THE VOURDALAK is a 2023 French vampire film that’s pretty simple and classical but it has this one fucking fantastic choice that jumps out at you: the vampire is portrayed by a puppet. Not a muppet, but a human sized rod puppet or something that kinda looks like how Hellboy‘s Mike Mignola draws desiccated corpses. He’s a spindly nosferatu type but he’s in his ‘80s so he tries to act like that’s all it is. No, hey guys, I’m fine. I didn’t become a vourdalak (type of vampire from Slavic folk tales) during that dangerous trip where I told you if I return after six days I’m a vourdalak. I just look this way ’cause I’m old.

The protagonist is a goofy dork and diplomatic envoy for the king of France named Marquis Jacques Saturnin d’Urfe (Kacey Mottet Klein, GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE). I love how he’s unseen in the opening sequence, seeking shelter after losing his horse and companions during a robbery. He’s being turned away from shelter through the barred window on a door, but every time lightning strikes we see the shadow of his big ol’ historical-French-guy hat.

It actually makes him seem scary, like he’s the vourdalak, but then we see him in daylight and no, he’s fine, just some dweeb in a blue uniform with powdered white makeup and everything.

He takes some advice to go to the home of “old Gorcha” who, he’s told, will give him provisions and a horse. He goes through some woods and does find the place, inhabited by Gorcha’s strange family. There’s his burly, mustached son Jegor (Grégoire Colin, BEAU TRAVAIL), Jegor’s wife Anja (Claire Duburcq, 1917, AFTER BLUE, SHE IS CONANN), their kid Vlad (Gabriel Pavie), and Jegor’s younger brother Piotr (Vassili Schneider, THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO) and sister Sdenka (Ariane Labed, THE LOBSTER, THE BRUTALIST). There’s kind of some tension and resentment between the conservative Jegor and his more bohemian siblings. Jegor thinks Piotr is girly, says he played with ribbons when he was a kid, can you believe it? (I guess before Barbie was invented that must’ve been what girls stereotypically played with.)

None of the family seem very impressed by Jacques, his fancy language and bowing, but they’re polite, and Jegor dutifully promises to find a horse for him. Might take a bit, though.

Jegor explains that the village was ransacked by the Turks a month ago. He and some others chased after them and slit their throats, except the leader got away. While he was out doing that, he’s just learned, Gorcha wanted to prove he wasn’t a coward, took an old musket and went to join the action, hasn’t come back yet. Or so they thought, until they find him laying outside since who knows when, looking dead.

But then he moves. Jegor carries his dad to the table, and it’s a pretty awkward family meal. First the unveiling of what Pops looks like now–

He seems weak and confused, but then all the sudden he pulls out a trophy from his little adventure – the severed head of the leader of the Turkish raiders who evaded Jegor – and tosses it on the table. Fuckin show off.

You know what, this is kind of like such Hollywood favorites as DOC HOLLYWOOD or COOL AS ICE, movies where the hero is passing through a town and then gets stranded until their vehicle can be repaired. Instead of the flashy city boy learning from the small town values it’s a fancy-pants French aristocrat adapting to the ways of isolated Eastern European hill people. While Jacques waits for a horse he ends up talking to each of the family members and learning what’s up with them. Sdenka wears lots of beads and bracelets, talks about occult shit and threatens to jump off cliffs. She’s hot, though. So when he hears that she’s considered un-marry-able because she once fell in love with a vagabond (now deceased) he immediately takes a knee and tries to say poetic stuff about her beauty and what not. She seems mostly confused, a little annoyed, slightly charmed by him, especially when he does a silly dance for her, meant to be impressive. This is one of the dorkier guys you will see getting it on in a modern horror movie, complete with ass shot. Not a great experience for him, though. Like the poor lady in NOSFERATU he has to go to bed with the monster to get a shot at him.

Jegor stubbornly clings to the idea that everything is fine, while the rest of the family are pretty fuckin sure that that thing is not Dad. Anja tells Jacques about a dream (?) where she heard “a sound so repulsive and obscene, like soggy chewing,” which makes sense when we learn that vourdalaks constantly chew on the shroud they were interred in, like a cow chewing on cud. The younger siblings tell Jacques how “it delights most in the blood of close relations, and those close to the heart.” So it’s a threat when Gorcha tells Jacques that if he decides to stay with the family he will accept and love him.

I’ve talked to people who felt THE VOURDALAK was slow, who only liked the parts with the puppet, and I’m not surprised to hear that. I found it very involving though, the way this upper crust French goofball falls in with this weird family, does not seem very self aware about how extremely uncool he is by movie hero standards, but is earnest enough that I come to accept him just like the family does. And Jegor is more of a badass, stand up guy by all appearances, but he’s the one who fucks everything up because he’s in denial about what’s going on, delusionally trying to maintain the status quo despite all evidence at hand, then blaming the outsider. Also I wonder how much of the vourdalak’s cruel behavior is him being an undead monster and how much is just what Gorcha was like anyway. Maybe there’s a reason Jegor takes him for the same guy.

I really like the tone of it. There’s a very dry humor underneath, but it’s a serious, creepy movie. I love that there’s kind of a cartoonish monster at the center but he’s not a joke at all. That makes the puppet even cooler.

There’s a strong atmosphere, too. It doesn’t seem like a modern movie at all. Cinematographer David Chizallet (LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT) shot it on beautifully grainy Super 16mm, with a gauzy, overcast look to it. I really think if I’d stumbled onto it I would’ve thought it was from around 1979.

This is the first feature for writer/director/puppet creator/voice-of-Gorcha Adrien Beau, who co-wrote it with Hadrien Bouvier, based on the 1839 short story “La famille du Vourdalak” by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (second cousin to Leo). I watched it on Shudder, and it’s released by Oscilloscope Laboratories, who also have it available for pre-order on disc (shipping late Spring 2025 is all it says). I look forward to whatever Beau does next, but it will especially be exciting if he continues to collaborate with the vourdalak puppet. I bet that guy would be good in all kinds of roles.