Criterion's Vampyr.

"The relationship between the physical and the spiritual figures heavily in the climax of Vampyr, Dreyer's most thoroughgoing break with conventional realism, with the scariest sequence in this strangest of horror movies predicated on a vision of body and soul ripped asunder," writes Joshua Land at Moving Image Source. "It's only the most dramatic example of how Vampyr approaches many of the same basic questions as the more overtly philosophical later films, questions about the relationship between our systems of belief, religious and otherwise, and our means of knowing and experiencing the world. In Vampyr, the narrative becomes merely one more illusion to be peeled away in Dreyer's pursuit of inner realities."

Updated through 7/23.

The New York Times' Dave Kehr notes that this Criterion release is based on a restoration of the German version overseen by Martin Koerber: "The print is still not pristine, but the signs of age and wear that remain add to the film's mystique: it seems itself an ancient, arcane curio, the cinematic equivalent of the thick little book of vampire lore that falls into the hands of the film's passive hero. Seen today, Vampyr seems to belong less to a narrative tradition than to the avant-garde genre that the critic P Adams Sitney has defined as the 'trance film,' a form that extends from Jean Cocteau's Blood of a Poet (1930) through the work of Maya Deren, James Broughton and Gregory Markopoulos."

"I generally rank it not only as one of the four or five greatest horror films, but also as one of the greatest films ever made, regardless of genre," writes Jeffrey M Anderson at GC's Guru. "It's a masterpiece that still gives me the chills."

Don Kaye relishes the extras at Fangoria and notes that Vampyr is "a cornerstone of horror cinema, not just because it's so supremely unsettling, but because it proves than even a genre looked down upon by so many can be indisputably elevated into art."

"'[M]ust-own', 'essential' all seem understating the value," adds Gary W Tooze at DVD Beaver. "Along with ITV's Blu-ray of Black Narcissus this is my personal favorite DVD of the Year to date."

"It's a movie that viewers have to work at to understand, and screening this film isn't a passive event," notes John Sinnott at DVD Talk.

Update, 7/23: "Vampyr, like Murnau's Nosferatu, is a film that creates a unique and unreproducible atmosphere. It is a perfect melding of genius and available technology; it is one of the most vividly variegated visual works ever." Glenn Kenny thinks back to the day in 1980 that he saw it first.

Posted by dwhudson at July 22, 2008 2:16 PM