Vampyr

Book excerpt: Described by its maker as a 'poem of horror', Vampyr (1932) is one of the founding works of psychological horror cinema, adapted from a collection of gothic stories by Sheridan Le Fanu and directed by the revered Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. Despite the fact that there is no definitive print and many English versions are marred by poor quality subtitles, the film remains a vivid, extraordinary artwork in which the inner human state is made hauntingly visible. In a reading as passionate as it is analytic, David Rudkin reveals how this film systematically binds the spectator – spatially and morally – into its mysterious world of the undead. This second edition features a new foreword, discussion of the Martin Koerber and Cineteca di Bologna restoration of the film in 2008, and original cover artwork by Midge Naylor.