Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, better known as A. K. Tolstoy, was a Russian poet, novelist, and playwright. He is considered to be the most important nineteenth-century Russian historical dramatist, primarily on account of the strength of his dramatic trilogy The Death of Ivan the Terrible (1866), Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich (1868), and Tsar Boris (1870). Another of his most popular pieces is The Family of the Vourdalak, written in 1839 in French and later translated into Russian and released in 1884. This story has been the source of a few horror movies including Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (1963), starring Boris Karloff, Giorgio Ferroni’s Night of the Devils (1972), and Louis Morneau’s Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012).
A new movie based on the story is coming out now. Entitled A.K. Tolstoy’s A Taste of Blood (2020), or Sangre Vurdalak in its original Spanish language, it takes place in the uncertain hours after a vampire hunt when it’s unclear if the hunter himself has been turned into a creature of the night. Will his family find out in time, or will their sentiment make them easy prey for the novice nightwalker?
This is the new movie of Argentina-born writer and director Santiago Fernández Calvete, an awards-winner filmmaker known for The Second Death (2012), Intimate Witness (2015), and Tríada (2016).
The cast for the movie is formed by Germán Palacios, Tomás Carullo Lizzio, Alfonsina Carrocio, Naiara Awada, Martín Rena, Lautaro Bettoni, Julieta Daga, Carmela Merediz, Beto Bernuéz, and Jose Manuel Solis Vargas.
Under the title Sangre Vurdalak (2020), the movie had its world premiere at the Sitges Film Festival on October 14, 2020. A few other festivals followed after. Now, Cleopatra Entertainment has achieved the distribution rights and will release it on digital on May 10, 2021.
Watch the trailer for A.K. Tolstoy’s A Taste of Blood (2020).
