“This strange, unique film is the supreme example of horror sensed rather than seen, evil suggested rather than exposed. The story...concerns a young man, David Gray, who comes to spend a night in a lonely inn. The location is vague but has a somewhat Swiss or Austrian (or Transylvanian?) character. In the middle of the night - a weird, non-dark, creeping night - a stranger slips into his room and gives him a parcel, telling him to open it should the stranger die....
“No outline of the vague, deliberately confused story (never clearly defined) can convey anything of the extraordinary atmosphere engendered by (Vampyr.) The conventional trappings of horror are not displayed, except in one or two incidents.... all else is done by hints and suggestions. Shadows have apparently no solid counterparts; weird unexplained sounds are heard, such as barking dogs and crying children where none exist; characters appear and disappear without reason or motive; at any moment, one feels buildings and persons are liable to dissolve into mist. Only evil itself is real - and that is invisible.” --Ivan Butler, “The Horror Film.”