A HORROR film made with wind-up cine cameras by a group of York teenagers more than half a century ago has been found in an attic and is set to be premiered later this month.

The movie, When The Moon Is High, was created in 1965 by members of the Apollo Junior Film group, based in Lady Peckett's Yard off Pavement.

John Skelton, formerly of York but who now lives in Slovakia, said it featured three murders in 16 minutes, with the late Roy Clinch playing a Werewolf and using a real coffin in a scene.

"The make-up took hours to put on," he said. "There were shocked looks when Roy drove through York for the scenes in the open countryside."

Roy's co-stars were Penny and Elizabeth Nicholls, with Antony Booth on the camera, Ian Symonds on sound and Bill Thomson directing.

The original 8mm film was silent and so a sound track was created on a reel to reel tape deck, which had to be synchronised very carefully to be played at the same time as the film, with an accuracy achieved of about a second or so. "Lip Sync was not possible. The only way that could be done was to get a copy of the film made with a magnetic stripe glued to the film edge."

Bill, who lives in Stamford Bridge, said the film had long been lost but he had found it in a box in his attic last year when work was being done on his roof.

The film was taken to the Yorkshire Film Archive, based at York St John University, where it has since been digitised.

Megan McCooley, moving image archivist, said she was very excited to hear about the collection of films made by the Apollo club, as it was quite different to the content the archive already had of York. "The collection is accessible at the archive for local audiences," she added.

Mr Skelton said the digital DVD copy provided by Yorkshire Film Archive had now been remastered to correct and alter sound levels, and this improved version would be shown in Slovakia to children at Lupca Junior School, near his home, as an end of year treat on June 28.