Vampyr

Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (German: Vampyr - Der Traum des Allan Grey) was his first sound film, made between The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and the later Day of Wrath (1943). Much of the money came from Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, an Anglo-Russian aristocrat who also plays the lead under the pseudonym Julian West. It is his only screen credit, taken largely as a way of underwriting the production.

The film was shot in Courtempierre, a small commune in the Loiret département of north-central France, in the autumn of 1930. The cinematographer was Rudolph Maté, the Polish-born DP who had also shot The Passion of Joan of Arc and would later emigrate to Hollywood for a long career as both cinematographer and director. His deliberately overexposed, pre-fogged 35mm photography here is among the most discussed camerawork of early sound cinema.

The film is loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novella Carmilla and the 1872 collection In a Glass Darkly in which it appears, although the screenplay by Dreyer and Christen Jul is largely original. The German-French production was shot in three language versions simultaneously (German, English and French), mostly with the same actors and re-recorded dialogue. Sight & Sound's 2022 critics' poll placed the film on its Greatest Films of All Time list. The Murnau-Stiftung, the BFI and the Cineteca di Bologna have collaborated on several full restorations since the early 2010s. Few horror films, before or since, have been as original.