Summary While watching The Vourdalak , it's almost a stretch of the imagination to believe the film initially premiered in 2023. What I witnessed could easily have passed for the 1980s or late '70s, and I say this with the highest compliments. Reminiscent of a time gone by, The Vourdalak was shot on film, truly earning the vintage look with real grain and harsh shadows that only elevate the stylization of the project.
The family's dynamic is strained even before Gorcha, the father and head of the household voiced by Beau, arrives in all his ghoulish glory. Even in the daylight, there's an underlying threat of violence, as the story is entwined with the raids and ravages made by the Turks that are never shown onscreen but consistently referred to.
Jegor's role as would-be head of the family is juxtaposed by the spiritualism of Piotr and Sdenka , his younger siblings. It takes little time for the relationships between characters and their histories to be established. All of this occurs with sparse but brutally effective dialogue that ensures we're invested in the lives of these characters.