Vampyr

Movie Information

In Brief: The Asheville Film Society returns to Black Cloud with a very special event just in time for Halloween — a screening of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr (1932) with a live musical accompaniment from local musician Transformation Rite, who has composed a score specifically for the occasion. Dreyer's film, based very loosely on Bram Stoker's Dracula and J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," is easily among the most complex and aesthetically interesting of the early vampire films, bearing more in common with the surrealist shorts of Buñuel than with Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), with which Vampyr shares source material. It's potentially even more of a stretch to compare Vampyr to contemporary films like Browning's Freaks or Karl Freund's The Mummy, both also released in '32. This is a film that operates on its own peculiar dream logic and boasts some of the most inventive and disturbing in-camera effects work in cinema history. Transformation Rite's original score, incorporating cello, mandolin and looped vocals more than measures up to the creepiness on screen, making this screening an event not to be missed.
Score:
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Genre: Horror
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gérard
Rated: NR

The Asheville Film Society co-hosts a special screening of  Vampyr with local musician Transformation Rite performing an original score at The Black Cloud on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 8 p.m.

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