“Viy” (1967) came to my attention by virtue of having been collected in a 15-disc compendium of folk horror films “All the Haunts be Ours” (2021), along with 18 other restored films and special features, published by Severin Films.
Anecdotal Gogol
“Viy” the film is based on “Viy” the short story (“Вий” in Russian), the title of which mimics the Ukrainian word for eyelid. It was authored by Nikolai Gogol, a Ukrainian-born novelist who lived from 1809 until his premature death in 1852.
His most frequently read work today is “Dead Souls,” a satire of Russia’s serfdom society, intended as the first part of a trilogy modeled on Dante’s Divine Comedy trilogy. But Gogol was overtaken by mental illness before he could complete the second part and never even got started on the third.
“Viy” (1967)
Directors: Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov, Aleksandr Prushko
Writers: Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov; based on a story by Nikolai Gogol
Stars: Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Aleksey Glazyrin
Gogol frequently captured the grotesque and the surreal, and “Viy” is no exception.
Gogol claimed that this story was a genuine folk tale, labeling it a “specimen of folk-lore” that he “reproduced in the same simple form in which he heard it.” In fact, however, he concocted the plot, though it reads much like an authentic fairy tale. This film is a faithful adaptation of that plot.
Ogle this Gogol
As the film opens, it’s spring and a seminary university in Kieff lets out. Students scatter and return home for summer break.
There are three classes of students, Gogol tell us:
- The “grammarians” were still mere boys …
- The “rhetoricians” walked in a more orderly way …
- The “philosophers” talked in a tone an octave lower …
In the film, one such lower-octave philosophy pupil, Thomas Brutus, departs from the university on foot with two friends, a higher-octave theologian student and a rhetorician student. (The film is content to treat grammarians as theologians.) By nightfall, the three teens are lost and hungry. Darkness falls as they approach a home, asking for lodging.
A weird old woman invites them inside but insists on separating them. As Thomas gets ready for bed, the sinister hostess approaches him with a weird glint in her eye. All at once, realism turns dreamlike. In a flash, she’s riding Thomas like a horse – or a broom! – through the sky.
Thomas (perhaps more theologian than philosopher) combats this weirdness with prayer. He begins praying and eventually overcomes the harpy. He wears her down. The crone collapses. He prevails against the wrinkled sorceress, but he loses consciousness and revives alongside a beautiful young comatose woman. The dreamlike sequence thus concludes.
Gloomy Gogol
Next, Thomas returns to the seminary and the dean informs him that a rich colonel has summoned him to his villa on account of his teenage daughter taking seriously ill. Initially, the equestrian dream-witch and terminally ill teen seem unconnected. But following another cross-country trip, Thomas arrives just as the sick girl dies.
The colonel explains to Thomas that his daughter had returned from the woods overcome with exhaustion and – before fainting – begged him to bring a seminarian pupil named Thomas Brutus to pray for her. When Thomas approaches the corpse, he recognizes her as the witch from his previous encounter. It seems the witch has arranged a rematch.
Thence, Thomas begins his assignment: three nights praying over the witch-girl’s body in a gloomy church. The girl reanimates each night. The two skirmish against one other in a spiritual battle – earnest seminarian versus malignant sorceress, good versus evil, with each night’s conflict more intense than the last.
Global Gogol
Despite the primitive special effects, “Viy” is a genuinely spooky film that even brings latent humorous aspects of Gogol’s story forward quite effectively. Its legacy is impressive. It has since been remade no less than five times into full-length features, as “Vedma” (2006), “Viy 3D” (2014), “Gogol Viy” (2018) (all Russian); “Black Sunday” (1960, Italian); and “Evil Spirit: Viy” (2008, South Korean) — the last two films being loose adaptations of the Gogol source material.
It has also been adapted as a video game: “Viy: The Story Retold” (2004), an adventure game which has never been translated from its original Russian, but which is available on Steam for the curious.
On the web, one can also find “Viy 2: Journey to China” (2019) and “Viy 3: Journey to India” (2024) — which may have nothing to do with Gogol’s tale other than the fantastical elements — along with a 20-minute animated Ukrainian short film, “Viy” (1996), which was in fact directly inspired by Gogol, and is perhaps the most faithful to the 19th century text.
Focal Gogol
The original “Viy” is a Soviet horror film – some claim the first Soviet horror film – so why not give it a chance to work its magic? It’s unlike anything you’ve probably seen before. It’s also an adaptation of a Gogol tale that closely adheres to the tone and sinister eeriness of the original short story.