Viy (1967)

[Meer]

So. I have a bad habit of watching old movies, it's a nasty trait that has been exasperated by the fact that new movies can be... well, awful. Unfortunately I'm also a huge fan of horror movies. While they're plentiful in the 60's and 70's, they were often pretty awful in their own right. This usually forces me to go international in my search for good horror films that I haven't already seen.

It was while looking for something along those lines that I found out about a 1967 Ukrainian horror movie by the name of "Viy" (Pronounced Vee, and spelled... well, in Ukrainian). The story is, apparently, based off of a Ukranian folk tale and finds a novice monk forced to perform a 3 night vigil over the bier of a witch. Naturally, being a horror movie, the witch isn't quite dead and she does her best to break the monk's vigil and (assumedly) murder him in awful, awful ways.

The acting is shit, and the dialogue is just outright strange at points... but the look of the film is fantastic. The backdrops in many scenes are simply painted landscapes, lending a striking contrast between the actors and their environments, it creates an interesting scene with little to no budget. Some clever use of set-layering later in the film also provides some solid effects.

The movie is not a work of art, it doesn't deserve any oscars and I imagine 99% of the people who watch it will just laugh their way through it; It deserves a look though. It pulls off some clever effects given its apparently limited budget, and manages to tell a fairly good story at the same time. The visuals of the movie are worth the price of admission alone (being a 1967 Ukranian horror film, the only way to get this movie is inherently free after all) and if you're bored, it's worth a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI38OrAOiY8 -- Just a few minutes out of the film I found on Youtube.