Le Vourdalak

The Vourdalak is a stylish, low-budget French movie from 2023 in which a noble emissary of the King of France seeks refuge in the home of a family living deep in the woods. Soon, they are confronted by an evil that begins to consume both the family and their new guest.

From the cover, it's clear that The Vourdalak is a film about a vampire-like creature. The cover design is unique and eerie, which certainly piqued my interest in watching the movie. It successfully captures the historical time frame, with spectacular costumes and set designs. The film has a mysterious atmosphere steeped in fantasy elements. The acting was strong, and the small cast of characters was engaging. I particularly enjoyed the dark approach, which had a few surprises up its sleeve, especially in the third act, where a memorable scene occurs that lingers long after the credits roll.

Overall, the movie manages to be distinctive enough to provide a memorable experience. However, it never fully immersed me in the story. The pacing felt a bit slow, which is a subjective criticism but hard to overlook. My biggest issue, though, lies with the use of puppets, especially for the antagonist. This creative choice consistently broke my immersion. I found myself distracted, imagining the behind-the-scenes mechanics of the puppetry, such as how the puppeteer might be moving at any given moment. This detracted from the film's ability to build a frightening atmosphere and ultimately prevented me from fully engaging with the story. While this may not bother everyone, it was a significant hurdle for me. I do admire those who didn't experience this issue.

The Vourdalak is a unique film with a sophisticated approach, offering something different from the countless movies Hollywood churns out daily. However, it didn't entirely grip me, which affected my overall experience. Perhaps it might work better on a second watch, but for now, I can't rate the movie any higher. [5.2/10]

LE VOURDALAK (The Vourdalak) poses as the debut full lenght feature film of newcommer French director Adrien Beau. I was lucky enough to catch this film on the 64th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. From its very first shot LE VOURDALAK feels like a film made between the late 60s and early 70s somewhere between Central and Eastern Europe. It combines the atmosphere of those regions and times perfectly, managing to transcend the viewer in a wondrous place in the woods, constantly evoking the idea that something evil lurks there.

LE VOURDALAK explores the idea/legend of the vampire with a much more traditional, unique approach in comparison with the many vampire movies that we've been used to in the past years. Drawing his essence from Tolstoy's classic gothic novella, "The Family of the Vourdalak", Adrien Beau crafts a unique take on the vampire legend with samples of practical effects, performative acting, experimental montage and ordinary horror musical elements.

In its core, the film offers a daring, enchanting, tragic horror tale that, at times, is caught between the realisation of its classic background tale and the exaggeration of its daring fresh approach. Meaning that, yes, the story is based on a classic legend, in which Beau paints with his own gothic imagination, that strays from its horrific nature and leans more on the dramatic aspect of a tragic story.

This movie deserves a much higher rating than the 5.8 it currently has on IMDB. It's a black-comedy vampire yarn based on same Tolstoy story Mario Bava adapted in the movie Black Sabbath, where the Vourdalak was played by a green-faced Boris Karloff. (The Vourdalak is based on a type of vampire from Slavic legend who returns from the dead to haunt and feed of of his own family.) The acting in this adaptation is superb and it is dripping with deadpan comic sensibility, placing it in the same general class as The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, Evil Dead, Drag Me to Hell and other movies whose greatness derives from the fact that they play as well as comedies as they do as horror films. The actors are all well directed and have great chemistry, with the elegant, dark electrifying pathos of Ariane Labed's performance dominating the screen. Costumes and makeup are top-notch, the sets are great, the lighting and camerawork is well-done and the editing is tight, efficient and deftly paced. As far as the monster itself - well, I won't spoil that surprise for you.

It's just a rilly rilly entertaining hidden gem that will delight veteran horror enthusiasts.

A number of reviews seem to consider the film a dark comedy. While the main character behaves a bit foolishly at times and the vourdalak's looks maybe lack finesse, I didn't see it that way myself, so I thought I'd share my two cents.

From old Russian, Czech, and maybe also Polish scary movies (made roughly some time before the late 80s) that I have seen, the style of the vourdalak's appearance in this film makes me think this was done as an homage.

There's just something about it and the entire film... The closest movie I can think of that this feels similarly creepy to is "Viy", an old Russian movie. (If you've seen that movie and liked it, by the way, then you'll probably like this. If you liked this movie, then you should definitely try to check that one out.)

I might be totally wrong, but this movie felt like it was from another time, maybe also because the creature was real (be it makeup or a puppet, it was a practical effect) and not cgi. (Nothing wrong with digital effects, mind you; I rather love them all.)

The only hint of modernity in this was a jump scare at one point.

Other than that, this movie could have fit right in among the other strange creepy movies in the box set called "All the Haunts Be Ours".

If the title sounds familiar, it's probably because you recognize "wurdulak" as the word for the vampire in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath. This is another version of that story by A. K. Tolstoy, and it's a peculiar mix of folk horror and vampire myth. It's slow - Bava told the story in 1/3 the time - but very enjoyable, with a charming performance by. Kacey Mottet Klein as Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfe, prancing around the Russian forest in his powdered face, beauty spot, wig and stockings. Imagine Barry Lyndon in The Company of Wolves. If you like your vampires on the European weirdness side, give this a watch!