Loosely based on Carl Dreyer's 1932 VAMPYR.
Traumatized by vampires as a youngster, David Gray grows into an adult dedicated to fighting the bloodthirsty forces of evil. He's called to the remote village of Cortempierre, in which innocent humans have become a minority. Witches and vampires hold sway over the countryside thanks to the demonic doings of an evil doctor (John Brent) and the seldom-seen but all-pervasive vampire Marguerite Chopin (Kathy Seyler.) Well before the showdown the audience wonders, along with Gray, if the vampire hunter has bitten off more than he can chew.
Filmed mainly in the restored Eastfield Village in Rensselaer County, NY, VAMPYRE is set in a nebulous time and place, the French sound of "Cortempierre" notwithstanding. This and the film's dreamlike (in some cases nightmarish) atmosphere give the director free reign to be as bizarre as he wants. The "no children–no dogs" dialogue is a deliberately strange carry-over from Dreyer's flick but there is plenty of new weirdness as well. Flouting Hollywood convention, vampires stalk their victims in broad daylight (which often frequently happens in traditional vampire lore.) A topless vampire woman rides around on horseback, for no other reason than the film's distributor demanded it (along with a change in the spelling of the title.) Hallenbeck's own set-pieces include a peasant woman being tied to a piece of farm machinery and murdered and the local Igor-type having his leg lopped off in loving close-up. Later, a character with a musket wound in his face rips off Igor's peg-leg and kills him with it. Non-gore stand-outs include a haunting dance sequence and some well-integrated sepia and black-and-white footage. Most of the players are competent but are dwarfed by the overall strange ambiance of the picture. However, Randy Scott Rozler is a real stand-out as David Gray. He may resemble a member of the Carradine family but his performance is fine taken on its own terms. John Brent as the bad doctor displays a real screen villainy unseen in recent horror flicks and his footage should be shown in acting classes everywhere.
Bloody in certain scenes, fleshy in others, VAMPYRE is and hour and a half of good solid entertainment for broad-minded fans of the ghastly and the weird.
Traumatized by vampires as a youngster, David Gray grows into an adult dedicated to fighting the bloodthirsty forces of evil. He's called to the remote village of Cortempierre, in which innocent humans have become a minority. Witches and vampires hold sway over the countryside thanks to the demonic doings of an evil doctor (John Brent) and the seldom-seen but all-pervasive vampire Marguerite Chopin (Kathy Seyler.) Well before the showdown the audience wonders, along with Gray, if the vampire hunter has bitten off more than he can chew.
Filmed mainly in the restored Eastfield Village in Rensselaer County, NY, VAMPYRE is set in a nebulous time and place, the French sound of "Cortempierre" notwithstanding. This and the film's dreamlike (in some cases nightmarish) atmosphere give the director free reign to be as bizarre as he wants. The "no children–no dogs" dialogue is a deliberately strange carry-over from Dreyer's flick but there is plenty of new weirdness as well. Flouting Hollywood convention, vampires stalk their victims in broad daylight (which often frequently happens in traditional vampire lore.) A topless vampire woman rides around on horseback, for no other reason than the film's distributor demanded it (along with a change in the spelling of the title.) Hallenbeck's own set-pieces include a peasant woman being tied to a piece of farm machinery and murdered and the local Igor-type having his leg lopped off in loving close-up. Later, a character with a musket wound in his face rips off Igor's peg-leg and kills him with it. Non-gore stand-outs include a haunting dance sequence and some well-integrated sepia and black-and-white footage. Most of the players are competent but are dwarfed by the overall strange ambiance of the picture. However, Randy Scott Rozler is a real stand-out as David Gray. He may resemble a member of the Carradine family but his performance is fine taken on its own terms. John Brent as the bad doctor displays a real screen villainy unseen in recent horror flicks and his footage should be shown in acting classes everywhere.
Bloody in certain scenes, fleshy in others, VAMPYRE is and hour and a half of good solid entertainment for broad-minded fans of the ghastly and the weird.