#the family of the vourdalak

[see-arcane]

(Orlock arguing with any vampire)

Other vampire: (just pulls the blinds up)

Orlok: A common mistake. I must be tricked into overfeeding on a fair martyr maiden so that I miss sunrise's approach and the first rooster cry of morning. Sunlight in and of itself does me no harm. :)

Every vampire sizzling and exploding and turning to dust in a single ray of sunshine since 1922: fucking WHAT

Orlok: yeah :)

Dracula, Clarimonde, Carmilla, Ruthven, the Vourdalaks and every other Victorian era literary bloodsucker tanning on the beach: yeah :) :) :) :) :)

[fourorfivemovements]

Films Watched in 2024: 89. Le Vourdalak/The Vourdalak (2023) - Dir. Adrien Beau

[contentabnormal]

Boris Karloff as Gorca in the third & final segment of Black Sabbath

Watercolors on Paper, 8.5" x 11", 2024

By Josh Ryals

[stheresya]

Aleksey Tolstoy's short story The Family of the Vourdalak offers the most sinister and my absolute favorite take on the vampire myth so far. In this story the vourdalak works as the slavic version of the vampire, but what differentiates it from its most known bloodsucking peers is that when a vourdalak comes back to life they seek primarily the blood of the people they used to love in their previous life. And I find that so fascinating because in early vampire stories like Dracula we see that a vampire retains their human memories but lose all human attachment to them and care only about feeding on anything alive, while the vourdalak is a vampire whose feelings of love gets twisted into one of hunger. You loved those people in life, you shall consume them in death because you loved them life.

[wordwizards]

jesus christ man

Transcript: "Sdenka so remarkably reminded me of the Duchess de Gramont, with that faint line traced on her forehead— the same line that, in France, had made me suicidal with longing..."

[drawinggoose]

Does anyone here knows the novella Family of the Vourdalak by Aleksey Tolstoy? Because it seems I just found another adaptation besides Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath.

[libraryleopard]

Listen, this is very important. If you liked Nosferatu (2024) dir. Robert Eggers you must go to your nearest search engine and look up The Vourdalak dir. Adrien Beau. It is of the UTMOST important that you watch this film if you liked Nosferatu. It’s about a French courtier who is robbed while traveling through Eastern Europe and must seek refuge with a local peasant family whose patriarch is transformed into a vampire who can only feed on his loved ones. It has everything you need in gothic cinema—a French dandy experiencing the Horrors, people running around in billowing nightgowns at night, a vampire played by a puppet that is genuinely sinister and represents the repressive forces of the patriarchy, Ariane Labed covered in blood, the most horrifying sucking noises known to mankind. We must not forget The Vourdalak!

[lauralot89]

19th Century Vampire Lit I'm Gonna Read

Because I've lost my mind.

Most of these texts were found with the aid of these two posts. I did not include any of the stories listed as "not technically about vampires," except for "Let Loose," because it concerns a specter seeking blood, and "Vampirismus," because it's called "Vampirismus."

A strikethrough indicates that I've already read the work. Bold text indicates that I cannot find an English translation, whether online or for purchase. If you know of English translations of any bolded titles, please let me know.

Thalaba the Destroyer, Robert Southey (1801)

"The Vampire," John Stagg (1810)

The Giaour, Lord Byron (1813)

"A Fragment of a Novel," Lord Byron (1816)

"The Vampyre," John William Polidori (1819)

The Black Vampyre, Uriah Derick D'Arcy (1819)

The Vampire Lord Ruthwen, Cyprien Bérard (1820)

The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles, J.R. Planché (1820)

The Vampire, Charles Nodier (1820)

"Vampirismus," E.T.A. Hoffman (1821)

Smarra, or Demons of the Night, Charles Nodier (1821)

"Wake Not the Dead," Ernst Raupach (1823)

The Vampire, or the Hungarian Virgin, Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon (1825)

Der Vampyre und seine Braut, Karl Spindler (1826)

La Guzla, ou Choix de Poesies Illyrique, Prosper Merimee (1827)

"Pepopukin in Corsica," Arthur Young (1827)

The Vampire, Heinrich Masrschner and Wilhelm August Wohlbrück (1828)

The Skeleton Count, or the Vampire Mistress, Elizabeth Caroline Grey (1828)

Der Vampyre, oder die Totenbraut, Theodor Hildebrand (1828)

The Vampire Bride, Henry Thomas Liddell (1833)

Clarimonde, Théophile Gautier (1836)

The Family of the Vourdalak, Aleksey Tolstoy (1839)

The Vampire, Aleksey Tolstoy (1841)

"The Vampyre," James Clerk Maxwell (1845)

Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood, James Macolm Rymer (1845-1847)

The Pale Lady/The Carpathian Mountains/The Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains, Alexandre Dumas (1849)

"The Vampyre," Elizabeth F. Ellet (1849)

The Phantom World [select chapters], Augustin Calmet (1850)

The Vampire, Alexandre Dumas (1851)

The Vampires of London, Angelo de Sorr (1852)

The Dead Baroness/The Vampire and the Devil's Son, Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail (1852)

"The Vampire," Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1857)

Knightshade/The Shadow Knight, Paul Féval (1860)

"The Mysterious Stranger," Karl von Wachsmann (1860)

"Metamorphosis of a Vampire," Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1860)

The Vampire of the Val-de-Grace, Leon Gozlan (1861)

"The Vampire; Or, Pedro Pacheco and the Bruxa," William H.G. Kingston (1863)

The Vampire/The Vampire Countess, Paul Féval (1865)

Vampire City, Paul Féval (1867)

"The Last Lords of Gardonal," William Gilbert (1867)

Vikram and the Vampire, Sir Richard Francis Burton (1871)

"The Vampire Cat of Nabéshima," Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1871)

Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)

"Ghosts," Mihail Eminescu (1876)

Der Vampyr – Novelle aus Bulgarien, Hans Wachenhusen (1878)

Captain Vampire, Marie Nizet (1879)

"The Fate of Madame Cabanel," Eliza Lynn Linton (1880)

After Ninety Years, Milovan Glišic (1880)

"The Vampyre," Owen Meredith (1882)

"The Vampire," Jan Naruda (1884)

"Manor," Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1884)

"The Vampyre," Vasile Alecsandri (1886)

The Horla, Guy de Maupassant (1887)

"Ken's Mystery/The Grave of Ethelind Fionguala," Julian Hawthorne (1887)

"A Mystery of the Campagna," Anne Crawford (1887)

"Romanian Deaths and Burials-Vampires and Werewolves," Emily Gerard (1888)

"The Old Portrait," Hume Nisbet (1890)

"The Vampire Maid," Hume Nisbet (1890)

"Let Loose," Mary Cholmondeley (1890)

The Castle of the Carpathians, Jules Verne (1892)

"The Vampire," Felix Dahn (1892)

The Parasite, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1884)

"The True Story of a Vampire/The Sad Story of a Vampire," Count Eric Stenbock (1894)

"A Kiss of Judas," Julian Osgood Field (1894)

Lilith, George MacDonald (1894)

"The Prayer," Violet Hunt (1895)

"Good Lady Duncayne," Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1896)

"The Vampire of Croglin Grange," Augustus Hare (1896)

"Phorfor," Matthew Phipps Shiel (1896)

Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897)

"Dracula's Guest," Bram Stoker (1914*)

The Blood of the Vampire, Florence Marryat (1897)

*"Dracula's Guest" was first published in 1914 but was written either concurrent to or before the writing of Dracula.

I'm going to be honest. When I began, I thought there were four nineteenth century vampire stories. Five if you count Dracula's Guest. I've made a huge mistake.

[collinsportmaine]

Vampire Identification Guide

The Vourdalak is French film is based on a Russia novella that predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 58 years. It tells the tell of a family waiting for Gorcha (their patriarch) to return from fighting the Turks. Before leaving he warned them, if he returned after 6 day - do not let him enter the house. But he returns on the 7th day!

Vourdalaks are from Balkan and Slavic folklore - vampires that return from the grave to feed on their family, decimating their bloodline and feasting on the blood of all those they hold dear.

A unique element of this French film is the Gorcha is depicted as a life size puppet, voiced by the director Adrien Beau.

[zooophagous]

If you liked Nosferatu 2024 you might like The Vourdalak. I would check out trigger warnings for it just in case though because in the same vein as Nosferatu 2024 there is sexual content that is less than consentual (iykyk).

But the vampire is a puppet and said puppet is both an allegory for patriarchy and toxic masculinity and also really fruity in some scenes. The main protagonist is a Cringefail French dandy who’s so pathetic but he tries so so so hard to save a fucked up family I can’t help but kinda love him.

This sounds like something I'd probably enjoy

[ursacolossus]

Thoughts about the queer themes of Le Vourdalak. Spoilers under the cut:

I think it’s really telling and interesting that Piotr is the only family member killed in a non-intimate manner. Gorcha doesn’t even get -close- to Piotr, Piotr was also the only family member willing to fight back, who saw Gorcha for what he was. Queerness recognized in others as a reflection of the self.

Gorcha shooting Piotr in the head, (with a traditionally phallic, masculine weapon) from a distance, wasting all of that blood, that life force, avoiding the physical intimacy of Piotr’s destruction, feels like internalized disgust from Gorcha, especially in light of the last half of the film.

Piotr shooting the dog in men’s clothing, trying their best to be a good model of what a dutiful son and man is supposed to be, shooting the dog -because- Gorcha asked them to. The man whose respect everyone else in the family, even the dog, dies for.

But Piotr doesn’t die respecting Gorcha, Piotr is the only one that knows they will most likely die for trying, goes to that death facing it with clear eyes. They dressed in something that made them feel brave and Gorcha saw them, saw the disrespect for his authority, the disrespect of traditional gender, and killed that queerness before it could kill him.

Piotr is also an incredibly important symbol of queerness not equating to evil in this movie. Piotr is just a person trying to do the best they can, caught in a system that does not accept them, but their queerness is never framed as evil, honestly neutral for the most part, which really helps contrast Piotr against Gorcha. Piotr is also never bitten, and so they are excluded from the family’s second rising. They get to end as they are, human, instead of being transformed.

Gorcha simpers a lot in this film, he moans and flounces and makes fun of the man he likes and ultimately tricks him into sex, and that is what both kills the Marquis -and- kills Gorcha. The Marquis could be seen as a hero for killing Gorcha, (he isn’t, for personality-related reasons) but he’s already been corrupted due to the -interest- and the bite of Gorcha. The queerness thrust upon him. The same as Jonathan Harker, the same as Thomas Hutter, doomed by the visceral attentions of The Other.

Obviously I’m not saying this is a homophobic film, there are just a lot of layers and to have the monster be so explicitly queer is so -interesting-. To have him be the traditional, Slavic-origin vampire, a shambling corpse, to have him be an otherworldly puppet AND to have him represent centuries of patriarchy and have him be queer is so many things at once, I love this movie a lot, is what I’m trying to say.

[see-arcane]

I want to see a story where Dracula realizes he might need some lieutenants/generals in his take over Britain/the world plan and so he invites every notable 19th century vampire to his castle in an attempt to convince them of the idea, even the ones that should be dead at this point. Also maybe even begrudgingly his schoolyard rivial turned asshole neighbor that stole his style, Orlok.

Meanwhile poor Jonathan is stuck in the corner while this all ensues.

Jonathan trapped in Vampire Hell with Dracula and the Weird Sisters: Dangerous. Peak supernatural gothic dread. Iconic and ominous.

Jonathan roped into playing secretary for the Vampire Takeover Planning Committee because saying no is not an option: Objectively hilarious

Picturing him there taking his little notes while Dracula pitches world conquest plans in just barely veiled language--("Yes, he knows. He knows I know this. We're just playing vampire reveal chicken at this point and I don't want to lose, just roll with it.")--about property, assets, 'livestock,' et cetera, all the while swallowing back a screaming fit and trying not to make eye contact with Dracula's weird colleague who keeps trying to lamprey-suction himself onto the shaving cut.

Meanwhile, Ruthven, Clarimonde, Carmilla, and assorted vourdalaks are just constantly interrupting Dracula's pitch to ask if they can't have. You know. Some refreshments. (Long look at Jonathan)

Dracula: "If you get a taste of him before I do, I will give all of you the Dolingen treatment. My castle is half a ruin anyway, I will bring thunderbolts through the roof for this, do not test me. That includes you, Orlok."

(Orlok has not been listening to a single word. Jonathan is being dragged off by rats.)

((Varney saw the name 'Dracula' on the invite and immediately burned it on instinct.))

[sam-keeper]

The Vourdalak (2023)

The metatextual commentary on the horror genre looms large when people talk about Funny Games (1997), and understandably so. It doesn't take long after the first literal wink to the camera for meta stuff to take over, and for the commentary on horror fans to get pointed. But I was struck, while watching, by a different aspect of the film: politeness and middle class social convention setting traps as diabolical as any Jigsaw ever designed. The characters sleepwalk their way into their gruesome torturous deaths in part through politeness and forbearance. indeed the serial killing duo that torments them seem almost like an infection spread from one household to the next via the same social niceties, polite introductions transmitting them from one group to the next.

So: The Vourdalak.

The titular monster in The Vourdalak is a puppet, and an almost muppet-esque one at that. Like, we're not talking near-naturalistic animatronics here, we're talking a puppet that can flare his eyes open, and open and close his mouth, and otherwise acts through the body language artistry of puppeteers. It's incredible to look at, and totally not even remotely a little bit believable as a person. And yet, the entire family that Ambassador from the King of France Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfe encounters in the wilderness of (maybe) Serbia seems paralyzed by the apparition of the household's patriarch. Despite the man's own firm warning not to trust whatever comes back from the woods wearing his guise, they sit this grotesque, obviously dead puppet down at the table, offer it food, and force the family closeted transsexual to shoot the family dog at its behest, all while Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfe sits there in his poncy white makeup and blush and wig all but looking right at the camera helplessly. It's horrific, and also completely ludicrous.

The absurdity of it is part of what makes it horrible: even though everyone involved (except perhaps the drunken, pathologically devoted son Jegor) can see something has gone catastrophically wrong with grandfather Gorcha, their filial duties render them powerless to halt what's happening. They're also profoundly vulnerable: Piotr is at minimum a cross dresser, Anja is cowed by her husband Jegor and must look after her young son Vlad, and Sdenka is trapped in a futureless morass after the murder of the stranger who promised to take her away from the village. Also, the village has been seemingly wiped out by bandits, making the Vourdalak's presentation of the bandit leader's head impressive but pointless, and rendering the cast profoundly isolated.

Even Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfe is hampered by being just the wettest protagonist. The man is a floppy noodle in period accurate caked on makeup. Wildly out of his element, he summons periodically the gumption to chase after Sdenka (she responds by nearly tricking him into falling off a cliff) but otherwise just minces about rather aimlessly, too out of his depth and paralyzed by social convention to put up much resistance to the blood sucking revenant. I didn't hate him, mind--part of the humor and horror of the story comes from watching this high society guy bumble around in the 18th century equivalent of a backwoods hick horror film. It's clear he wants to do the right thing, and shows the Vourdalak's prospective victims sympathy alien both to the monster and to Jegor. He just happens to be about as effectual and plausible an opponent to the undead as a peacock dipped in a particularly muddy puddle.

This year we also watched the 2001 French adventure horror period film Brotherhood of the Wolf, and it's interesting that for all its attempts to feel contemporary to 2001, it mostly feels… very contemporary to 2001, if you get me. I mean, credit where it's due, it CLEARLY inspired a significant part of the look of Bloodborne, but in trying for a modern glitz it winds up embodying not just a bunch of aesthetics (ZOOMS! FAST CUTS! THE MATRIX JUST CAME OUT EVERYBODY LET'S SPEED UP AND SLOW DOWN THE ACTION SCENES!) that are very locked into their time, but a bunch of tropes that feel similarly dated (the Wise Native American Sidekick, the love interest menaced by a disfigured and incestuous brother, sssssome sort of position on the French Revolution that's kind of hard to figure out?).

The Vourdalak, in embracing an already "outmoded" form of puppetry, and cleaving closer to the alien high class aesthetics of the 18th century that Brotherhood replaces with their more hip take, feels like it's destined to age a bit better. The strength of the fable helps. When in one of the most truly wretched scenes of the film the Vourdalak picks up a shotgun and blasts a hole in poor Piotr's skull, it feels discordant that this gothic horror should be wielding modern weaponry. But it also feels perversely fitting: the patriarch simply makes use of whatever tools are at his disposal to keep the family disciplined. The Vourdalak is said to prey first on its closest loved ones. Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfe does such a good job of being a polite guest who doesn't make waves that the Vourdalak can't help but see him as one of the family. I don't expect this narrative of being sucked (hah) into complicity losing its bite anytime soon.

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

If the author had carried on with the ancestor attacking the youngest girl of his own family, it appears like the storyline would then follow old tropes of vampirism being a family affair. (Which is also why it's been argued vampires are (also) about cycles of abuse and/or intergenerational trauma.) In many stories, vampires target their own household, or beloveds. For instance, Gorcha leads a serbian vampire family in La Famille du Vourdalak and they kill everyone except those they love, Bruhilda drinks her husband's children, in La Dame Pâle it's a struggle between a vampire and his brother and the woman they both love in their castle... I'm sure you know this already but I just thought of the what if.

If the author had stuck with this idea up through the later revelations about the Bannerworth's father, the story could have had some FASCINATING themes...Alas.

Interestingly, much later on, the idea of vampires preying on their loved ones is referenced, in a line that feels slightly meta:

"Why, what need you care? those who know about vampires say that there are two sorts, one sort always attacks its own relations as was, and nobody else, and the other always selects the most charming young girls, and nobody else, and if they can't get either, they starve to death, waste away and die, for they take no food or drink of any sort, unless they are downright forced."

By this point in the story, Varney is very firmly a vampire of the second sort, patterning himself as a less evil Ruthven sort of character. (The character speaking this line, incidentally, is heavily implied to have learned this information from Varney himself. It's unclear why Varney would have told him this.)

It is unclear where Clarimonde, a vampire who preys on sad twink priests, fits into this dichotomy.

[wordwizards]

so in the vourdalak novella, there's a scene where donde wants to stake his dad, but his siblings hid the stake from him. in the movie, there's a scene where they're trying to escape the dad, but piotr has the stake and is busy in his room crying. i think the moral here is that if your dad gets turned into a vampire, you should carve more than one stake, especially if you live in the woods and have access to all the wood you could possibly need. i'm just saying

[bloodsuckingviolet]

🎃Ultimate October Reading List👻

I compiled a list of 20+ of my favorite spooky reads, the creepiest, darkest paranormal stories and novels that are perfect to read when October comes around. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments or reblogs!

-Gwen🦇

The Banshee's Warning by Charlotte Riddell (haunting banshee)

The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe (black cats, supernatural)

The Case of the Leannabh Sidhe by Margery Lawrence (changelings, evil fairies)

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (classic ghost tropes; considered to be the very first gothic novel)

Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu (lesbian vampyres...need I say more?)

A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family by Sheridan le Fanu (haunted, eroding castle, jilted wife)

A Dead Man of Varley Grange by Anonymous (cursed cottage)

The Dead Sexton by Sheridan le Fanu (mysterious corpse thief)

Dracula by Bram Stoker (THEE vampyre, superstitions)

Dobrev (young clairvoyants, succubus, written by yours truly!)

The Family of a Vourdalak by Aleksey Tolstoy (vampyre, recently adapted into a fantastically weird French film)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (creation, horrors of life)

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen (supernatural, erotic)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (paranormal, curses)

Hugues, the Wer-wolf by Sutherland Menzies (OG werewolf story)

In the Closed Room by Frances Hodgson Burnett (ghosts, mysterious closed door)

Laura Silver Bell by Sheridan le Fanu (evil fairies, witchcraft)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (ghosts, autumn vibes)

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis (cruel and dark, such an insane read!)

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs (supernatural, death)

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (gothic romance, castles, supernatural)

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (ghost, romance)

The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffmann (dark fairy tale elements, obsession)

The Shadow of a Shade by Tom Hood (haunted portrait)

The Story of Medhans Lea by E. and H. Heron (haunted house, men getting scared, lol)

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (murder, good vs. evil)

Tales of Terror from the Black Ship by Chris Priestley (underrated horror author!)

Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth by Christ Priestley (eerie and disturbing short stories)

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe (guilt, murder)

The Tomb of Sarah by Frederick Loring (cursed tomb)

The Trod by Algernon Blackwood (evil fairies)

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (ghosts)

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley (first of a great ghostly, gruesome trilogy)

The Vampyre by John Polidori (one of the OG vamp tales; seductive, evil vampyre torments a young man and his sister)

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (even creepier than the movie)