"VAMPYR is perhaps the most effective and most radical Surrealist movie ever made.”
--Richard Brody, The New Yorker
With VAMPYR, an arthouse master of the silent era turned his attention to the horror genre with his ethereal, torturous, and haunting follow-up to the terrifying THE PASSION OF JOAN ARC. An adaptation of the Victorian short story “Carmilla,” VAMPYR was Dreyer’s first sound film, yet he stuck close to silent-era storytelling technique, minimizing dialogue and utilizing intertitles.
A drifter obsessed with the supernatural encounters a French inn where a young woman is succumbing to a mysterious blood-borne disease. As she transforms into a creature of the night, he must confront the town’s castle and its decrypted inhabitant to save her. Unsettling and deeply erotic, Dreyer’s film was a forbearer of the future vampire genre. With its dreamy, hypnotic visuals and reinvention of narrative form, it was largely dismissed upon its release, but today is considered a keywork in both Dreyer’s filmography and the horror genre. Add stunning cinematography from Rudolph Maté and set design from Hermann Warm, VAMPYR is a surrealist horror masterpiece not to be missed this All Hallows’ Eve. (ALICIA FLETCHER)
Live accompaniment by Ugly Beauties (Marilyn Lerner, Matt Brubeck, and others TBC)
Silent Revue is curated by Alicia Fletcher
Silent Revue is sponsored by Hollywood Suite
Special event sponsorship from Bill Mohan Reality