WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Viy (1967) 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:05.519 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:15.520 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.720 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:20.840 today on Weird House Cinema, we're going to be talking 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:25.520 about the nineteen sixty seven Soviet folk horror film V, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.400 a story about a ne'er do well seminary student who 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.279 bumbles his way into a blood curdling confrontation with witchcraft, 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.199 living death, and the armies of Hell via some absolutely 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:44.599 amazing nineteen sixty special effects. V was based on an 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.440 eighteen thirty five novella by the author Nikolai Gogel, and 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.760 it gets its title from the name of a monstrous 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.959 creature that the protagonist is brought face to face with 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.680 at the climax of the story. So in the author's 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.840 note of the top of the novella, Gogol describes the 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.880 V as the king of the gnomes, whose eyelashes reached 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:09.959 to the ground. Do you get much of a gnome 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.400 feeling when we finally see the V in this thing. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.319 In a well, in a sense, cinematically, it reminds me, 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.199 It reminds me of the was it a Nome King 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:18.199 and returned to oz. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.640 Oh. Yes, he's called the Nome King without a g 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:22.680 it's just me. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.440 Yeah, So it did remind me of that. I was 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:28.679 digging into this a little bit. And the story is 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:35.240 supposedly derived in large part from Ukrainian folklore. Gogel was 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.960 himself Ukrainian born, and we can think of this as 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.399 as very much Ukrainian story that we're discussing here. But 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.600 apparently there's some discussion as to whether nomes actually factor 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.800 into Ukrainian folklore. So it's very possible that the entity 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.040 V is the element in the story that is pretty 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:56.000 much a creation. 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:56.720 Of the author. 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:57.000 Here. 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.800 This is Gogel's. 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.640 Creation, and we can look to various things he might 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.000 have drawn upon from other cultures, like it has again 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:10.080 like what I eyelids or eyebrows that cover eyes that 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.520 cast a deadly ray. This reminds us a little bit 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:19.720 of in Irish mythology, the King of the Fomorians, whose 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.919 lids are like that. I think his brow hangs down 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.560 over a terrifying gaze. And if you raise that brow, 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.400 if others raise it for him, then he can decimate 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:29.160 the enemy. 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.880 I don't know what exact word go Gol would have 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.760 used that these authors translate as Gnome in that note, 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:36.600 but yeah, the king of the gnomes at least in 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:37.800 that English rendering. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.000 Well, I love the way it comes together, and we'll 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.000 be talking about this a lot, because, yeah, everything comes 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.640 to a head in this movie when V actually takes 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.720 the stage and there's just it's just such a weird entity. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.760 The presentation is so strange and does feel, you know, certainly, 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.480 you know, to my eyes, and I think to maybe 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.560 like international viewers at least, but also perhaps viewers of 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.239 the film as well, like there's just an otherworldly weirdness 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.600 to it. And that's exactly what you should feel when, like, 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.480 you know, unknown darkness is boiling up and overcoming of 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:12.720 all of the things that you thought were going to 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.639 protect you from their ravaging power. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.640 Though I do think it's interesting that the title of 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.520 this movie and of the novella that it's based on, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.840 is taken from the name of a creature which does 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.919 not appear until the very last few minutes of the film, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.920 and unless I missed something, is never mentioned before that. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:36.760 It's not like, oh, you're going to have to meet 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.640 V soon. I don't think VE ever comes up until 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:41.000 right before he summoned. 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.880 Oh no, he's just he's the culmination of the film. 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.120 But he's not a culmination and anyone's really prepared for. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:50.880 But well, I mean that's sort of a great metaphor 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:55.520 for what the movie is overall. This this film is 0:03:55.920 --> 0:04:00.800 quite famous for storing up its demonic payload for a 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:06.560 sudden and overwhelming deployment in the final few minutes. And Rob, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.640 you and I had discussed before, you know, should we 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.960 do this movie. It had come up, but I think 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.880 we had both read people saying on the internet, like 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.720 it's kind of slow for most of the runtime, though 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.599 the last few minutes are amazing. I'm going to stick 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.360 up for the rest of the runtime. I think this 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.200 is a pretty great movie end to end. Though it's 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:29.360 hard to deny that it really saves it really saves 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:30.800 the bang for the very end. 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.080 That is true, absolutely. I mean, we've discussed other films 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.920 that do this as well. I mean the last fifteen 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:39.920 minutes of the film, the least ten minutes of the film, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.720 or even just the last act, Like that's the time 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.719 when you have your monster go on a full rampage 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.120 and it's fully visible to the audience. That's the time 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:53.200 also when key bad guys might melt or explode. So 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.880 it makes sense that you would save your special effects 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.640 fiasco for that portion of a film. But I agree 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.680 with you. I think that I think that the rest 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.520 of the film absolutely holds up and lays the groundwork 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.440 and builds up to that moment in a wonderful way. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.359 But yeah, it is It is still definitely the case 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.080 that most of the clips you might have been exposed 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.839 to concerning this film, the images you might have been 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.080 exposed to, and certainly some of the poster are you know, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.240 the main selling point it is from the final like 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.720 ten minutes or so of the movie. And so on 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:27.280 one hand, like all of that is the thing that 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.840 you absolutely use to pull someone in, and if you're 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.520 telling somebody about v you're going to say, hey, make 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.479 sure you watch those last ten minutes. But you almost 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:38.520 do it a disservice because it kind of can lead 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.000 to this idea that it might be lopsided and it's 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.839 maybe a slog to get there. But yeah, there's still 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.680 plenty of weirdness, there's humor, beautifully sought shot sets and locations, 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.080 so the journey is worth it. 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:55.880 As well. Yeah, I totally agree. The special effects centerpiece 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:57.880 is the climax of the film, but there's a lot 0:05:57.920 --> 0:05:59.680 to love before we get to that. Like you say, 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:05.200 it is very funny throughout and even beyond that, the 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.760 ending is not the only thing where there's something really 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.680 beautiful and interesting to look at. Like throughout the movie, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.640 there are there's some beautiful cinematography. There's some great locations. 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.520 I love the chapel where the climax takes place. We 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.479 get there early on and get to survey all the 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.599 different little nooks and crannies of it. In earlier scenes. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.720 There are some beautiful uses of actual outdoor locations, some 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.760 really cool indoor for outdoor sets that highlight these these 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.400 blue slavic atmospherics that just make the world feel like 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.160 it's humming with witchcraft. Yeah, I loved it. I thought 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:44.560 this is a great film. Yeah. 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.560 Plus, not all the special effects are saved for encounters 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.640 with the unseen world. We also get a great scene 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:56.320 where our lead character just gets terribly drunk with some Cossacks, 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.800 and so we get some great like spinning room sequences 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.040 like triple vision, you know, and it has nothing to do 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.200 with magic. It's just that he's really, really drunk. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.800 The Cossack Boss appears coming out of three different doors 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:13.280 at the same time. Yes, it's pretty great that vodka 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:13.720 will get you. 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.160 Yeah, there's a lot of vodka drinking in this so 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:17.480 so yeah. 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:17.640 There. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.040 On one hand, there's a lot of unknowable folk magic 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:25.000 in this film. And our our our lead character is 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:27.120 fresh out of seminary, and so he is. 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.400 He is a man of the cloth, but he's often 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.480 described I think as a philosopher. Philoh. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.640 They're always calling him that. They're saying, hey, philosopher, come 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:36.080 over here. 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.400 That may be a kind of mocking title, and I'm 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.239 not entirely sure how that's intended. But yes, he's a 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.440 he's a seminary student. He is studying with the clergy. 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:47.160 I don't know if his plan is to become a 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.680 member of the clergy, but he's he's he knows how 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.000 to say prayers and read books. Yeah. 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.360 But the interesting thing, and we'll come back to this 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.120 a number of times, I think, is for this seminary. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.000 And his faith is not enough, like the power. I 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:00.760 don't know if the power of God is even enough, 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.640 but at least his his faith in the power of 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:05.920 God is not enough to save him in the end, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.200 and he has marginal success with like a magic circle, 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:14.720 which doesn't feel expressly Christian. And of course the main action, 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.120 like the most terrifying things in the picture, take place 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.040 within this kind of gloomy, creepy chapel that's decorated with 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:27.760 night gallery worthy paintings of Christ and saints. And so, yeah, 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:29.520 we see him in the midst of these trials. We 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.280 see him appeal to race and nationalism as often as 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.720 he appeals to God. And you know, he's reminding himself 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:38.800 of his own faith and his resolve and the power 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:42.920 of Christ. But none of this is sufficient to stave 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:44.360 off the forces of darkness. 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.800 Yeah, he does try to find recourse with a cossack 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.600 as afraid of nothing, but yeah, yeah he is afraid. 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.200 I like that you pointed out the creepiness of the 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.600 paintings in the church, and this is before the church 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.640 transforms into monster mode. It does go through a transformation 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.400 where all of the paintings turn into paintings of devils 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:07.160 and stuff, and we can revisit that later, but even 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:11.440 in its daytime form, this church has images of the 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.520 face of Jesus Christ that are so morbid and horrible. 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:20.199 It has this green, frowning Christ is just looking on 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.720 you with absolute contempt. Yeah. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.080 Creepiest chapels since a Lucarde. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.520 Yeah here, but I agree with what you were saying here. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.120 I was actually going to say myself that in this film, 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:38.240 it feels almost like Christianity is treated as simply an 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.559 alternate form of witchcraft. It's like the good witchcraft. I 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.880 think a lot of horror movies that have this type 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.000 of conflict, that throw a priest or a member of 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:54.920 the clergy into conflict with witchcraft or the devil, have 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:59.319 a framework that you could call magic versus religion, highlighting 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.640 the different in form and structure of magic versus religion. 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.560 So in these types of stories, magic can be viewed 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:11.880 as a chaotic, transactional system of power in which witches 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.520 and sorcerers get strength by recruiting the help of these 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.000 dangerous supernatural beings. And then you contrast that with religion, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:25.880 which is viewed as orderly, maybe inherently good, maybe a 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:31.440 fully integrated thing in the lives of the practitioners, unlike magic, 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.360 which is simply for sourcing power, and that the power 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.360 from the religion comes from a predictable God and his 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:44.400 earthly authorities. But in the Coma's Christianity does not feel 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:49.080 like an orderly system that is integrated and meaningful throughout 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.440 his whole life. Did you get that feeling at all? 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.520 Right? Right, he is in a very shaky place with it. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.280 And I guess there's a lot of commentary that seems 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.080 to be going on here, some some criticism of religion 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.280 as a whole, and you know, pretty much all of 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.520 the religious figures in the in the movie are portrayed 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:13.400 as being well drunks in many cases, as being letcherus. 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.600 Like the movie opens with them like what breaking, Like 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.280 the seminary is breaking for the summer or something, and 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.720 they let the students loose and they're like already like ones, 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:25.640 like trying to get a goat to read the Bible. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.959 They head out, they start drinking, they're like chasing women 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.920 across the fields, like they're just these do not feel 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.120 like men of God that have been or even future 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.160 men of God that have been released. So there's there's 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:42.040 always this sense of hypocrisy with the way the people 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:43.480 of Christ are portrayed in this film. 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.000 Yes, the seminary students as a whole at the beginning 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:51.560 are portrayed as an almost malevolent, chaotic force, like so 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.160 you said the opening scene, the rector comes out of 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.400 the seminary and lets them loose for vacation, and as 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.080 soon as they're released, yet they're just they swarm over 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.760 the town, looting and pillaging. So and I do want 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.280 to emphasize that it's not just like a little harmless mischief. 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.120 They are like an attacking army that is sacking a city. 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.079 So they run to the market and they steal everything 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.520 that's not tied down in the market. They are shown 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.320 kidnapping women from the fields doing their laundry. It's just mayhem. 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.960 Yeah, though with all of this with an intended comedic flare, 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:26.199 that needs to be sure. 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.480 And you know, we're used to seeing stories where the 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:35.160 clergy are depicted ironically, maybe highlighting vices. 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.120 Or yet like the drug friar is a common trope. 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.040 For exactly yeah, totally ways that the clergy might fail 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.720 to live up to what they preach. But I think 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.440 this is significantly over that line. It's it's it is 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.679 still played for comedy, but it's more than just some 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.439 light ribbing of the priesthood. These these seminary students are 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:55.280 like locusts. 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.200 Yeah yeah, and I think in some of this we 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.119 can detect a bit of that so yet era atheism 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:05.760 in its portrayal of organized religion here as lazy, hypocritical, 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:10.040 and ineffective. And it's interesting to potentially see that here 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.760 because we've definitely looked at plenty of examples of cinema 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:20.559 from different countries under different regimes and different standards and practices, 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:26.079 which you know, interfere with not portraying like, say, you know, 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:28.640 the Christian faith or some sort of some sort of 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.760 set of morals as being superior to the forces of darkness, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.800 or as being like some sort of backbone you can 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:35.440 depend upon. 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.920 Yeah, so here you might be getting a counterposed type 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.319 of anti clerical piety. But yeah, so anyway, I just 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.240 to come back and finish the thought I started a 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.280 minute minute ago about the Christianity and the movie feeling 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:53.640 not really like a religion, but feeling like an alternate 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.640 form of witchcraft. I think when you actually get into 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.679 the exorcism or prayer scenes, you know, we're used to 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.679 seeing these exorcism scenes in movies like The Exorcist. We've 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.720 done exorcism movies on weird House before, where there's a 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.640 spiritual battle, often of words going on, a ritual, rituals 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.600 fighting back and forth, or ritual versus a kind of 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:18.000 projection of profanity by the demonic forces. A lot of 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:24.120 times those scenes emphasize the confidence and the rectitude of 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:29.600 the orderly forces representing the whole apparatus of religion. This 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.440 movie doesn't feel like that at all. Instead, it feels 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:37.720 like Coma is trying to hold up the Christian rights 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:42.760 and prayers as this tenuous system of apotropaic magic. It's like, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:47.000 these are the charms and hexes he knows that can, hopefully, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.240 with a bit of luck, keep the devils from killing him. 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.800 And it doesn't work. Yeah. 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:57.000 In a way, you could almost imagine him expecting Satan 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.840 to make an appearance at the end, but there's no Satan. 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.760 There's the He might be like, who the heck is 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.080 the you know, I wasn't prepared for this at all, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:09.080 and the creatures of the night would just tell him, yeah, 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:09.440 you were not. 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.160 There is no day, only the yeah. Yeah. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.560 Now it's worth addressing that this is a then Soviet 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:20.400 Union film produced by Moss Film, based on the work 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.440 of a Russian author of Ukrainian origin, set and filmed 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.040 for outdoor scenes at least in what is now Ukraine, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.960 and featuring a mix of Soviet actors and filmmakers, some 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.600 of whom had Ukrainian origins, So it has a distinctive 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.840 Ukrainian flair. But again, film during the nineteen sixties when 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.560 Ukraine was part of the USSR, and set during the 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.520 eighteenth century when this part of Ukraine was ruled by 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.560 the Cossack Hetmanate. So at any rate, referring to the 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.520 film and the work of Gogel, it is highly accurate 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:51.480 to call this a work of Ukrainian full. 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:57.720 Car Yeah, very much Ukrainian in setting and feeling. But 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.800 I think it'd be also worth addressing the second half 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.280 of what you said, they're Ukrainian full corror? Is this 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:11.600 full corror? I encountered this movie actually because it came 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.120 with a box set that I recently ordered, Rob. I 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:15.880 think maybe you were going to bring this up anyway. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:21.000 I ordered the Severin Films collection called All the Haunts 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:25.080 Be Hours, a compendium of full corr Volume one, Rob, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:26.120 Have you check this out? 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.640 I have looked at it longingly, because you know, it 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.040 looks amazing. It has what fifteen discs in it. It's 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:36.760 films from different eras, different countries, all kind of loosely 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:38.640 under the umbrella of full car. 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.680 I haven't watched all the movies in it yet, but 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.200 I think you could argue that this film selection is 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.320 very much curated. It's not just one of these collections 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.760 where what movies could we get, let's throw them together, 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:53.080 And the films feel very carefully selected to kind of 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.800 tell a story about what full core is and could be. 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:01.080 And in that sense, it is accompanied by a there's 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:05.800 a documentary called A Woodland's Dark and Days Bewitched. This 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.560 is a documentary about the history of full corror as 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:13.000 a genre. Especially interesting because full corror, though it's a 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.440 term we use now all the time, when a lot 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.639 of the movies within the genre of full carr were made, 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.840 there wasn't. This wasn't really a concept people were referring to. 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.239 A lot of the people didn't think I'm making a 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.280 full corror movie. It's like a more recently applied term. 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.359 Usually, yeah, yeah, you would be more I think likely 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.480 to have a film like this described. It might be 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.359 described as horror, but probably more likely to be described 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.080 as fantasy or a fairy tale. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.919 Yes, exactly. It is the folk tale framing or the 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.560 fairy tale or folk tale framing that I think probably 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.919 would have come first to mind of the filmmakers in 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.360 this case, and in a lot of the earlier films 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.359 that are now thought of as full core. But there's 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.639 like in this documentary about what full core is and 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.840 where it comes from there, or all these descriptive phrases 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.480 people are coming up with to to try to describe 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.880 the genre. And I thought that part was very interesting, 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:09.760 just in how a full car is one of these 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.480 things that I had never thought to try and define before, 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.480 but I totally know it when I see it, but 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.880 I couldn't come up with a comprehensive definition of what fits. 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:25.040 It has very fuzzy edges, but those edges overlap somehow 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:35.160 with witchcraft, paganism, anything pre Christian resurfacing in the Christian context, 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:39.680 and also is very much about like buried layers of 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:45.239 previous culture or the past being sort of unearthed and 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.520 brought up into a more modern context. And putting all 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.280 these things together, I was starting to wonder, wait a minute, 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.400 is the actually full car? It feels like full car 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.760 it feels like it fits. Maybe it's just that it's 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.439 one thing about the clash between Christianity and witchcraft, like 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.960 that alone is enough to get you there. Yeah. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:07.560 Yeah, I mean it's it's one of those things it's 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.240 hard to nail down, you know. We can there's certain 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:11.600 things we can we can look at and we can 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:13.800 be like, oh, yeah, of course blood on Satan's clause 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.360 it's full Car or you know, or the wicker Man. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.240 But then you you can also bring up a movie 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.320 like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I think you can make 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.840 a case for there being some strong Full Car elements 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.359 there without it being like so clearly full Car that 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.000 you you know that you would you would never miss it. 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.760 That's sort of yeah. Well, it's interesting because a lot 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:37.359 of the key elements of Full Care are are also 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.760 very common in movies that people don't think of as 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.119 Full Car. For example, one of the key things, like 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.080 one of the most common plot structures of Full Car 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:51.080 people critics identified this a lot is a naive city 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:57.080 dwelling outsider or scholar goes into a rural place and 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.960 discovers a pagan conspiracy or some kind of some kind 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.440 of ancient or superstitious horror taking place there. Yeah, now 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.680 that you know, that's kind of the wicker Man that's 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.320 in a lot of these full Correr movies of the 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.800 past and the craft, yeah, and of the present. But 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.199 it's also just like you start thinking about it, Oh, 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:19.720 that's so much horror. That's things we don't think of 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.080 full car at all. Lots of slasher movies or about 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:24.520 like a naive city dweller who goes out into a 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.439 rural place and stumbles upon some kind of conspiracy. I 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.600 guess in some of those cases where where we have 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.520 these slasher movies that have that structure but don't feel 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.440 like full cor I was trying to think, why don't 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.440 they feel like full core. Maybe it's just because there 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.959 are no real elements of like displaced ancient culture or 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.360 rituals or paganism. Maybe you need that kind of element 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.040 to cement the full core connection. 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.280 Yeah, yeah, I think so. And so like with Texas 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.320 Chainsaw Masacre, you get some slight hints of that with 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.680 some of like the the little dabbles that they decorate 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.640 the trees with, you know it, but it's not really 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:03.959 dwelled upon. It's kind of faint. And then there are 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.640 some other bells and whistles in that film that kind 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:11.760 of make you look in different directions, like astrological data 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:12.480 and so forth. 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.159 This movie, actually, now that I think about it, it 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.720 does have that structure too, doesn't it. Because Coma is 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.840 from the city. He's a he's a student, a scholar 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:25.320 from Kiev who goes out into the country and stumbles 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:29.199 across some witchcraft. So I didn't even think about that 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:31.679 when I started describing this, but that is right. That 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:33.320 is basically the structure of the plot. 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.720 Yeah, the locals are making him do something. He tries 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.040 to run away from his responsibilities. They catch him and 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:40.760 they lock him back in and they make him do 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:41.200 his job. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:43.080 Yeah, yeah, you could. 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:48.960 You could easily imagine like a Southern exploitation treatment of 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:50.560 this exact same plot. 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.640 So that's interesting. Yeah, student wanders off campus from Liberty 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:02.320 University and has like Southern Baptist student is out there, 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.119 runs into some country witchcraft. Yeah I love it. 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.480