FRIGHTFEST LONDON

MALPERTUIS

UK Premiere of the 4K restoration - Discovery SCREEN Two 

Director: Harry Kumël. Stars: Orson Welles, Susan Hampshire, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Pierre Cassel. Belgium 1971. 125 mins.

A triumph of bravura conception and stunning design, Belgian director Harry Kumel’s adaptation of Jean Ray’s macabre fantasy novel is a dazzlingly audacious cult chiller showing for the first-time in a 4K restored print. Malpertuis is the crumbling, ancient maze-like mansion where a dying warlock has trapped the aging Olympian gods inside the ‘skins’ of ordinary Flemish citizens and cursed them to eke out a woeful bourgeois existence. Fabulous gothic sets generate a surreal sense of earthbound ethereality (reinforced by veteran Gerry Fisher’s gorgeous cinematography) and Orson Welles’ playful performance is the jewel in the crown of weird wonderfulness.