Adrien Beau's feature debut somehow mirrors a fraction of what the Vourdalak means to him. Detaching itself from the adaptation literature and avoiding a remake of Black Sabbath, an important horror anthology by Mario Bava, Le Vourdalak offers a new campy approach. While Vourdalak was played by Boris Karloff in the past, this film introduces a puppet for the titular character.

Unfolding as a 16mm low-budget A24-style adaptation of Aleksei Tolstoy's novella, this vampire story predates Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's a campy, pastoral vampire movie that can be overly theatrical at times. I don't mean this as a criticism, but rather as an acknowledgment of its distinct style. The film showcases cool ideas and draws inspiration from classics like Barry Lyndon and Hans W. Geißendörfer's Jonathan (1970), as well as the work of legendary directors like F. W. Murnau, Jean Rollins, and Albert Serra.

The film might seem aimless at times, but it ultimately delivers on the tropes associated with folk horror. The story centers around Marquis Jacques Antoine, a pale-faced envoy of the King of France, who resembles a low-budget Pee-wee Herman. Lost and alone, he seeks shelter in the house of Gorcha, a place that may offer safety but also harbors a sinister secret. The head of household is a vampire-like creature called a Vourdalak who has returned. In a quest for revenge, the Marquis will succeed in killing Gorcha and his family, losing his respect and wig in the process.

Le Vourdalak brings its own perspective to the vampire myth with its old-fashioned charm and campy drama.

The Family of the Vourdalak by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, written on Tolstoy a trip to France from Frankfurt where the author was attached to the Russian Embassy, has been filmed before. The most obvious adaption is "I Wurdulak" in Mario Bava's anthology Black Sabbath. Starring Boris Karloff as the father and Mark Damon as the young nobleman, it's a classic horror film. Less known, but still incredible, is Giorgio Ferroni's more modern take, The Night of the Devils, the 2020 Argentina film Sangre Vurdalak and the animated Vrdlk: Family Of Vurdulak.

I'm so happy to report that director Adrien Beau has found another take on the film that makes it fresh and exciting.

Arriving on a stormy night, Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfé (Kacey Mottet Klein), a noble emissary of the King of France, finds himself the last survivor of a royal group that has been attacked by a mysterious group. He has somehow found his way to a home in the woods. Belonging to Gorcha (that's also Belew's voice and he co-wrote this movie with Hadrien Bouvier), he is fed and kept safe by the man's sons Jegor (Grégoire Colin), Vlad (Gabriel Pavie) and Piotr (Vassili Schneider), along with Jegor's wife Anja (Claire Duburcq) and Gorcha's daughter Sdenka (Ariane Labed). As for the father, he disappeared some days ago looking for revenge on a man named Alibek.

If you know the story, you know what's next. If Gorcha never comes back, he will be killed. But if he does survive, it could be much worse. In six days, he will become a vampiric vourdalak and have no problem killing and dining on all of those that he loves.

The Marquis instantly falls for the mysterious Sdenka, a young woman who gave her heart to another traveler and now cannot be married. She refuses to discuss her family, the supernatural curse that her father may suffer, and even resists being seduced by nearly launching the powdered wigged man off a cliff, the same place she was to meet her lover and escape her doomed family. But now, that man is dead and her hopes are as well.

And then Gorcha is found, a dead thing barely able to move, demanding a feast and that their dog be shot and killed. He has become something unearthly -- the puppet used for this film is astounding, feeling like something out of the art of Mike Mignola come to life -- and like all vourdalaks, the blood that they want most is the blood they have created.

He does exactly that, working his way through the family, as well as pitting them against one another. He forces the Marquis and Sdenka to dance for him while revealing that he was the one who killed her lover. Then, his son Piotr, appears covered in makeup and flowers, ready to destroy his begetter before he's shot, his blood spraying all over his sister's face. Jegor attacks the nobleman and says that in the morning, he will be given a horse and if he ever comes back, he will be murdered.

Chained in the dungeons overnight, the nobleman must watch helplessly as the now undead Vlad kills his mother, Anja, just before Sdenka tells him that she plans to finally leap to her demise. As he rides away, he plans to return, looking for the woman he loves. He finds her back at her home and she finally seduces him, wrapping her thighs around in as she begins to drink his blood, revealing that the Marquis is between the thighs of Gorcha. He leaps to his feet, stakes the vampire, and leaves the house in flames.

He rides to find Sdenka and tells her that while his time is short, she can live. He gives his horse and a map to get to Europe, then takes her place, jumping to his death. She rides away, chewing on a shroud, just as her father once did, leaving us wondering if she will pass her curse to the noblewoman who has written that she has taken her in.

Shot in Super 16 and filled with colors unseen in movies in decades and a family that destroys each other through supernatural means, but they may have been destroyed in spirit long before. As Piotr tells the Marquis, "Love itself is a curse in these parts." Gorcha uses that love against them, whether placing himself as their protector by hanging the head of Alibek above their door or alternating between cruelty and kindness, just like every abuser. Is the Marquis any better, a man not above bringing up his station while fretting about the malaise of the upper class?

This is above all else beautiful and eerie, with a lead vampire more alive than most human actors, a bloodsucker who even sounds terrifying, sucking at his burial cloth, hungry for those he once supposedly loved. I felt just as hungry as him, devouring every frame of this masterwork.

Based on Tolstoy's La Famille du Vourdalak, where a vampire from Slavic folklore returns to feed off his own family, Adrien Beau's feature film debut Le Vourdalak follows the Marquis d'Urfé, an emissary of the King of France, finding haven in the house of a peculiar family where he expects to receive a horse to continue his journey.

Visually, it evokes the feeling of being in a fairytale due to its aesthetics resembling those of the past. There's charm and a sense of magic in them. The house and the woods add a haunting yet beautiful aura to the story that enhances its fantasy qualities. Due to the choices it makes when it comes to VFX, opting for practical effects with props instead of CGI, it achieves a slapstick humor that can also be scary at times (puppets, for instance).

It's not everyday that a film succeeds in combining genres so different as horror and comedy, but Le Vourdalak does it from beginning to end, making it worth watching.