Friday, October 29, 2010

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Vampyr

For a while at least, the good folks at Hulu.com have made Carl Theodor Dreyer's horror classic Vampyr available for viewing. And how do you know it's a classic? Why, because it received Katie Award nominations for best foreign language picture and best director—it must be good.

Just part of our ongoing mission here at the Monkey to cram a little culture down your throat.

And now with limited commercial interruption, Vampyr.

7 comments:

Uncle Tom said...

better to cram culture than asparagus...yuck

I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for Asparagus

La Petite Gallery said...

I used to like asparagus. That movie Dinner at eight is an ole favorite and also Suzie with Cary Grant and Harlow.
I need a little culture.

yvonne

mister muleboy said...

I enjoy asparagus. I steam it, then crush fresh black pepper on it.

Good times.

I also like to steam brocolli, and then eat it with various mustards.

A mythical monkey looks at the kitchen. . . .

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

Ms. Who is out visiting me in my apartment this weekend so we gathered around my antique 17-inch Dell monitor Saturday night to watch Vampyr (via the Mythical Monkey) for the first time. We enjoyed the hey out of it! Thanks for posting. I'm batting 2 for 2 watching movies posted at the Monkey!

So afterward I'm looking online for plot summaries but as far as I can tell nobody has accounted for my interpretation (probably because it's wrong!) that the shadow soldier didn't really "shoot" the old manor guy despite the look and sound of a rifle shot, but rather the old man had a heart attack. How else to account for the failure of anyone to look for his wound or try to stop bleeding etc. And that's why they'd try to spoon some medicine down him. I REST my CASE! (Ouch, Mr. Who, your case ... it's on my foot ...)

Mythical Monkey said...

We enjoyed the hey out of it! Thanks for posting. I'm batting 2 for 2 watching movies posted at the Monkey!

My work here is done.

Michael Powers said...

Just saw this movie on a full-sized theatre screen at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York a couple of hours ago and I don't know what to make of this one. For openers, I'm not even sure whether the vampire was a man or woman, but it had some definitely creepy elements. The version I saw had a much stronger ending screened after the usual ending and I can understand why it was toned down: you see the suffering torture of the character being suffocated, and the hammer striking the stake as it's being driven through the vampire's heart. I regretfully missed Murnau's "Nosferatu," an infinitely better movie (the best vampire film ever made or that ever will be made) there on Saturday, one of my favorites, but I did want to see this out of curiosity.

Michael Powers said...

I neglected to mention that the version I saw lacked subtitles and I don't speak German, which probably accounts for my confusion about presumably obvious matters like the gender of the vampire. I'm going to look around online and try to figure that one out. I may also have to watch both "Nosferatu" and "Dracula" (with Lugosi) to clear my palate after this one.