The Count and the Vampire

Ms. Spenser was ready for some horror, and we thought The Vourdalak (2023) might fit the bill. Did it, or was it more horror-comedy?

In the 18th-century, the Count d'Urfe. a French delegate to a conference on the Russo-Turkish conflict, is robbed and separated from his party. The delegate, played by Kacey Mottet Klein, is left stumbling through an Eastern European forest in his court clothes and white makeup. The first habitation he finds turns him away, telling him to leave this forest - it isn't safe in the day and worse at night. But he does get directed to the Gorcha family that may help him out.

 He meets the family a few at a time. The middle son is a pretty young man who wears flowers and make up. The daughter is a rough beauty. The older son, who is out fighting the Turks, is married and has a young son. When he returns, having failed to kill the Turkish leader, he promises to the count that he can have a horse the next day. The patriarch, old Gorcha, has left to fight the Turks as well. He has left a note saying he will be back in six days. If he returns after six days, it won't be him, but a vourdalak, a kind of local vampire.

That night is the sixth. They find old Gorcha collapsed at the edge of the property. Even though the six days has elapsed, the eldest son doesn't believe in vourdalaks, and doesn't care that the old Gorcha looks like a gruesome puppet. And so they take him in.

As you can imagine, things don't go well for anyone, and in ways that are pretty horrific. However, the horror is a bit nonchalant. The tension isn't as tense as it could be. This may be a dramatic choice, showing how insidious horror can be - how easy it can be to accept violence and death. 

More seriously, the count and old Gorcha are both rather ridiculous. The count looks like a clown, in his white makeup with rouged cheeks. Old Gorcha resembles the puppet in Saw more than a Nosferatu. 

But we did like it a lot. The characters were interesting and fully formed, the setting unusual, and the horror horrible. But I think we enjoyed Mario Bava's take with Boris Karloff better.