Vampyr
(DVD) 

Frei nach dem roman [Freely after the novel] 'In a glass darkly' von [by] J. [Joseph] Sheridan Le Fanu.

Title from feature.

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1931/32.

Based on the book : In a glass darkly / by J. [Joseph] Sheridan Le Fanu.

"VAMPYR was produced in 1931/32 in German, French, and English versions. The original negative for picture and sound was lost. Partially complete prints of the German and French versions served as the basis for this restoration. The new German version of 1998 was a collaboration between Cineteca del Comune de Bologna, Deutsche Kinemathek and ZDF/Arte."--Opening screen note.

Special features (disc 1): optional "English-text version", optional audio commentary by film scholar Tony Rayns.

Special features (disc 2): "Carl Th. Dreyer" biographical documentary (30 min.); "Visual essay" critical essay featurette (36 min.); "Dreyer radio broadcast" audio recording of Dreyer reading an essay on filmmaking (24 min.).

Photographie, Rudolph Maté ; musik, Wolfgang Zeller; dialogregie und tonschnitt [dialog direction/sound editing], Paul Falkenberg.

Julian West (Allan Gray), Maurice Schutz (Der Schlossherr [The lock gentleman]), Rena Mandel (Giséle), Sybille Schmitz (Léone, seine töchter [his daughter]), Jan Hieronimko (der Dorfarzt [The village physician]), Henriette Gerard (Die alte Frau vom Friedhof [The old woman of the cemetery]), Albert Bras (Die alte Diener [The old servant]), N. Babanini (seine Frau [his wife]), Jane Mora (Die Krankenschwester [the nurse]).

"With Vampyr, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyser's brilliance of achieving mesmerizing atmosphere and austere, profoundly unsettling imagery 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 rolling fogs, ominous scythes, and foreboding echoes, Vampyr is one of cinema's great nightmares."--Container.

Disc 1: "This is the tale of the strange adventures of young Allan Gray, who immersed himself in the study of devil worship and vampires. Preoccupied with superstitions of centuries past, he became a dreamer for whom the line between the real and the supernatural became blurred. His aimless wanderings led him late one evening to a secluded inn by the river in a village called Courtempierre"--Title screen. Grey starts seeing weird, inexplicable sights (a man whose shadow has a life of its own, a mysterious scythe-bearing figure tolling a bell, a terrifying dream of his own burial) but things come to a head when one of the daughters of the lord of the castle succumbs to anaemia - or is it something more sinister?

Disc 2: Supplements.

Not rated.

DVD; Dolby digital mono; 1.19:1 aspect ratio.

Feature in German with German intertitles and optional English subtitles; special features in German with English intertitles and optional English subtitles.