Having been separated from his horse one night in the forests of eastern Europe, Marquis Jacques Saturnin du Antoine (Kacey Mottet Klein), envoy to the King of France, travels alone until he reaches the Gorcha estate, seeking sanctuary.  Upon his arrival, he learns that the patriarch of the family had left on a hunting trip one week prior, leaving his oldest son, Jegor (Grégoire Colin) in charge of the house.  When the father returns to the estate, he looks terribly ill, and while Jegor is quick to bring him back into the home, the rest of the family fears that the man who appeared at the edge of the forest is not their father but something more sinister. 

Adrien Beau directs The Vourdalak, a French-language horror film that premiered at the 2023 edition of the Venice International Film Festival as part of its Critic’s Week offerings and was released the following year in the United States by Oscilloscope.  Written by Beau and Hadrien Bouvier, the pair adapted Aleksei Tolstoy’s 1884 short story La famille du Vourdalak.  From the page to the screen, their adaptation runs a brief 91 minutes, but David Chizallet’s lens captures the wooded estate in all of its dank and dreary glory, and Alan Jobart delivers near-perfect meter in the edit to ensure a dark and heavy dread blankets the audience, lulling them into the next horror always looming just out of frame. 

The film follows a pretty classic dark fairytale template of a wandering stranger in a foreign land where the only refuge is the dark and stormy estate in the corner of nowhere.  The Gorcha home is much more humble than the classic Dracula castle which often comes to mind, but its of-the-people feel makes for a great juxtaposition against Jacques’ more noble background.  Costumed by Anne Blanchard in a prim and posh style complete with a curled wig and a made-up face finished with blush on the cheeks and the penciled-on wart, the starkly affable courtier is a fish out of water, and the film utilizes this not only to separate him and instill a feeling of discomfort but to lay the groundwork of a drama where the two classes collide.  A forbidden romance begins to form between the traveler and Jegor’s daughter, Sdenka (Ariane Labed), creating a grounded tension that will drive the film long before the supernatural takes over, and help sustain the drama when the creatures are hiding from the daylight. 

As for the supernatural, The Vourdalak is focused on this specific Russian variation on vampiric lore which states that a vourdalak, after being turned themselves, will return to their homes to feed on their family, thus turning them into monsters, too.  Beau makes a bold artistic decision here to show Gorcha not as an actor heavily made up, nor as a CGI creation, but instead utilizes a marionette which he designed and voiced, and was operated by Franck Limon-Suparcmeur.  It is a startling revelation for the audience after Jegor picks up the practical bag of bones and sits him down at the head of the breakfast table, and while some may reject this choice and be turned off from the rest of the film, for those who will accept this artistry will be treated to a truly harrowing tale.   

This choice also adds to the storybook nature of the film in an inventive way that feels fresh and unique even when the overall arc is worn, yet comfortable.  It is aspirational and in the way the narrative is structured with its setting and clandestine cast of characters, it almost feels like a playful cousin of Ingmar Bergman’s medieval cycle.  Thematically, however, The Vourdalak is quite thin, even without drawing allusions to one of cinema’s greatest ponderers.  It does not need to question the meaning of life, but to stylistically frame it more as a fable implies that there will be some kind of lesson at the end of it all. It would not take much to dig deeper and discover some themes already inherently present in the DNA of the story and develop them to provide some tragic irony instead of simple story irony would have played well in the film’s favor and fit in with the overall tone which had been rather expertly established.  Even the watered-down fairy tales we share today still have a kernel of a lesson at their core. 

This slightness also extends to some of the cast, most specifically Pitor (Vassili Schneider), whose purposeful femininity is glaring but without much in the way of dramatic payoff.  The detail adds texture to the story, sure, but Chizallet’s lens seems fascinated to capture the young man wearing flowing robes and red lipstick with such persistence that it almost certainly points to scenes having left behind on the cutting room floor.  Given its brief runtime, The Vourdalak could have easily supported another ten or so minutes developing its characters and themes which would only enhance the richness of the film upon repeat viewings. 

As presented, though, The Vourdalak is undeniably a well-calibrated folk horror that sinks into the bones of the audience in a way that this specific subgenre does best.  It unlocks those inherent fears inside of us all, even with all the modern comforts and security around us.  Boasting a finely manicured production design that invokes a stupendous feeling of dread, we, like Jaques, quickly fall into Beau’s trap as sure as Jegor leads his family to their doom.  From the title alone, we know what awaits, but so too does Jegor who ignores the warnings of his father to not let him enter the house should he return after six days.  What transpires in the back half of the film, the choice having been made and the gambit laid, is a tragic, bloody, and beautiful ballet of our own making.  We may look on at the screen in horror at the undoing of this family, but the outcome was inevitable, and Beau, the gracious host that he is, will fulfill our ravenous desires.