The Big Picture
The Vourdalak
offers a unique take on the vampire genre, mixing silly, sinister, and haunting elements.- Based on Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's novella,
The Vourdalak
's eerie dread leads to an inevitable yet no less haunting descent into destruction. - The film combines dark humor with surprising emotional impact, making it a vibrant and visceral vampire vision worth the watch.
No Nosferatu in theaters until December got you down? Don’t you fret, as there is already a great vampire movie this year in Adrien Beau's feature debut The Vourdalak. Similar in many regards to the recent filmEl Conde in terms of its confident tonal swings while remaining a beguiling vision all its own, this is a work of historical horror that then gets smashed together with a unique take on a well-worn genre to often fascinating results. It’s a strange, silly, and sinister experience before becoming surprisingly shattering in an ending that hits you almost out of nowhere. It’s the type of film that feels like it’s truly flown under the radar this year yet could not be more fascinating to take in. There is much that could easily lose some people when they behold elements of its grand design, but for those willing to get on its wavelength, you’re in for a treat as beautiful to look at as it is unexpectedly haunting.
What Is 'The Vourdalak' About?
This all begins when trouble befalls the borderline buffoonish emissary of the King of France Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfé (Kacey Mottet-Klein) in an attack that plays out offscreen and leaves him stranded in the remote countryside. When we first meet him, he is running up to the door of a stranger and seeking help. Rather than welcome him in, the man behind it merely opens the sliding peephole à la the recent Oddity. With a stormy night illuminating the scene and effectively setting the mood, our protagonist is told to go up the road a ways to another family that will take him in. He just better not dally getting there.
His arrival is where things go from bad to oh so very much worse as all is not well in this mansion. The patriarch is missing after having gone off into battle and everyone seems to be on edge, promising their new guest a horse to send him on his way just as things start to unravel. When the father returns, he is no longer the man that left in profound and petrifying ways. Now, everyone will soon be at risk of being consumed by the darkness, both metaphorical in terms of the horrors of war and literal in the way he haunts the night that he has brought back with him. No matter how much they may futilely plead with him for mercy and desperately attempt to escape his clutches, there is no getting free from the nightmare that will be the remainder of their lives in the house.
It’s not a spoiler to say The Vourdalak is a vampire film, but its origins remain entirely its own. Based on Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy's 1839 novella “The Family of the Vourdalak,” which predatedBram Stoker’s classic “Dracula” by many decades, the screenplay by Beau and Hadrien Bouvier drills down in on a sense of eerie dread that is hard to initially pin down. Initially, we wander through the woods and get to know the family, feeling their fear that not only may their father be gone forever, but that something worse may have befallen them. This turns out to be a correct concern to have as, in an excellent dinner scene that feels almost darkly comical, his return immediately brings death. This is only the beginning, as the film is about the slow descent into utter destruction that is as inevitable as it is unsettling.
'The Vourdalak' Is a Vibrant Vampire Vision
Without tipping off what the titular vourdalak, a kind of vampire in Slavic folklore who the director himself is having a ball voicing, looks like, it’s a rather bizarre yet bold creative choice involving a marionette that plays off the more you get to see it. Even when the film can drag a bit here and there in the getting to his arrival, once he’s there, you won’t ever want to go back. Even as it may initially throw you, you best stick with it as it goes to some delightfully dark places that all look great in the eye of David Chizallet who shoots in 16mm to menacing and magical effect. As you keep observing the beautiful visuals he creates, you can’t help but get increasingly swept up in the impending doom that is about to befall these unlucky souls.
Though it could easily test patience by just looking for more straightforward gore and violence, when we get to the main course of this feast, it only makes the wait all the more worth it. Not only is there a dark sense of humor to the whole affair, including a great final zinger to tie it all together, but there is also plenty of surprising emotional impact that it taps into. Namely, a conversation that takes place on the edge of a cliff gets brought back around for a fitting moment in the end that sends you into an emotional freefall of your own. It’s an experience where the humor and the horror go hand-in-hand, making for a hidden gem that, even as it requires wiping away some blood, proves to be a vibrant vision to get lost in.
REVIEW
The Vourdalak
The Vourdalak is a gem of a feature debut from Adrien Beau that presents a visceral and vibrant vision of a vampire unlike anything you've ever seen before.
- The film is fascinating in so many ways, from the design of the vampire to the tonal swings, proving to be a work that feels like it's flown under the radar.
- David Chizallet's beautiful cinematography creates a menacing and magical effect, sweeping you up in the experience.
- The ending brings with it a surprising emotional impact, sending you into freefall just as it lands one last ziner.
The Vourdalak is now playing in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes near you.
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