Shadow agents: Ecohorror and ambient dread in Vampyr (1932)

This article reads Carl Theodor Dreyer’s seminal film Vampyr (1932) using the concept of ambient ecohorror. By relegating the vampiric threat to off-screen space and approaching horror indirectly, Vampyr relies on a technique of drawing our attention elsewhere, to the ambient, material environments in which the film’s protagonist is enmeshed. Emmanuel Levinas’s formulation of existential horror using the concept of il y a (‘there is’) provides a philosophical template for understanding the ambient qualities of horror in Vampyr . The article also uses a variety of eco-materialist approaches to understand the film’s singular importance to the history of horror and to resituate the film as a foundational work of cinematic ecohorror.