Tantalising, twisted, and thrilling, The Vourdalak takes us back to a time when horror was formed through atmosphere, imagination, and story; its celluloid grain, physical effects, and Gothic charm serve as a much-needed tonic in a world of CGI and cheap jump scares.
Where did the vampire’s literary reign of terror begin? Many wrongly assume it was with Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in 1897, but the roots of the vampire myth stretch back much further. In 1816, John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre” took shape alongside Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley at a mansion near Lake Geneva, where “Frankenstein” would also be conceived. Polidori would fuse ancient vampire myths, poetry, and folklore with Romanticism and Gothic horror, giving birth to the modern vampire stories we enjoy today.
In 1839, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, second cousin of the famous Leo Tolstoy, published “La Famille du Vourdalak,” a chilling story about the Marquis d’Ufré, a young French diplomat stranded in a tiny Serbian village with a family harbouring a deadly secret. There is no doubt that both Polidori and Tolstoy inspired Stoker’s “Dracula”; yet while both Polidori’s and Tolstoy’s works remain popular with readers, Stoker’s “Dracula” reigns supreme in film. It is therefore refreshing to see director Adrien Beau bring Tolstoy’s 1839 story to life in the darkly humorous, often delirious, and delightfully old-fashioned gothic horror that is The Vourdalak.
Following the same narrative path as Tolstoy’s book, Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé (Kacey Mottet Klein), an envoy of the French king, finds his journey through a strange, remote land derailed by a robbery. Seeking sanctuary at the first house he stumbles upon during a ferocious storm, he is rejected and advised to seek help at the home of the venerable Gorcha, deep in the woods. Wet, cold and more than a little jittery, the Marquis arrives at his destination to find only the children of the legendary Gorcha in residence.
An uneasy atmosphere surrounds the isolated home as Gorcha’s oldest son, Jegor (Grégoire Colin), and his wife, Anja (Claire Duburcq), take in the Marquis and offer him food and a bed for the night. The other children appear equally unsettled, from the young Vlad (Gabriel Pavie) to the outsider Piotr (Vassili Schneider) and the sister who protects them, Sdenka (Ariane Labed), to whom the Marquis immediately develops an attraction.
The reason for the nervous energy in the household soon becomes clear: the old, wise Gorcha has been missing for days, having left to slay Turks. But when he returns with the head of a Turk in hand, the Marquis is unprepared for the sight of the figure who controls his family with a cold, bony and vice-like grip. Gorcha is a rotting corpse that lives and breathes, a demon hiding in the husk of a man, and his presence threatens his family and the Marquis.
Beau, a former designer for John Galliano and Christian Dior, could have opted for a straight Gothic tale. Instead, he infuses his homage to classic Hammer Horror with dark humour, an exquisite monster design that harks back to a pre-CGI era, discussions on identity, conformity, and rebellion, and a ghoulish atmosphere that celebrates the very foundations of romantic Gothic horror. As the Marquis learns the true horror of this isolated family in peril, he falls head over heels for Sdenka, his choices clouded by love and lust as Gorcha scurries around the mansion, seeking blood.
Tantalising, twisted, and thrilling, The Vourdalak takes us back to a time when horror was formed through atmosphere, imagination, and story; its celluloid grain, physical effects, and Gothic charm serve as a much-needed tonic in a world of CGI and cheap jump scares. Beau’s film is a must-see tale of terror this autumn: an expertly crafted, directed, and performed trip back in time that celebrates the vampire’s literary roots.
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