CRITERION COLLECTION 

Denmark
1932
73 minutes
Black and White
1.19:1
German
 
Spine #437
With Vampyr, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s brilliance at achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery (The Passion of Joan of Arc and Day of Wrath) was for once applied to the horror genre. Yet the result—concerning an occult student assailed by various supernatural haunts and local evildoers in a village outside Paris—is nearly unclassifiable, a host of stunning camera and editing tricks and densely layered sounds creating a mood of dreamlike terror. With its roiling fogs, ominous scythes, and foreboding echoes, Vampyr is one of cinema’s great nightmares.

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:

The original German version in a new high-definition digital transfer from the 1998 restoration by Martin Koerber and the Cineteca di Bologna
Newly credited alternate version with English text
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Tony Rayns
Carl Th. Dreyer (1966), a documentary by Jørgen Roos chronicling Dreyer’s career
Visual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer’s influences in creating Vampyr
Radio broadcast from 1958 of Dreyer reading an essay about filmmaking
New and improved English subtitle translation

ISO UNTOUCHED PERFECT COPY