On one of his journeys, the well-powdered French diplomat Marquis d’Urfé finds himself at the doorstep of a Moldovan family, whose patriarch has set out to keep the Turks from encroaching on their land. Old Gorcha had ordered his three children not to open the door for anyone should he not return in six days. For then, he would no longer be their father, but a Vourdalak. Based on Lev’s cousin Aleksey Tolstoy’s horror story, Adrien Beau’s super-16mm creep fest is an anachronistic gem in which the titular vampiric creature is played by a marionette (!). (mk)