Rent VIY (1967)
3.5 of 5 from 120 ratings
1h 17min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Khoma (Leonid Kuravlyov), a young novice Monk, travels across the Ukrainian countryside whilst on a break from his seminary, and stays for one night in a barn belonging to a seemingly harmless old woman. Whilst sleeping the old woman attacks him, displaying supernatural strength. The scared novice fatally wounds her while fending her off. But before dying, she transforms into a beautiful young woman. Some time later Khoma, is called to the estate of a rich Kosack landowner, grieving the death of his daughter. Khoma has been personally requested to attend, and against his wishes taken by force to the estate. There he must pray for three nights in the chapel until the body of the landowners daughter is buried. On the first night, the woman Khoma had killed rises from the coffin and tries to kill him. Khoma must use every skill he knows for the next 3 nights to prevent this from happening. - Actors:
- Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Aleksey Glazyrin, Nikolay Kutuzov, Vadim Zakharchenko, Pyotr Vesklyarov, Vladimir Salnikov, Dmitriy Kapka, Stepan Shkurat, Georgiy Sochevko, Nikolay Yakovchenko, Nikolay Panasev, Borislav Brondukov, Aleksandra Denisova, Lyubov Kalyuzhnaya, Viktor Kolpakov, Mikhail Kramar, Margarita Krinitsyna, Aleksandr Lebedev, Dmitriy Orlovskiy
- Directors:
- Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov, Aleksandr Ptushko
- Writers:
- Konstantin Ershov, Nikolai Gogol, Georgiy Kropachyov, Aleksandr Ptushko
- Aka:
- Viy or Spirit of Evil / Viy, King of the Ghosts
- Studio:
- HB Films
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
- Countries:
- Soviet Union
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 15/03/2021
- Run Time:
- 77 minutes
- Languages:
- Dubbed, English LPCM Mono, Russian LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English, English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Brand new audio commentary with film historian and eastern European cinema expert Michael Brooke
- 'Samuel Goff on Nikolai Gogol' - Brand new audio essay by Dr. Samuel Goff (The Calvert Journal) 'Remembering Nikolai Gogol' - Archival documentary
- Three Russian silent film fragments, 'The Portrait' (1915, 8 mins), 'The Queen of Spades' (1916, 16 mins), and 'Satan Exultant' (1917, 20 mins)
- Original 1967 trailer
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Reviews (1) of VIY
Spoilers follow ... - VIY review by NP
This strange, folk fairy-tale technicolour nightmare begins with a band of young novice monks eagerly waiting to begin their vacations. Mischievous and cheeky, they waste no time in time in scouring the countryside in search of food and girls. Before long, three of their number are lost and, rather than sleep under the stars, call upon an abandoned farmhouse where they are reservedly welcomed by an old crone ...
From here, events take on a blackly comical tone. The playing across the board is carefully balanced between the more light-hearted moments and the regularly unsettling ones. In the third act, some very '20s grand guignol techniques are used: theatrically effective physical effects that convey darkly the demonic horror unleashed.
Unusual and parable-like, my score is 8 out of 10.
5 out of 5 members found this review helpful.