Tag Archives: vampire fillms

Reviews: The Vourdalak

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The Vourdalak,
Directed by Adrien Beau,
Starring Kacey Mottet Klein, Ariane Labed, Grégoire Colin, Vassili Schneider, Gabriel Pava, Claire Duburcq

It’s the traditional dark and stormy night, as the foppish Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé, an aristocratic envoy of the king of France (complete with powdered wig and painted face) batters on a formidable door, seeking aid. His escort has been slaughtered by bandits, his baggage and horses stolen. The man within only peers out through a slatted grille – he informs the Marquis that he opens this door for no-one after dark (shades of classic Hammer films, the villagers locked up at night, terrified), but he does at least advise him to travel on (without stopping) through the night to the home of the venerable Gorcha, who will assist him.

Left with no choice, the Marquis (Kacey Mottet Klein, playing him just like the fish out of water that he is, more suited to the meaningless rituals of court life than traversing the wilds) does as instructed. As the new day breaks he comes across a couple of figures as he wanders through the forest, a mysterious, beautiful woman, Sdenka(Ariane Labed), and then Piotr (Vassili Schneider), who turn out to be the daughter and son of Gorcha’s household. In reaching their home, the oldest brother, a gruff man called Jegor (Grégoire Colin), hears his pleas, and despite not being the friendliest, agrees to assist him, but he will have to wait a day for a horse.

This is a household with a missing patriarch, however – Gorcha himself is absent, and Jegor, the oldest son, is trying to fill in as best he can, although his younger sibling are clearly chafing at his attempts to be as tough and hard-line as their venerable father. Gorcha has left to hunt down Turkish bandits, but left an ominous warning to his family: he would return inside six days. If he returned even an hour after those six days, then it is not him, but a Vourdalak that returns, and on no account should they give it admittance to the home, no matter how much it may sound like him, or what it says.

While Piotr, Sdenka and Jegor’s wife Anja (Claire Duburcq) seem to believe in this warning, Jegor is scornful of such superstitions, asking the Marquis, as an educated man, how anyone can believe such nonsense. As they eat at an outdoor table, they spot a fallen, emaciated body by the edge of the woods, which turns out to be their father. The others are all apprehensive – it is just past the six day deadline, but Jegor tells them off for their concerns, and angrily demands how long could their poor father have lain there without them noticing?

Of course he is brought to the table then into the home – after all, if the warnings had been followed, there wouldn’t be much of a story, would there?? And despite looking very much like a barely animated cadaver, Gorcha still commands obedience – this is a very patriarchal society, and he is in charge, and that’s it – despite all their fears the others all fall into line, setting up the events of the second half of the film.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this since first hearing of some excited reviews from the film festival circuit, and, being an old Gothic Fiend, I have long been familiar with the short 1839 story by Aleksey Tolstoy which inspired it. Predating Stoker’s Dracula by half a century, this draws far more on the then-common legends of vampiric-type creatures, which were often little more than revenants, reanimated corpses which usually rose at night to feed on their families and neighbours, miles away from the debonair, castle-dwelling, Satanic lord of the Dracula model (inspired by Byron, and Polidori’s “The Vampyre”), which is more common in cinema.

This has a much more folk-horror feel to it, appropriately, given the source material draws on those eastern European myths of vampires that so fascinated the salons of early 19th century Europe (then as now, our culture seems very drawn to these nocturnal blood-drinkers, and cinema has been in love with them almost from its beginnings). The low budget is no bar here – a nice, remote, rural location and small but effective cast is made to work well on that wee budget, while the use of Super 16MM film adds to the stylish look.

And then there is the Vourdalak itself – no CGI, no actor in make-up here, instead the undead Gorcha (voiced by director Beau himself) is a puppet, a marionette. And an incredibly effective device this proves to be – I mean, sure, there are a couple of scenes where it looks odd, but that adds to the charm of this piece, beside which, given it is portraying a supernatural creature, that oddness actually works in its favour, I think. Most of the time though I found using the puppet approach worked brilliantly (it also clearly gives the actors something to react to, enhancing their performances).

This is both innovative and unusual, while also paying homage to classic horrors (not least Hammer), and working in folk-horror into its stylish, intriguing mix. A fabulous new entry into the vampire film genre for fans to sink their fangs into – best watched after dark, with just a few candles on!

The Vourdalak is released on digital platforms from September 16th.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Edinburgh International Film Festival – The Radleys

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Edinburgh International Film Festival 2024 – The Radleys,
Directed by Euros Lyn,
Starring Kelly MacDonald, Damian Lewis, Harry Baxendale, Jay Lycurgo, Bo Bragason, Shaun Parkes

I was keen to see the Radleys, partly because it is based on a novel by the excellent Matt Haig, partly because I do love a good vampire flick (I am, dare I say it, a sucker for a vampire film. Yes, he went there), and partly because I was in the film festival audience some years ago when its director Euros Lyn (well known, especially to genre fans, for directing numerous Doctor Who and Torchwood episodes) brought us his first feature film, the Welsh-language Y Llyfrgell (titled The Library Suicides for the English-language market, filmed in the National Library of Wales), and I had really enjoyed that.

The premise is a fairly straightforward one – a local, everyday suburban family are actually vampires – but it allows for a lot of room to explore family dynamics and tensions, not to mention, in the case of the younger Radleys Rowan (Harry Baxendale) and his older sister Clara (Bo Bragason), also take on the issues of teenhood and coming of age, but with the added wrinkle of the family “condition”. This latter is a particular problem for the siblings, and it will essentially drive the events of the film.

Their parents Helen (Kelly MacDonald) and Peter (Damian Lewis) are abstinent vampires – it’s not just that they don’t hunt, harm or kill humans, they simply don’t drink blood, and haven’t for years. Following a vampiric version of the famous Twelve Step programme for addicts because years before they decided they wanted to have a regular life, not the nomadic, erratic, roaming, outside life of the predatory vampire, they wanted a home, they wanted to have and raise children and be part of the local neighbourhood. To this end, they have not only abstained, and implanted themselves into this lifestyle (Helen has her book group, her baking and other pastimes, all scheduled into her timetable, Peter is a local doctor), they have never told their children, now in their teens, about their unusual heritage.

Rowan especially feels like an outsider and a freak – hardly speaking to anyone at school, seen as weird, keeping his camera between him and the world (he goes old-school, working in film and developing his own work), but it is his sister who will be the catalyst for events, when a cocksure, older boy at a party tries to push himself on her repeatedly as they walk through the woods. As he gets more physical, essentially trying to assault the younger woman, she grows panicked and angry, and her bloodline kicks into gear by instinct. Suddenly Freddie (Stuart Harper) is sent flying through the air; as he lies stunned and injured, Clara feels her fangs descend, and like a cat on the hunt, pure instinct drives her, leaping onto Freddie, biting and biting.

When Helen and Peter find their daughter, they not only find themselves trying to conceal the evidence of the murder to protect her, they realise they are going to have to explain to both of their children just what happened, and why. As you can imagine, this does not go down too well with either child, Clara especially yelling back at them that they have lied to her for her entire life, while they selfishly decided to play normal family household, and that they no longer get to tell her what to do. It’s that teen rebellion thing, but here driven with some justification (just when, if ever, were they going to tell the kids about what was lurking in their nature? How far would they go to maintain their charade of normality?).

Needing help to cover everything up, Peter reluctantly reaches out to his twin brother, Will. Will (also played by Lewis) is the opposite of Peter (or at least of how Peter has become now) – he is still full vampire, indulging himself, roaming the country in an old RV, taking what and who he wants, when he wants, savouring any pleasures with little or no thought about consequences for anyone else. But, still being a blood-drinker, he has abilities they need, such as being able to mesmerise someone to convince them nothing is happening (handy when the police call), and he has practical experience in disposing of bodies, so they need him, even though you can see they know bringing him back into their lives is not the best idea, but what else can they do?

I don’t want to go much further into it for fear of spoilers, but this pretty much sets up everything that will come out later: the children now have to learn what they are and what this means for themselves and for their relationships with anyone else (their parents included), and the arrival of free-booting Will doesn’t help (the cool Uncle who is happy to let the nephew and niece sneak booze or anything else, unlike boring mum and dad, for instance). And Will’s arrival also stirs up Helen and Peter – reminding them of their past, before they tried to give up blood-drinking, and hints at a much darker history between all three.

It’s nicely played – it largely sticks to many of the vampire genre tropes and pokes a little fun at others (Peter has the father-son talk at one point, explaining that the no reflections in mirrors thing is just in the films and books, but yes, the garlic thing is true, and so are some of the powers gained when drinking blood, Peter also has to invite his brother Will into their home when he first arrives). This is more about the nature of families than fangs, however – everything that happens, other than the biting and killing, is the material we all know, the love-hate, the desperate desire to understand who you are, why you are that way, how you can be different for the younger Radleys, about trying to fit into what society expects the suburban parents to be for the older Radleys, and the fact that reality is rarely the same as what all our societal norms tell us we are meant to be. There are also nods to the genre in there too for vamp fans – coastal shots of Yorkshire (Whitby being the heart of British vamp-fandom, of course), even a scene with Rowan desperately licking spilled blood from the floor echoes a scene from Del Toro’s Cronos.

The script was adapted from Haig’s novel by Tabitha Stevenson and comedian Jo Brand, and they bring a lot of humour into this. Yes, there is some genuinely heartfelt musing about being the outsider (especially for Rowan, developing feelings for another boy – Jay Lycurgo’s Evan) and with no idea how he should proceed, even before finding out about his vampiric heritage), there is a lot of drama in the tensions simmering between Peter, Will and Helen as we see the “normal” patterns of behaviour they have forced themselves to inhabit start to break down in the face of events, while having Lewis play both (attempting to be) straight-arrow dad Peter and the debauched Uncle Will allows him to explore the different paths those siblings chose. And while that is well-handled and compelling, driving a lot of the narrative, the humour runs through the film, lightening it. A genuinely enjoyable entry in the vampire genre.

This review was originally penned for Live For Films