Rating: B-
Dir: Andrey Grinko, Maxim Siry
Star: Anastasiya Vasilyeva, Anastasiya Filippova, Gabriel Picq, Vadim Galygin
a.k.a. Upyri
As I write this, the Olympics are on in Paris, and it struck me that I hadn’t seen a single athlete from Belarus. This felt it could be due to the heavily Americo-centric coverage we get here, though we’ve been doing our best to break out of that, and watch the more unusual sports. Big fan of sports climbing here. However, turned out there was good reason we’d not spotted them. Belarus had been barred from taking part as a country, due to its close ties with Russia and support for the invasion of Ukraine. But a few competitors were allowed to take part, albeit under the ‘Individual Neutral Athletes’ banner. Which is why I hadn’t noticed them.
Maybe I should follow suit, and include this one under a ‘Individual Neutral Horror’ banner as well? I don’t know what Comrades Grinko, Siry et al think about the war, but given this predates the invasion by three years, I doubt it was exactly on anyone’s radar at the time of filming. I also have a general philosophy of separating art from the artist anyway, never mind the artist’s nation. So, Belarus it remains. It’s probably the first country in this series I’d struggle to get as much as close to pointing out on the globe. Obviously, former Soviet republic, but that still covers about seven time-zones. Somewhere near Ukraine would make sense? /checks map. Ah, there we go. North of Ukraine, east of Poland and below the Baltic States.
For obvious reasons, most of the earlier productions of Belarusian cinema are commingled in to Soviet cinema. The most renowned such movie is undeniably Come and See from 1985, depicting the Nazi occupation of Belarus in World War II, though I found it more worthy than worthwhile. The country gained independence in 1991, and the same guy has been President since. So you need to have a fairly loose definition of “independent”, probably along the lines of, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” While information is sparse, I suspect this has had a suffocating effect on local cinema. The IMDb lists just nine horror features out of the country all-time. Two are available with subs, and the synopsis for Sasha’s Hell lost it the battle, at “captured on grainy VHS tape”.
So, Ghouls it is. Given the lack of horror history on which to build, I liked this more than expected. It grabbed my attention with an inventive, animated opening telling the folk story of a remote lake where, if you die in it, you come back as a monster unless your corpse is burned first. However, there’s then a big step back when we meet the quartet of annoying stereotypes who are the main characters. They are college students Polina (Vasilyeva) and Masha (Filippova), along with the latter’s French boyfriend Gabriel (Picq), and Chinese guy Xian, whom Masha seems to be trying to set up with Polina, much to her disdain.
They head out to the countryside on a trip, ending up – what are the odds? – beside the cursed lake mentioned above. The purpose of the excursion, unknown to Masha, is that Gabriel intends to propose to her. The problem? They’re not the only ones there. A trio of questionable characters, led by Sasha (Galygin), are operating on the shores of the lake, lugging around large boxes whose contents are uncertain, but likely as shady as they are. After the marriage proposal, to give the fiances space for a bit of newly-engaged fun, Xian goes to collect wood, while Polina is sent off on a long walk. However, he bumps into the criminals, who take badly to being interrupted, and Polina can only watch as he is ruthlessly drowned at the lake’s edge.
Worse is to follow, as she is captured by the thugs, who aren’t too sure what to do with her, and settle for tying her up with a sack on her head. Back at the camp, Masha and Gabriel grow increasingly worried about their friends’ disappearance. Also worried is an old woman living nearby with her hulking idiot son. She knows that it Xian’s corpse is not immediately consumed by flames (top), things are going to get worse. Not helping matters: one of the criminals ends up drowning himself in an ill-considered attempt to cross the lake, creating another monster-in-waiting. As night falls, things are going to get considerably more unpleasant for everyone by the water.
I liked this better, the further it went on. At times there’s black humour which felt almost like a supernaturally skewed Coen Brothers film, such as when Polina escapes, trying to make her way through the woods with a sack on her head. It’s also attractively photographed, with some shots which were genuinely very pretty (above). I liked the fact that, after sundown, it was still a very well-lit night, rather than leaving the viewer peering into darkness trying to figure out what was going on. It probably also helps that the banal chit-chat between the quartet, which had dragged down early proceedings, stops because they’re a) separated, and b) too busy trying to survive, both the criminals and the ghouls.
Probably would have preferred to have seen more monstrous activity. The low budget is apparent in the limited number of creatures, and they spend a bit too much time lurking in the reeds, when you feel they should be… well, gnawing. However, there’s still enough energy to keep things going, and we progress to a decent enough finale. I did think there was some potential left on the table. For example, I was thinking Xian might not be dead, and expected him to return to life as the old woman tried to burn his body. But I’ve seen considerably worse films made by countries with considerably more horror heritage (see: yesterday’s Belgian entry). Tradition: perhaps it’s vastly over-rated.
This review is part of our October 2024 feature, 31 More Countries of Horror.