brendan halpin

What a strange, beautiful, creepy movie this is!

A powdered, bewigged French nobleman gets stuck in the Serbian countryside and shelters with a family whose father comes back changed from a mission of revenge.

Much of the movie is shot in extremely soft focus by candlelight, like Barry Lyndon, except something happens. All the performances are fantastic, and Kacey Mottet Klein’s nobleman has an extremely interesting character arc that he pulls off really skillfully.

And now let’s get to the puppet in the room, shall we? The titular vampire is played by a puppet. But an extremely creepy and horrifying puppet. (I mean, I think puppets are inherently creepy, with the exception of the muppets, and this thing is no muppet.) At first I was like what the hell is this, but as the movie went along, I thought it worked extremely well. What starts out kind of funny becomes increasingly creepy—not just because of the puppet’s horrifying appearance, but also because it shows the depth of denial the family is in—-did your dad look like a horrifying skull puppet when he left? Then that probably ain’t him!

Director Adrien Beau makes the powdered French nobleman and cadaverous puppet really stand out visually from the rest of the family, and though the horror of the scenario unfolds in a pretty familiar way, the movie doesn’t feel familiar at all. Making a the hoary vampire legend (the movie is based on a novella from 1839) feel disturbingly fresh is a tall order, and Beau succeeds where Robert Eggers failed with the new Nosferatu.

It was hard to watch this movie on its own merits without constantly comparing it to Nosferatu and noticing every way in which The Vourdelak works where Nosferatu didn’t. It’s a lot. A lot of ways. Creature design, performances, and most of all, depth. While Eggers’ movie is essentially about nothing except for Lily Rose Depp being hot and her hotness being dangerous, The Vourdalak has a lot to say about class and gender, and, though I can’t say if this is intentional or not, resonates strongly in a newly fascist country.

A guy comes in, tells a trans person they don’t exist and then forces everyone to ignore the evidence of their senses and believe some really dangerous bullshit that causes incalculable harm. So, yeah.

I never found this movie boring, but the events do unfold at a pretty leisurely pace. It comes in at a tight 90 minutes, though, which is another point in its favor. If you like horror movies, it’s definitely worth seeing what a good movie can be made with a low budget and a big imagination.