24 April 2008

Danish cinema maestro Carl Theodor Dreyer will always have a place in our hearts for the magnificent 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc), but just four years later made a film that was every bit as visually striking and visionary, the haunting Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Grey, more widely known simply as Vampyr.

With Vampyr, Dreyer's brilliance at 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 at an inn 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.

Vampyr has been announced for a July DVD release by Criterion as a Double-Disc Special Edition with the following features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the 1998 film restoration by Martin Koerber and the Cineteca di Bologna;
• Optional all-new English-text version of the film;
• Audio commentary featuring film scholar Tony Rayns;
• Carl Th. Dreyer (1966), a documentary by Jörgen Roos chronicling Dreyer's career;
• Visual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer's influences in creating Vampyr;
• A 1958 radio broadcast of Dreyer reading an essay about filmmaking;
• New and improved English subtitle translation;
• A booklet featuring new essays by Mark Le Fanu and Kim Newman, Martin Koerber on the restoration, and an archival interview with producer and star Nicolas de Gunzburg, as well as a book featuring Dreyer and Christen Jul's original screenplay and Sheridan Le Fanu 1871 story "Carmilla," a source for the film.

Vampyr will be released on US DVD by Criterion in July 2008 (exact date to be confirmed) at the SRP of $39.95.