From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie VIY released in 1967.
Please forgive me in advance for any horrible mispronunciations I may make in the video.
Starring:
Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Aleksey Glazyrin
Directed by:
Konstantin Ershov and Georgiy Kropachyov
Genre:
Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
Not Rated
Budget:
50000 Soviet Ruble
(Approx. 639.43 US Dollars)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
7.3
The Synopsis is:
A seminary student beats a cursed woman to death and is forced to pray over her dead body for three nights withstanding many horrors.
Story:
Viy, otherwise known as Spirit of Evil, is a novel by Ukrainian born author, Nikolai Gogol, based on the summoning of an evil demon that settles a score between a witch and a seminary student. It was first published in volume 1 of his collection of tales, Mirgorod in 1835.
Gogol said that the story was based on folklore and he tells the story as it was told to him. However, it is generally agreed that no one had ever heard of the story until he told it.
This movie is an adaptation of Gogol’s story directed by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov. Based on a screenplay written by the two directors along with Aleksandr Ptushko. Some people have claimed that Aleksandr was the true director of this film and is really the one responsible for its visuals. He was often called the Soviet version of Ray Harryhausen. It was distributed by Mosfilm, and was the first Soviet-era horror film to be officially released in Russia.
The story is pretty simple and very mysterious. Part of the mystery exists because the film is more visual than explicative. You have to really keep your eyes glued to the screen to get what’s all happening. The version of the film I watched was in Russian, so part of paying super attention was to watch the closed captioning. I do have to say that this version helps you to appreciate the acting more, so if you do find this kind of film interesting then I would recommend watching it this way.
At an hour and 17 minutes, it’s short and sweet, but you get the idea that the story could have been trimmed even more. What you do get is so great though. Wow! This movie really impressed me. I was actually tipped off about this movie from a tweet a few weeks ago and have been obsessed with it ever since.
Let me set up the story for you. As a class of seminary students are sent home for vacation they all terrors on the town they are in, stealing, raping and drinking. This is horrible. But they don’t show you the details of it. It is more implied what happens.
I started laughing immediately because I got the message. It may have been a statement that Nickolai Gogol wanted to stress in the story about the irony that we have students who are learning about moral piety and are not applying any of it in the real world where it counts.
I knew I was in for a treat and boy was I ever.
One of the worst of the hypocrites of the bunch is Khoma Brutus nicknamed the philosopher played wonderfully by Leonid Kuravlyov who gets lost with two other students. As luck would have it, Vedma, an old witch, clearly played by a man, actor Nikolay Kutuzov, agrees to let them sleep in separate areas of her property. Khoma was set to sleep in her barn overnight. During the night he thought that she was trying to seduce him, but she put him in a trance so that she could climb his back and fly through the night sky until the morning.
Yep, this is weird and the way it is shot, it’s actually a serene moment that Vedma is clearly enjoying.
When they land and Khoma discovers what was happening, it enraged him to beat Vedma nearly to death with a stick. Vedma transformed into Pannochka, a young unmarried woman, played by Natalya Varley who had been fatally wounded during the beating.
Now to be honest, his rage is understandable because Vedma did violate his body for her own use. Although he lost control of his anger, he could have been absolved of his mistake if he took responsibility for his actions. He doesn't. He runs as fast as he could away without even trying to get help for the dying girl. He demonstrates no remorse, avoiding his responsibility in the matter completely.
Khoma made it back to the seminary early, thinking that he got away with murder. The headmaster told him that a dying girl in a nearby Cossack village requested Khoma by name to pray over her for three nights. Immediately he knew something was wrong and made several comedic attempts to get out of it, but to no avail.
When he gets to the village, he realizes that the girl is the same Pannochka he nearly killed. It turns out that she is the daughter of Sotnik played by Aleksey Glazyrin, a very wealthy man shrouded in his own mystery, but you get the grieving countenance in his performance. He has his suspicions about Khoma, but doesn’t really know what happened to his daughter. His sincerity in honoring his daughter's last wish, to have Khoma perform these nightly ceremonies is palpable. But he is not a nice guy. At one point he threatens Khoma with 1,000 lashes if he doesn’t do as he’s told. If he does it he will get 1,000 coins.
For the three nights Khoma prays over the girl in a locked decrepit chapel, and each night the threat grows more and more until she finally “gets” him.
The background to the story is that we do get a scene where two villagers are talking and reveal that they feel some remorse for the girl and say that she was cursed. At the end, she turns into the Vedma as her final form before laying to rest. Was she always the old woman all along or is her appearance the result of her dark arts? At first I doubted that she was really Sotnik’s daughter. But by Aleksey Glazyrin’s performance, of concern and anger, I would say, he really is her father.
I always wondered if Sotnik and the town may be under a curse too. Who knows, and I love the fact that we are left in the dark about that. I could use a few answers, but it doesn’t kill the story that there isn't any explanation. We are left to our own imaginations.
The Cossacks also told him about a huntsman who fell in love with Pannochka. Well it’s easy because she is gorgeous. He was into some wild stuff and asked if she could ride his back like a horse, which is a lot like what Vedma did to Khoma. Was she choosing Khoma as her boyfriend at the barn? It’s so interesting and wild and unusual. This could all be a metaphor for something that Nikolai Gogol couldn’t talk about out right in 1835. Wink, Wink!
From the book, the huntsman died from exhaustion. Another man had his infant child's blood sucked from the throat, and his wife was killed as Pannochka growled like a dog. There is a possibility that she’s been terrorizing the entire town and this was eiher their way of getting out of this mess or… maybe this is just a thing that they continue to do over and over again. They find some morally inept jerk and feed him to the witch haunting the town.
During the nights, it is only when he prays that she awakens. It seems she can not see, but she can hear.
One little detail, I did notice was when the town announces that Pannochka is dead, they all tell each other to be quiet. I think that they say that because she’ll come to terrorize them if she can hear them. Khoma could have spent his nights perfectly quiet and possibly survived… maybe. That’s just a theory.
Khoma’s first night events occur at about the 40 minute mark and it just gets bonkers from there. Once Khoma begins to recite his prayers, Pannochka awakens. In order to protect himself, Khoma draws a protective circle, which she cannot penetrate. This is a very important part of the plot because, much of the time Pannochka is trying to break the barrier of the circle. Natalya Varley skillfully portrays the physical miming as if there was an invisible wall so well.
Pannochka, as beautiful as she is, has a wild intensity in her eyes that is unwavering. There is something so scary about her persistence at trying to get at Khoma. The thrills of music, the spinning camera work and visual effects are impeccably at work here with wondrous simplicity. At one point she is flying around the room on a coffin and it’s grand. These effects are not easy to pull off but they are effects that are eye-catching and ones you will always remember.
VIY, the titular character, was saved for the last night of prayers, wherein Pannochka calls upon all of the creatures of darkness to help her take her revenge on Khoma. Boy was it a showstopper where all of the monsters literally came out of the woodwork.
The monster VIY is actually the king of the gnomes or some kind of boss level demon that has extra long eyelids. They are so long that he needs other lesser demons to lift them. His vision allows the other demons to find Khoma and penetrate his protective circle.
It’s also a black comedy in the way that Khoma is a bit dopey. Even Though the topic is pretty serious, Leonid Kuravlyov plays the character as lovable as he can so the audience isn’t exactly cheering for Pannochka to get him. But he is a terrible person. He lacks a moral center, so the whole time all of this is happening he is calling Pannochka every name he can think of and praying to God that he’d be saved, but not one time did he ever apologize for committing murder. Not once did he ever show remorse.
It has a deeper meaning as you think about the value of character and what that means to each of us. It’s a classic lesson: Be a good person or you’re doomed.
The cool part of the film is the very end, showing Khoma's two friends that were traveling with him in the beginning of the film working as painters at the seminary. They are barely any better than Khoma, drinking and lying. They hold up a drink in honor of their friend and they offer two really cool ideas. One idea is that perhaps if Khoma had more faith, he would have survived. The other theory is that perhaps Khoma was still alive because we only see him lying on the floor at the end. There is no indication he’s actually dead.
That is so cool! I love that uncertainty. It gives the film so much more afterlife, excuse the pun, but it’s true. I am still thinking about this film weeks later.
Wow, what a joy it was to see this movie. It is something you must see at least once.
You will be able to see so many influences in this. I see lots of influences from silent films; the simplicity of it feels that way and the color palate of this deep pale green, while Khoma and Ponnochka remained in vibrant colors. I see echoes of films like The Exorcist 1973, Life Force 1985, The Gate 1987, The Fearless Vampire Killers released in the same year in 1967 and many, many Hammer Films from the 1970’s. Directors like David Lynch and Guillermo del Toro come to mind when watching this as well.
The cinematic purity of the film makes it irresistibly rewatchable!
This is a true retro movie lover’s treat!
My Rating:
8.7
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. If you did, I’ve got over 100 of these videos, so go on and browse the channel to see more reviews from me like this. Subscribe if you haven’t done so already and hit the bell icon to be the first to be notified of my next video.
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