The first foray into sound filmmaking by one of cinema’s pivotal artists, Vampyr remains a cornerstone work of the horror genre. The dreamlike tale of an occult-obsessed student’s visit to a small French village, as he is drawn into the unsettling mystery around a stricken family’s struggle with malevolent forces, remains an unparalleled evocation of the uncanny.
Adapting the haunted stories of Sheridan Le Fanu, Dreyer’s ceaseless innovation delivers a tour-de-force of supernatural phantasmagoria and creeping unease, via audacious camerawork and sound design.
Presented from an all-new 2K restoration by the Danish Film Institute, supported by the MEDIA program Creative Europe, and taking more than a decade to complete – materials from several European archives (including the BFI, CNC and DFI) have been meticulously scanned and assessed to create the highest quality and most faithful version of Vampyr possible. Now unveiled for the film’s 90th anniversary, one of the most visually and aurally distinctive horror films ever made finally comes to Blu-ray in the UK, in a definitive incarnation that achieves the full experience Dreyer intended audiences to have.
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Choice of restored or unrestored audio track
- Audio commentary by critic and programmer Tony Rayns
- Audio commentary by filmmaker and Vampyr fan Guillermo del Toro
- Visual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer’s Vampyr influences
- New video interview with author and critic Kim Newman on Vampyr's unique place within vampire cinema
- Two new video interviews with music and cultural historian David Huckvale on the film's score and its adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu
- Carl Th. Dreyer (1966) – a documentary by Jörgen Roos
- Two deleted scenes, removed by the German censor in 1932
- The Baron – a short MoC documentary about Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg
- A collector’s booklet featuring a 1964 interview with Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg (producer and actor "Allan Gray"), an essay by Dreyer on film style, and writing by Tom Milne, Jean and Dale Drum, and film restorer Martin Koerber