Viy
While watching this film (for the first time) today, I kept thinking of Ian Malcolm’s line in Jurassic Park: “Now, eventually you do plan to have dinosaurs on your, on your dinosaur tour, right?”, except I replaced “dinosaur” with “witch” and “tour” with “film”. The film is engaging when it focuses on Pannochka (Natalya Varley, voiced by Klara Rumyanova), but those scenes are sadly few and far between.
Viy was written by Aleksandr Ptushko, Konstantin Yershov, and Georgi Kropachyov while the latter two also directed, and was based on Nikolai Gogol’s novella of the same name. Viy was released on November 27th, 1967.
Viy tells the story of Khoma (Leonid Kuravlyov), a young seminary student who kills an old witch, Pannochka, who attempts to seduce and enchant him. After her death her body reverts to her (presumably natural) younger self and Khoma is forced by her father to sit with her body in prayer for three nights. Each night she rises from her coffin to get revenge but Khoma is able to protect himself using a sacred chalk circle until she returns to her coffin in the morning. However on the third evening Pannochka summons an army of demonic forces, including the demon VIY, that successfully kills Khoma.
If all that sounds interesting I can assure you that it only sporadically is. As I mentioned up top, the scenes involving Pannochka are gripping and tense. Unfortunately those scenes are brief and fleeting. The film itself is largely focused on Khoma and how this experience is affecting him. In theory that’s an interesting perspective from which to tell this story, but Khoma is such an unlikeable and (more damning) uninteresting character from the get-go that it’s difficult to care about him.
The film’s big set piece, when Pannochka summons the hellish forces, is by far the best part of the film and the special effects aren’t bad for the time and some of them actually look quite good. The scenes of Pannochka rising from her coffin to terrorize Khoma are much simpler, but similarly effective.
Unfortunately, the only version of this film I was able to get my hands on was an English dub and not the original Russian so it’s difficult to gauge both acting and dialogue, but I wasn’t particularly impressed with either. Pannochka herself, despite being a commanding presence, is a pretty flat character with little real development.
At the end of the day, Viy is an intriguing misfire. The plot has potential but ultimately falls flat due to an uninteresting central character and too little focus on what actually works.
Rating: 2 sacred chalk circles out of 5
Other Observations:
Does the dog die? No animals are killed in the film!
Harrison’s Favorite Scare: The hands coming out of the wall during the climax.
Despite not feeling a lot of love for this film, I’m really interested in reading the novella to see if it handles this story a little better.
Comments
Post a Comment