Viy

Great Halloween story from a classical writer
I am not really into horror movies but I find this one different. It is based on a story by Gogol (early 19 cent. Russian writer, Pushkin thought highly of him) who was inspired by Ukranian folklore. Excellent family watching (esp. for a Halloween night). I think it might be reasonably approprate for kids (9 and up, or as soon as they are OK with witches). In fact, this movie was distributed in Moscow (in 70's) through a chain of "movie-theathers for kids".

The movie starts more like a comedy (vacation-bound semenarists mob streat vendors and grab passing girls while running from an Orthodox monastery). The movie gives excellent snap-shots of life in a Ukranian village 200 years ago. An atmosphere of that time is masterfully created. Gradually, the movie shifts towards "horror" as the story line develops around a young seminarist (Khoma). He is forced to come to a small village to pray for three nights over a body of a beautiful maiden who died under misterious circumstances. Each...

"Sacred Circle, Save Me! ~ A Cossack Doesn't Fear Anything In This World"
Note: Russian with English subtitles.

Synopsis: Brother Khoma, a young, Ukrainian Orthodox seminarian unintentionally beats an ugly, old witch to death after casting a spell on the surprised clergyman and mounting him as though he were a horse to soar in tandem through the night air in unholy flight. As she lies dying in the grass she transforms into a beautiful young girl as the confused Khoma runs from the scene.

Unfortunately the good Brother is assigned to perform a solitary three night prayer vigil over the same dead girl's body a few days later. For three successive evenings he must enter alone into an old wooden church and pray from dusk until dawn for the soul of the "dearly departed" As soon as he begins to pray the witch returns to life and attacks the frightened penitent. If not for the sacred circle he so wisely traced around him before beginning all would be lost.

The sound of the cock crowing to announce daybreak brings the demonic...

Psychedelic Russian horror.
Viy (Konstantin Yershov, 1967)

Some movies are just too weird to explain, and yet it is the lot of the hapless reviewer that we must try. Such a film is Viy, a Russian film from the sixties (currently being remade by Oleg Stepchenko, by the by, not that we'll ever get a chance to see it in America) that looks for all the world like a Roger Corman monster flick directed by Eisenstein, with someone very, very drunk in charge of the special effects. (Come to think of it, most of Corman's films... oh, forgot I said anything.)

Viy, based on a Nikolai Gogol short story, tells the tale of a bunch of seminary school students out on spring break. (Yes, really.) Seminary school students, it turns out, aren't much different than the rest of us when it comes to spring break; they party it up, with a great deal of alcohol and the requisite number of wenches. (Unfortunately, wet T-shirt contests are not the order of the day in Russia in April.) One of these seminary students...

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