4 vampire movies in three days.
Friday 3rd Nosferatu (1922)
Classic silent German expressionism. Unlike Caligari where the whole world is set in expressionist fashion, Nosferatu presents a world that that more or less resembles our own. This world is invaded by the expressionistic cloud that Graf Orlock spreads like the plague in his wake.
Saturday 4th Dracula (1931) and Martin (1977)
The Bela Lugosi classic and Goerge Romero's best movie make a fine pairing. The first presents the vampire in all it's gothic, romantic trappings, the second strips them away in a thoroughly satisfying deconstrutionist effort. Martin was without a doubt my favorite vampire movie for years, but it has competition now that I've seen...
Sunday 5th Vampyr: The Dream of Allen Grey (1931)
Absolutely the strangest vampire movie I've ever seen. There is little dialogue and a plot follows dream logic. The film is unsettling without reliance on gore or shock, instead the movie relies on pacing, light manipulation and excellent sound design to fill the movie with a sense of foreboding. The vampire of this movie is a very traditional folkloric kind, of which I wish more were depicted in horror movies and liturature. Instead of existing in any sort of logical physical way by the exacting rules we have all come to expect of the genre, this vampire leaves the grave while remaining in the grave, enslaves shadows and unethical mortals to carry out it's handy work, and works from entrely unclear motivations. This film left me unsettled the whole rest of the evening I watched it. A thouroughly ehjoyable film even lacking in dialogue. In a way it resembles a prototypical David Lynch style film sharing a certain quality with Eraserhead. It also is astonishijng that this is the directer's first sound production an\s the soundtrack is used in thoroughly inovative ways to increase the omnipresent, though not too oppressive, dread of the film.
Next, Der Golem
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