Climb the narrow stairs up a church to a hidden medical operating theatre from Victorian times, to watch a horror movie from the 1930s.
One of the first psychological horror features, Vampyr bridges the era of silent and sound films, a young wanderer arrives at a village which is under the curse of a vampire and is taken on an illusory voyage through light and darkness (roiling fogs, forbidding scythes and grim echoes) to a point where he can imagine his own burial.
Director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s experimental approach plunges the viewer into a torment where it’s uncertain where the nightmare ends and reality begins; exemplifying the idea of dreaming with our eyes open and that fear is not to be found in the things around us but in our own subconscious.
That you are watching it in a Victorian operating theatre adds to the effect.
The film will be preceded by an introduction by Gareth Miles. A donations cash bar will available before the screening.
“The only film worth watching….twice” said Alfred Hitchcock.
Vampyr will be shown at the Old Operating Theatre on Thur 24th October at 7pm. Tickets cost £12 and can be booked here.
