THE VOURDALAK
Director: Adrien Beau
91 min (French w/ English Subtitles)
Atmospheric gothic horror offers a twist on the vampire tale as a French noble emissary in the mid-1800s encounters a clan who are falling prey to their own patriarch.
In the 1800s an aristocrat (Kacey Mottet Klein) seeks help from a family in an Eastern European forest after an attack. They are awaiting their patriarch’s return, though he warned them not to let him enter after more than six days as he would have become a shroud and blood-sucking Vourdalak. When the day arrives, familial love could prove deadly. Mixing gothic horror with a Hammer vibe - enhanced by Super 16 film - the use of a marionette as the Vourdalak adds to the eerie retro quality. Adrien Beau’s Aleksey Tolstoy adaptation offers a deliciously macabre twist on the vampire genre.