Sunday, August 4, 2019

Viy (1967) [Folk Horror]




Directed by Konstantin Ershov & Georgiy Kropachyov

Writing Credits Konstantin Ershov & Nikolay Gogol (story) (as Nikolai Gogol), Georgiy Kropachyov, Aleksandr Ptushko

Based on a novel by Russian author Nikolai Gogol, Viy explorers the power of faith and belief in mythology through the efforts of a young seminary student struggling to fight a vengeful witch whose path he has inadvertently crossed.

I'm always interested in foreign films and this one holds a unique place both for its time and origin - Soviet Union! I expected it to be an indictment against the fallacies of faith and the corruption of the holy church, it was a sensitive story. There is good and evil in the world and supernatural things to do exist. The story is told economically and quite colorfully.

The confrontations between the witch and the student are for the most part marvels of practical effects! There is one scene that is not very convincingly back shot, but the use of puppets, rotating sets and double exposes look fantastic. The dubbed version of Viy is currently streaming on Shudder.

Wholly unrelated to actually watching the movie, I had used the scenes to make a music video for a song called Quatto by group called Heliotropes.
IMDB Trailer Quatto by Heliotropes

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