The most hated film of its time: Supernatural:Carry OnVampyre(1932)
After I witnessed the trainwreck that was the supernatural finale, like everybody else, I asked: Why this story? Why was their last hunt a crappy vampire nest with the lamest vampires ever? Why a nail?
I haven’t thought about it in the last two months, until yesterday when @sapphic_energy reminded me that Jenny had Supernatural’s first queer kiss. Of course, Vampires have been a metaphor for queerness from as far back as their Balkan origin. As we were musing on the fact that Dean was killed by gay monsters (you could say by its own kind) it hit me. It’s not just that Dean was killed by the hand of a vampire, he died the death of one. Metal stake(rebar) through his chest, the way Vampires were pinned to their graves to prevent them from rising again. And for the first time, Dean was laid to permanent rest. It’s another bury your gay death.
Now, one interesting thing here is that vamps in Supernatural don’t die from a stake through the heart, you have to decapitate them. This is a whole different vampire lore. I wondered if I’ll find other real-world vampire references so I started researching. Their mythology was changed a lot by the movies that portrayed them, but one film piqued my interest. Vampyr is a German expressionist horror film, that was shot in the style of a silent-film. You could say, it’s silent vampires. Vampire mimes. Vamp-mimes!
If you are not convinced by this, for some reason, let me tell you how the movie starts: Allan Gray is a student of the supernatural. During his travels, he visits a small french village and stays at an inn. He is awaken from nightmares by a man entering his room. This father tells Allan that his daughter is dying, and leaves him a book about vampires, with the instruction to only open it in case he dies. He leaves Allan with this book and a quest for his unfinished business of saving the girl from the vampire.
Dreyer’s source material for this film was the 1872 novelle Carmilla, a tale of a lesbian vampire told in the form of a case file from an occult detective. Both the movie and the novella are about a hunt for a female vampire who preys on young girls.
Now, this is a pretty nice similarity to how John left the Vampmimes case to his boys through his journal.
This movie uses much older lore, one yet untouched by Hollywood. In it, Vampires are much more spiritual in nature. They are the damned spirits of the gluttonous sinners, who gave into earthly cravings. They prey on the young. Their bite is like possession, their lust infects the victims who will suffer from blood-thirst while their soul suffers from the repulsion they feel towards their cravings. Thus the vampire slowly drives them to suicide, a sin that will damn their soul to hell. The only way to stop this undead (and exorcising them from the victim) is to find their burial and pin them to their grave with a metal stake so they could not rise again. Lust, cravings, shame. The film’s inspiration from its lesbian vampire source material is undeniable.
TW: Dean’s death.
A lot of us were heartbroken to see Dean give up so easily and die from what was essentially assisted suicide, so I hate to see the parallel between the two films, but it’s there. We can’t get more burry your gays than this I’m afraid.
So how do these vampires compare to the final’s vampires? The Vamp-mimes felt different to me even on my first watch. They fit with the non-supernatural lore nicely. Their horrible(and seemingly unnecessary) skull masks make them symbolically more undead, they kidnap young children, the father had to open the door for them(invite them in), we see them exclusively at night and their leader is a lesbian vampire, Jenny.
So let’s say I accidentally stumbled upon the inspiration of this horrible episode. The question is still, WHY? There are two very good reasons why Dabb might have referenced this film.
The protagonist is a man who in his obsession of the supernatural lost sight of what’s real and what is fantasy. Dreyer with his esoteric approach managed to create a dream-like metaphysical experience. The line between dream and reality is not blurred but invisible. It’s visuals create a ghostly world of dancing shadows and ethereal visitations. With its odd pacing and no basic structural logic, the film keeps viewers confused. It’s unsettling compositions, at times leaving the viewer to wonder what exactly is real and what isn’t. At one point Allan’s spirit leaves his body and witnesses his own burial. Oh! And the german title of the film? The dream of Allan Grey. The whole film is an “it’s all a dream” trope basically.
BUT this would be a reference not to the plot, but to how the viewers see the film. So how about a reference to how the viewers felt about the film? Let me copy-paste Wikipedia:
“At this premiere, the audience booed the film which led to Dreyer cutting several scenes out of the film after the first showing. At a showing of the film in Vienna, audiences demanded their money back. When this was denied, a riot broke out that led to police having to restore order with nightsticks. When the film premiered in Copenhagen, Denmark in March 1933, Dreyer did not attend. In the USA, the film premiered with English subtitles under the title Not Against The Flesh; an English-dubbed version, edited severely. Dreyer soon had a nervous breakdown and went to a mental hospital in France. The film was a financial failure.”
Eeeh beginning of a role reversal in which Lala is Allen’s Innocence
When she wakes, she finds herself amidst great destruction. Dead bodies cover the ground, torn apart demons still twitch and her heart keeps beating steadily with a memory she can’t recall but knows she must sing someday. In her broken porcelain arms rests a boy with brown hair and pale skin, clutching the stump where there one must have been an arm.
This is mine, her heart exclaims, protective, possessive enough that she wants to pull the boy into her hollow chest to keep him safe. He wouldn’t fit, of course, and she finds herself cursing her nameless and faceless maker for not giving her a body strong enough to protect her boy as an armor would. She scoops the boy up in her arms and begins to walk, slowly gaining speed until she is confident that she can run with him.
She doesn’t know what happened to her before she woke here, can’t recall her own name or that of the child, but her precious heart is content with the boy near here and so she lingers.
