Sometimes I pick a movie to watch just from the title, going in blind as to what it might be about. For THE VOURDALAK, I’m glad I did, as it ended up being a fun treat. If you want to avoid having a main part that gave me so much glee spoiled, stop reading here and go watch the movie.
I had a passing familiarity with the term, which informed my choice. This French film is based on The Family of the Vourdalak by A.K. Tolstoy (yes he is a relative of Leo), wherein a French diplomat on his way home loses his horse and ends up staying with a family where strange things start to happen. The movie begins the same way, with Marquis Jacques Saturnin du Antoine losing his horse after being robbed. Knocking on the first door he comes to, the inhabitant won’t open up and instead instructs him to follow the path down the way to another home where a man named Gorcha lives. This Gorcha will help him, he is told.
The Marquis does what he is told, encountering a strange woman and a dog along the way, and reaches the house and meets the family who lives there. Gorcha is not at home, however, as he has gone off to fight the Turks who had stolen from their village. The eldest son, Jegor, only realizes this when he comes home and goes to check on h is father. In the note he left, he warns them that if he shows up after six days to not let him in as he will have become a vourdalak. Jegor says he can find a horse but it will have to wait a day as he has to go out and search for his father.
In the meantime, the Marquis attempts to seduce the daughter of Gorcha, Sdenka, and almost gets knocked off a cliff for his efforts. She’s damaged goods, apparently, as she had loved a man who was killed and now nobody wants to be with her. That doesn’t stop Jacques from pining for her though, and also spying on her at night with his telescope.
That evening, Gorcha is found lying at the edge of the forest and he is brought to the dinner table. There is immediately something off about him and as his hat and scarf are removed, you can see why. Gorcha is a marionette! I was not expecting that at all and I won’t lie, I clapped a little when I saw it. It’s a weird choice that could have been done with makeup, but it works so much better this way, I think. Especially since everyone treats him like a regular actor instead of a wooden man. He looks sort of like a puppet Nosferatu, though the family doesn’t suspect anything is wrong. They just think that their father is back, along with the head of the Turk leader that he slew. But it is clear to the Marquis that something is very, very wrong.
Everything takes a turn for the creepy then, and Jacques learns what a vourdalak is from Sdenka and her other brother Piotr as they fear their father has returned as one. Will they be able to stop him or will he end up drinking the blood of the others and turning them all into vourdalaks as well?
THE VOURDALAK is a stunning and well-crafted film by Adrien Beau. It’s got atmosphere for days and the sense of unsettling, creeping dread just permeates every frame once Gorcha returns. You would think that would be the opposite using a marionette but he’s puppeteered so well that it only adds to the surrealness of it. The cast is solid and I’m not familiar with any of them, but Ariane Labed was a standout to me.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Eastern European legends and the vourdalak is one that I was excited to learn about. I knew that they preferred to feed on the blood of family but the chewing on their burial shroud to stop their salivating was a cool and creepy touch, especially when that was all your could hear in the dark.
If you enjoy a good vampire movie, you owe it to yourself to check out THE VOURDALAK.
