Rating: D
Dir: Daniyar Akchabaev
Star: Daniyar Beysekeev, Sabina Eralina, Almas Zharazkan, Riskul Konakbaev
a.k.a. Vo mrake
I did think about trying to set a new personal best, for how long I could write about a Kazakhstan film without mentioning Borat. The previous best of… um, zero words, was set back in 2015. However, the bottom line is, I might feel guilty about it, if this movie was any good. It really isn’t, so I feel under no particular pressure to avoid cheap shots at the country of manufacture. You might remember how, when the first Borat movie was released on DVD, it looked like a bootleg knockoff. That’s more or less what this feels like. Someone saw The Blair Witch Project and decided they could do just as well, getting their own bunch of unlikable young people to run around the woods, pursued by something unpleasant.
I guess it’s laudable they are at least trying to produce genre movies. Wikipedia sadly notes, “Kazakh cinema has developed something of a reputation as being more likely to be found in Western art houses and international competitions than on screens in Kazakhstan.” Efforts to make more commercial material haven’t gone well. 2005’s Nomad sits at 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, and despite a $40 million budget, grossed barely $3 million worldwide. It’s likely significant the best known Kazakh-born film-maker, Timur Bekmambetov, had to relocate out of the area in order to get work. He ended up moving to America to direct Wanted and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.
Information on this one is hard to come by. I can’t even assign character names to actors, since the IMDb doesn’t list any of the former, and the end-credits are entirely in Cyrillic, so are no help. Mr. Zharazkan isn’t listed on the IMDb, but shows up in the cast on the subtitles. Or maybe it’s Mrs. Zharazkan: “Almas” isn’t exactly gender-specific to English-speaking ears. I think that Sabina Eralina is probably the lead actress, but I would not bet my life on it. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine, and not just on the cast. For beyond that, there appears to be almost no information on the movie, so it’s difficult to put into the appropriate context, given both my cultural ignorance and informational vacuum.
Speaking of cultural ignorance, I will say, what surprised both myself and Chris was how Asian a lot of the characters looked. Borat has a lot to answer for, since they faked Kazakhstan in Romania. In reality – and thanks to Wikipedia again – “The Kazakhs arose from the merging of the medieval tribes of Turkic and Mongolic origin in the 15th century.” The modern country doesn’t quite have a border with Mongolia, but it’s close: about thirty miles, Russia and China getting in the way. You may also not realize how huge Kazakhstan is. As in, it’s the ninth-largest country in the world, and basically eleven times the size of Britain. It’s just largely uncontaminated by people, with a population of 20 million, only about 18 per square mile.
All of which is considerably more interesting than talking about the movie. The tone is set early with Danik getting a call at three in the morning from his hyped-up pal Chingis (a name rendered at various other points in the subtitles as Chinga, Chingiz or China). I get Danik is supposed to be sleepy, but the absolute lack of energy present in this opening scene is a bad sign, and gets worse the longer it drags on. The next day, Danik convinces Chingis, along with another pal, Rus, to go to a place in the mountains where tourists go missing. Along with them are Alisha (the one I think is played by Eralina), her gal pal Asel, and some jock I’m not sure ever was given a name.
Well before they even arrive at their destination, spooky incidents begin to plague the group, such as weird visions, Alisha’s arm getting trapped in the back seat of her car, etc. Any sensible person would decide, “Nah, let’s not go to a place in the mountains where tourists go missing.” But these are prime-grade horror movie idiots, oblivious to all concepts of logic and common sense. They plough on, despite warnings from a creepy park ranger, and Danik regales them with information he found in a book, which is a) kinda well-executed (below), and b) a blatant Necronomicon knock-off. It’s the story of a group who summoned demonic entities only to be overpowered by them. Meanwhile, their car door closes and locks itself. We’re half way through and this is the peak of excitement so far.
Things do not improve much thereafter. The group splits up for questionable reasons, and the rest of the film is basically them wandering the woods getting picked off, presumably by the leftover demonic entities mentioned above. One even wields a crappy video-camera for a bit, because reasons, providing an extra bonus of motion-induced nausea. Some of the demons look kinda decent, but it’s all painfully predictable. For instance, when three of them attempt to drive out of the woods, it’s blatantly obvious that one of them is going to be a demon in disguise. Then there’s the ending (top), which suggests that it wasn’t just Blair Witch which was popular in Kazakhstan – The Descent also had an audience.
I think is this blatant plagiarism what makes this entry so unsatisfying. The films in this series which we’ve appreciated best, are those where there is a genuine sense of local flavour, rather than those which simply seem interesting only in aping American horror movies. And, in this case, doing so quite badly. I understand, films like In the Darkness are made for a local market which hasn’t seen this kind of thing done to death. But from my perspective, it feels like the cinematic equivalent of flying half-way around the world (literally, to get to Kazakhstan) to some exotic location, only to dine on McDonalds’ and KFC. It’s kinda missing the point.
This review is part of our October 2024 feature, 31 More Countries of Horror.