Every so often a film comes along that doesn’t just blur the line between dream and nightmare—it grinds it into powder, rolls it into a cigarette, and smokes it under a blood-red moon. Jaromil Jireš’ Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is one of those films. A surrealist gothic fairy tale from Czechoslovakia, it plays like Alice in Wonderland if Alice hit puberty, met some vampires, and decided sexual confusion was the real rabbit hole.
Plot: Puberty as a Fever Dream
Valerie (played by the astonishingly ethereal Jaroslava Schallerová, only 13 at the time) wakes up one morning to discover her earrings have been stolen, and with them, her sense of security. From that point on, she’s bounced like a pinball between priests who leer, grandmothers who bite, vampires who manipulate, and a boy named Orlík who may or may not be her brother.
There are magic pearls, witches’ accusations, chicken thefts, vampiric bloodlust, lesbian healing sessions, and enough incest innuendo to make Freud rise from his grave, light a cigar, and mutter, “Told you so.” By the time Valerie is dancing in the woods with her resurrected parents, one wonders if this was ever about horror—or just a fevered parable of adolescence where the real monster is “growing up.”
Performances: Wide Eyes, Cold Hands, and Lusty Priests
Jaroslava Schallerová’s Valerie is part angel, part prey animal, part trickster sprite. She floats through this carnival of perverts and predators with wide-eyed wonder, somehow managing to be innocent while the film itself cackles with depravity. Jan Klusák’s priest Gracián redefines “sanctified creepiness,” and Helena Anýžová as Grandma Elsa makes Grandmother’s House We Go feel more like Grandmother’s House We Bleed.
Everyone plays their part with dead-serious conviction, which is what makes the surreal imagery hit so hard. Nobody winks at the camera—this is nightmare business, and everyone’s selling it.
Direction: Surrealism with Bite
Jireš directs like a man possessed by equal parts vampire lore and puberty nightmares. Every frame drips with gothic beauty—candles flickering in shadowy corridors, girls in white dresses wandering into the woods, vampires with lipstick smeared like crime scenes. The film is gorgeous, yes, but also unsettling in the way dreams are unsettling: logic-free, but emotionally raw.
The cinematography makes even ordinary objects—pearls, flowers, a bed in the forest—feel like they’re conspiring against Valerie. If puberty had a mood board, this film is it.
Horror, Eroticism, and WTF Moments
This isn’t horror in the jump-scare, rubber-mask sense. It’s horror as in “Why is Grandma licking that girl’s neck, and why am I strangely invested in the outcome?” It’s erotic, yes, but the kind of eroticism that’s tangled up in Catholic guilt, childhood fairy tales, and forbidden desire.
One moment Valerie is being accused of witchcraft, the next she’s rescuing her maybe-brother, then she’s having a tender sapphic interlude with Hedvika that doubles as miraculous vampire cure. It’s both perverse and oddly sweet—like finding a love letter tucked into a coffin.
Legacy: A Cult of Wonders
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders became a cult darling, inspiring filmmakers, musicians, and goth kids everywhere who thought Bram Stoker just wasn’t horny or weird enough. It’s a film that refuses to be categorized: coming-of-age, horror, surrealism, folklore, exploitation, art film—it’s all of them at once.
Final Verdict
This isn’t a film you “watch.” It’s a film you surrender to. It slithers into your brain like a fever dream about sex, religion, and death, then curls up in the corner, leaving you both disturbed and enchanted.
⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5 vampire pearls. Recommended for fans of surrealist nightmares, pubescent panic, and anyone who ever thought The Brothers Grimm needed more incest and sapphic overtones.
