Vampyr

  28th May 22:00 - Live at Cheltenham Playhouse

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, where 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, Carl Th. Dreyer's ceaseless innovation delivers a tour-de-force of supernatural phantasmagoria and creeping unease, via audacious camerawork and sound design. Restoration by the Danish Film Institute took more than a decade to complete – materials from several European archives 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 returns to cinemas. Don’t miss it.