This was a new one for me. I really don't watch enough old films like this. Vampyr is really, really good. It's a very well shot film with a tense, unnerving atmosphere and sublime use of shadows. I found the story as well as the visuals to be very engaging, the protagonist is a student of the supernatural named Allan Gray who travels to a small French village to study and is almost immediately assailed by all kinds of evil spirits and hallucinations. Death imagery runs rampant in the film, one of the very first shots is the picture above, an old man with a scythe. At one point Allan is led to a castle by disembodied shadows that appear to have no human origin, and upon entering he finds a doctor's office full of skulls and skeletons. The entire film has an eerie, almost dreamlike tone, and although this is a sound film there is very little talking. Much of the backstory is developed by Allan or another character reading a mysterious book that is left to Allan about demonic creatures called Vampyrs who feed on human blood and essentially serve Satan. It's quite a bit more dark than most vampire films, vampires are often referred to as demons but this movie deliberately portrays them as servants of the devil. The role of the vampyr in this particular story is to enslave the souls of the living, drain their life force and eventually compel them to commit suicide, delivering their souls to Satan. It's pretty heavy stuff, and the visual aspect of Vampyr reflects this as well. The whole movie just feels like one long nightmare. The tone is dark and intense right from the start, and it never lets up on the suspense until the very end. Many may not appreciate the technical elements that serve Vampyr so well as a horror film, but I would say that this is one of the best and most entertaining vampire movies ever made and anyone who is a fan of these mythical, horrifically evil creatures owes it to themselves to watch it.
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