Madness and misfortune darken the doorstep of the 2024 Chattanooga Film Festival with Adrien Beau’s The Vourdalak, celebrating its North American premiere after an acclaimed run on the European festival circuit. Like an accidental renaissance rendition of Pet Sematary or a Napoleonic re-telling of Salem’s Lot, this French nightmare is a lush and looney folk tale of grave misfortunes. And monsters! Here be monsters…
Shot on film and featuring some incredible moments of handmade horror, The Vourdalak is, yes, a Period Piece- but not a Period Piece that haters of Period Pieces should immediately disregard. I get it, fancy talk and frilly garments aren’t for everyone…but how about live-sized puppets of skeletal ghouls with long boney fingers that stalk in the shadows at night and feast on the blood of the living? How ’bout them Elizabethan apples!? The Vourdalak is like Jim Henson meets The Brothers Grimm, filtered through the Universal Classic Monster machine. Fans of Dracula (1931), and all its subdued nightmarish qualities, will especially lock into this dreamy fable of gravewalkers and misguided deeds.
“Like an accidental renaissance rendition of Pet Sematary or a Napoleonic re-telling of Salem’s Lot.”
The Vourdalak stars Kacey Mottet Klein as the Marquis d’Urfe, a noble emissary to the King of France, who has found himself lost in the French countryside. After being turned away by superstitious villagers, he is directed to the home of the courageous and dependable Gorcha (voiced by director Adrien Beau), for help finding a horse to travel safely back home. The trouble is, Gorcha has left to fight against a band of vicious Turks, and his family are fearful that his return will not be a welcome one.
As an already bedridden but unshakable Gorcha explains before leaving: “My children…wait for my return for six days. After these six days, if I don’t return, recite a prayer in my memory, as it will mean that I perished in battle… But if I should reappear – may God protect you! – after the six days, I enjoin you to bar the door and deny me entry, whatever I say or do. For by then, I will be none other than a Vourdalak, a damned one.” Guess who comes back home just as the clock strikes on that sixth day? Dun, Dun Dunnnnnn!
The Vourdalak is classical horror filmmaking in its truest form. Vintage lenses! “Less-is-more” storytelling techniques that we threw away decades ago! Playful camera setups straight out of the Silent Era playbook! Puppets! There is a tactile quality to The Vourdalak that you just don’t see anymore. Movies have always captured our imagination, but there was a time when movies felt indistinguishable from magic. A time when they were tangible in a way that modern cinema has rarely been able to recreate.
Distributed by the mad geniuses at Oscilloscope Laboratories, The Vourdalak joins a growing collection of films from artists attempting to rekindle something lost to time. Titles like November, Moon Garden, Relaxer, and The Love Witch which have strived to break the mold and challenges the conventions of contemporary Hollywood. In a lot of ways, The Vourdalak is a story you’ve heard 100 time already, but in its presentation, it becomes something truly unique. If you occasionally find yourself saying “they just don’t make movies like they used to,” you owe it to yourself to put this puppet-obsessed, vampire-esque tale of Tudor terror at the top of your watchlist.
“The Vourdalak is classical horror filmmaking in its truest form.”
You can see Adrien Beau’s The Vourdalak with your fellow film-obsessed maniacs at the 2024 Chattanooga Film Festival June 22. Grab a ticket HERE if you’re in the Chattanooga or keep an eye out for The Vourdalak at your local cool cinema for its theatrical run beginning June 28th! Naturally, we want to hear what you thought of this pre-Dracula folk tale! Share your thoughts on The Vourdalak over in the official Nightmare on Film Street Discord 🦇
WHERE TO WATCH THIS WEEK’S FILM:
