks for themselves.

An intertitle tells us that David Gray can only be sure of one thing--someone in mortal danger is calling for help--and he feels impelled to help.

Now unable to sleep, David Gray goes for a stroll and begins to follow a shadow (as you do) which seems to have no human source despite being the silhouette of a man. The shadow leads him to a rundown looking building and is seen going up a ladder to an upstairs floor.  David also sees a sinister old woman in the building.  Investigating but keeping out of sight, Gray sees the shadow sit down next to its obvious owner--a man in a cap with a wooden leg (some sources have described him as a gamekeeper, others a corrupt militia man).  The man is called by name (Justin) by the old woman (Henriette Gerard) and goes downstairs.

Gray now sees a room full of similarly disembodied shadows, dancing to the discordant lively music of shadow musicians. Gray next sees a room with a coffin lid and a "doctor of medicine" sign.  Hearing the faint sounds of a child crying and a dog barking, Gray comes upon a elderly man (Jan Hieronmiko) dressed in black with a gray moustache and spectacles.  Gray confronts the man about the sounds he hears but the man insists that there are no children or dogs here.  The man then sternly bids Gray a good day and leaves him out in the hall.

Now we see the man, the doctor of medicine from the sign, lead the old woman into his study.  There is a skull on a pedestal and its eye sockets light up in the presence of the old woman. The skull also turns on its base towards her.  The old woman gives the doctor a bottle of poison (it's got the familiar skull and crossbones motif) and here the doctor has a comical expression, more befitting of a music hall production.

David Gray now finds himself at a manor. We see the Lord of the Manor (the grave old man who visited Gray) visit his sick daughter, Leone (Sybille Schmitz).  Leone calls out "the blood...the blood" in her delirium.  The father tells the girl's nurse to wait with her until the doctor (uh-oh) gets here.  Gray, looking through a manor window, is now shocked to see the shadow of the one-legged man appear in front of the Lord of the Manor with a shadow rifle.  A shot is fired and the Lord falls.   Gray finds entry and runs to the dying man's aid, as the old servant (Albert Bras) gets to the scene.  The other daughter, pretty, slight Gisele (Rena Mandel) sees her father dead and is comforted by the servant's wife, who asks Gray to stay.

This is an example of how the film leaves us to fill in the blanks.  We know that something supernatural is going on, but just what did happen in David Gray's room with the Lord of the Manor's appearance? Astral projection?  A premonition of death? Similarly, this is not a film for the inattentive. Even a few seconds of pondering one scene can leave you missing important things in the current scene.

David Gray takes out the package that the girls' father gave him earlier.  It turns out to be a book on vampires.  Gray (and the viewer through intertitles) reads that vampires are tormented souls of the deceased wicked, who rise on full moon nights to suck young blood and thus prolong their shadowy existence.  The Prince of Darkness lends them supernatural powers to this aim.  Whole villages can become infected.

Around this time, a carriage rides off from the manor, to fetch the police. We also see, via a camera pan of the sick girl's room, that Leone has disappeared from her bed.   Gisele moves listlessly, as if under a trance (no doubt in shock from her father's sudden death).  Going to the window, she spots her sister outside.  Alerting David, the two of them go to fetch the wandering girl.  We now see the sinister old woman bent over Leone. Hearing someone approaching, the old woman hides in the woods.   David and Gisele come and find Leone lying on the bench where the woman left her.   The old servant and the nurse also arrive on the scene and carry the unconscious girl back to the house.

Back in her sickbed, Leone cries and wishes for death.  "I'm lost," she weeps.  Then as if coming under an evil influence, she starts to smile evilly with a deranged expression.  In an effectively creepy scene with eerie music, Leone's deranged gaze wanders around the room and finally falls on her sister, Gisele and the nurse, who temporarily cower in the corner before the nurse opens the door for Gisele to leave.

Gisele goes back to the drawing room and expresses fear for her sister.  The carriage now returns and the driver is found slumped dead.  Blood spills from a wound and forms on the ground.  As Gisele sleeps (poor girl must be exhausted from all she's seen), Gray reads further of the dead man's book and learns of the account of a village doctor in Hungary, who sold his soul to the devil and became a vampire's accomplice.  Is it just by coincidence that the creepy doctor now arrives?

The doctor checks Leone and claims that she may yet live.  But she will need a blood transfusion.  David Gray agrees to go along with this measure. Back in the drawing room, perceptive Gisele asks "why does the doctor come only at night?"   Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings indeed.  The servant begins to read the book that Gray has discarded for the time being (all this reading about vampire lore along with the characters is, of course, reminiscent of Nosferatu).  We learn that with the victim in their power, the vampire will now try to push them to suicide and thus deliver the poor victim to the devil.

Meanwhile, the doctor tells the nurse to rest and he will watch over the patient.   When the nurse is reluctant, the doctor rather rudely insists.  The servant reads on and learns that to kill a vampire, you must nail its repulsive soul to the earth with an iron stake.  He also learns of a previous murderous epidemic in Courtempierre a quarter of a century before.

An old woman, Margueritte Chopin, was believed to be a vampire.  She had died in mortal sin, unrepentant and was refused the church's last sacrament.  Despite this suspicion, the alleged vampire was never staked (with all this relevant information on the current problem being found in a book, the film is sort of a cautionary tale to copycat killers everywhere).

David Gray is in a weakened state, from the blood transfusion and dreams (to the accompaniment of thundering music evoking a storm) of a skeleton holding a bottle of poison.  Eerie.  The servant comes to awaken Gray.  Leone's hand reaches towards the bottle of poison that the doctor has helpfully left within reach.  Gray rushes in and struggles with the doctor, who runs off.  However, in a pan of the drawing room, we can see that there is now no sign of Gisele. The nurse attends to Leone, who is now afraid of dying cursed.  Gray goes to pursue the doctor, while the servant instructs the nurse that Leone must survive the night to avoid becoming a vampire.

David Gray, in his pursuit, falls from his weakened state.  He sits on a bench and here we see him split into two forms. His spirit form leaves the other sitting on the bench and goes to the ruined building where the villains were earlier occupied.  Gray makes a grim discovery when he comes across his own body in a coffin.  He also spies Gisele tied up in a locked room.

The doctor returns and Gray observes him hiding the key to the room in an old grandfather clock. A legendary and eerie sequence follows in which we see a dispassionate point of view shot of the coffin lid being lowered on David Gray's body.  The coffin is then taken through the street, past ringing church bells, to the cemetery.  The sound of the church bells and the weird camera angles make this one of the most impressive sequences of early horror cinema.

Gray now awakens on the bench again and joins the old servant in opening the tomb of the old woman (who is indeed the aforementioned Marguerite Chopin).  The vampire is staked and turns to a skeleton.  Touchingly, at this moment, Leone now senses that she is free. It would seem though that just as Chopin lent power to her human helpers, now she wishes to take them to the grave with her.  The doctor and the one-legged man are confronted by her face at the window (and the return of the stormy music). They flee in terror from her wraith.  The one-legged man screams and is seen to have fallen down the stairs, lying dead. The doctor runs into a flourmill.

David Gray meanwhile retrieves the key to the locked room and frees Gisele.  They go to the lake and board the rowing boat there.  The doctor becomes trapped in the mill and the machinery starts up, seemingly on it's own.  The doctor is smothered to death in the flour.  Gray and Gisele row through fog and finally reach the other side, where they walk hand in hand through the woods.

Carl Dreyer was already hailed as the greatest director to come out of Danish cinema by the time he came to make this movie.  His most recent film beforehand, The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) is celebrated as a masterpiece. He was also seen as a fanatical perfectionist, however, and when Vampyr was criticized, it was ten years before his next film.

Much of the cast were non-professionals (as with a later eerie classic horror Carnival Of Souls that somewhat resembles this film).  Julian West is only listed for one more film, an uncredited appearance in Zee And Co. (1972).  Maurice Schutz, on the other hand, had also appeared in Dreyer's aforementioned Joan of Arc picture and went onto other projects.  Albert Bras had been in a few films before Vampyr. Sybill Schmitz starred in many films after her role of Leone here but committed suicide in 1955.

The other key players are only listed for this one film in the Internet Movie Database and the one-legged man is not listed there or in my print at all.

If you've seen the later Hammer films (especially The Vampire Lovers) based on Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," you'll probably be surprised that this is "loosely" based on the same story.  Not surprising, due to when it was made, there's none of the lesbian aspects usually associated with film adaptations of this story.  The notion of an old, infirm woman seems an unusual choice of vampire, but this is part of what sets the film apart from most other vampire movies and horror films (even those of the time).