Tolstoy’s cousin wrote the novella about this vampire more than 50 years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It follows a French marquis who ends up stranded in a remote country where he meets a peculiar family. Turns out that dad is the bloodsucker. This is not a typical horror film, but much more an atmospheric mood piece. Even if there were any potential thrills, they are undermined by the use of a life size marionette for the father, which writer/director Adrien Beau personally operates and voices. Its weirdness simply takes the film out of “reality” into the world of stylized cinema with a touch of dark romanticism. 
(2 / 5)
