Director: Adrien Beau
Year: 2024
Country: France
Alternate Titles: Le Vourdalak
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Lost in the forest and desperate for shelter, a traveler is taken in by a strange family living in a cottage in the middle of the woods, and the more he stays with them the more he comes to believe the family has come under attack by a vicious vampire form hunting them one by one.
Review:
Overall, this was a slightly disappointing if still enjoyable effort. Among the better features here is the strong sense of Gothic atmosphere featured here which is quite suitably evocative of the old-school European scene. Taking plenty of familiar tropes within the format where the forested location, the remote cottage where it all takes place, and the period accouterments involving dress or make-up are all utilized with great effect here to bring us into this location as the overly familiar storyline allows these factors to come about naturally. As things start to occur and the family starts to become far more aware of what’s going on, this brings about the chance to play quite well with other types of traditional Gothic storytelling involving the returning family curse, misunderstood cues that signal something otherworldly happening, and the use of shadows to help sell this one nicely.
That leads nicely into the sense of vampire action throughout here being rather fun. The initial attack on the family where the gravely ill father returns to the house and looks quite dead yet somehow still able to walk, talk, and interact with everyone features a great touch to start this one, while later scenes showing it charging after the family to attack them makes for some incredibly chilling setpieces as well. The gradual realization that the vampire has taken hold over the family and forcing the traveler to be far more proactive and determined to get his hands dirty to try to get to safety which has a rather fun series of action scenes to get through the finale which offers some fine gore in the brutal attacks and great vampire make-up. These offer up some positive points here.
There are some big issues found with this one. The biggest issue with the film is the exceptionally slow-going pacing that allows for things to play out at a fierce and lackluster tempo. The stilted dialogue and generally sluggish pace at everything plays out as is quite draining which is unfortunate as it takes the life out of the film simply through the speed at which the actors are playing the scenes. It's not that there’s nothing that can be done involving the rate at how the story’s moving along but rather there’s little life in the characters who are so generally limp that what happens feels even longer than it really does when the film takes nearly an hour to get going.
The other factor here is the limitations built into the story where it’s so hard to feel genuine fear from the creatures as the family has to be so seemingly stupid to let the events play out. With the group aware of the possibility of the creatures’ presence early on with their repeating of the legend involving the particular creature coming back from the dead to feast upon them, the sickly corpse-like embodiment of the grandfather, or the bizarre nature of the deaths piling up around them never trigger anything other than a dismissal of the obvious as simply old-world tales civilized individuals shouldn’t believe in. This makes everything all the more frustrating when it becomes painfully obvious that something’s wrong with the individuals over time and that nothing’s being done about it for no logical reason is a bit distressing. These factors are what hold it back the most.
Overview: ***.5/5
A rather intriguing enough Gothic vampire effort, there’s enough to like here that it manages to come off incredibly well for what it is even if there are a few drawbacks keeping this one down. Those who are appreciative of the filming style, are intrigued about it in general, or are fans of vampire tales in general will want to give this a shot while most others turned off by these features should heed caution.
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