Marking the 125th anniversary of the publication of Bram Stoker’s gothic classic and 100 years since the Count’s big screen debut in Nosferatu, the festival will screen a range of vampire movies at unique locations around Aberdeenshire.

Audiences can watch Interview With The Vampire and Nosferatu in the old library and study hall of the former Catholic seminary Blair College; 1931’s Dracula; and Let Me In late at night at Aden Country Park alongside a tour of Slains Castle, the original inspiration for Dracula’s castle.

The festival opens with two special screenings at the historical Blairs College in Cults, a category B listed former Catholic junior seminary for boys and young men. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst lead an all-star cast in Interview With The Vampire showing in the old Blairs library and Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu – the first ever big screen outing for Dracula, which celebrates 100 years since its first screening – will play in Blairs’s study hall, with a live musical score from David Allison.

Other highlights across the two-weekend festival include the first ever Dracula “talkie”, Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula, screening in Cruden Bay Village Hall, where Bram Stoker himself once gave a talk; Iranian skateboarding feminist vampires in the modern masterpiece A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night at the Belmont Filmhouse; and Let Me In showing at Aden Country Park.

Attendees can also celebrate 35 years since the launch of The Lost Boys at The ARC Cinema in Peterhead while younger film fans looking for family-friendly chills can see the Swedish adventure Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent at Bennachie Leisure Centre and The Little Vampire at Aden Country Park with spooky hands-on craft activities.

Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, has also been commissioned by the festival to create an exclusive online video essay entitled Stoker’s Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen. Responding to the launch of the Festival of Darkness programme he said: “I am most impressed with the line-up you have chosen for your festival”.

Marie Archer, NEAT’s community cinema coordinator , said: “Bram Stoker, the creator of the world’s most famous vampire, spent a few months each summer as a resident of the NE Scottish village of Port Erroll at Cruden Bay, walking the cliffs and dreaming up his vampiric creation. The Kilmarnock Arms Hotel still has the visitors’ book containing the Stokers’ signatures, which helped trace their visits from 1892-1910. The program of films and events celebrates our fear of the darkness and how that fear binds us as an audience.

“Aberdeenshire is a highly rural area with limited access to full-time cinema venues; this festival has chosen venues that will heighten the film-watching experience”.

Attendees can also celebrate 35 years since the launch of The Lost Boys at The ARC Cinema in Peterhead while younger film fans looking for family-friendly chills can see the Swedish adventure Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent at Bennachie Leisure Centre and The Little Vampire at Aden Country Park with spooky hands-on craft activities.

Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, has also been commissioned by the festival to create an exclusive online video essay entitled Stoker’s Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen. Responding to the launch of the Festival of Darkness programme he said: “I am most impressed with the line-up you have chosen for your festival”.

Marie Archer, NEAT’s community cinema coordinator , said: “Bram Stoker, the creator of the world’s most famous vampire, spent a few months each summer as a resident of the NE Scottish village of Port Erroll at Cruden Bay, walking the cliffs and dreaming up his vampiric creation. The Kilmarnock Arms Hotel still has the visitors’ book containing the Stokers’ signatures, which helped trace their visits from 1892-1910. The program of films and events celebrates our fear of the darkness and how that fear binds us as an audience.

“Aberdeenshire is a highly rural area with limited access to full-time cinema venues; this festival has chosen venues that will heighten the film-watching experience”.

Attendees can also celebrate 35 years since the launch of The Lost Boys at The ARC Cinema in Peterhead while younger film fans looking for family-friendly chills can see the Swedish adventure Nelly Rapp: Monster Agent at Bennachie Leisure Centre and The Little Vampire at Aden Country Park with spooky hands-on craft activities.

Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, has also been commissioned by the festival to create an exclusive online video essay entitled Stoker’s Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen. Responding to the launch of the Festival of Darkness programme he said: “I am most impressed with the line-up you have chosen for your festival”.

Marie Archer, NEAT’s community cinema coordinator , said: “Bram Stoker, the creator of the world’s most famous vampire, spent a few months each summer as a resident of the NE Scottish village of Port Erroll at Cruden Bay, walking the cliffs and dreaming up his vampiric creation. The Kilmarnock Arms Hotel still has the visitors’ book containing the Stokers’ signatures, which helped trace their visits from 1892-1910. The program of films and events celebrates our fear of the darkness and how that fear binds us as an audience.

“Aberdeenshire is a highly rural area with limited access to full-time cinema venues; this festival has chosen venues that will heighten the film-watching experience”.

Article by Francesco Bonfanti for The National online.