Honourable Mention: Viy: The Lost Tapes

The story Viy by Nikolai Gogol, published in 1835, is a vampire story. Within the tale you get hagriding, which is a form of psychic or energy vampirism, and blood drinking as well as the restless dead. Viy is a Ukrainian tale, with Gogol himself Ukrainian and the tale purported to be based on Ukrainian folktales (though the creature Viy is pure invention by Gogol). However, I have likened the central witch character to the Romanian folklore of the strigoï vii, which was a living vampiric witch who became a strigoï mort, or undead vampire, on death.

Kate Louise Ridley as Alyson

This 2023 film, directed by Alex Waters, hails from Australia, is rather short (55 minutes) and is in the Found Footage style. It is set in Serbia, in a small town near Belgrade, though I suspect it was filmed in Australia. The film follows three American travel vloggers, Chris (Michael Fitzpatrick), Holly (Sarah Huig) and Miranda (Monique Molnar), and, at the head of the film a person called Alyson (Kate Louise Ridley) explains the background, saying they vanished in 2005 and then, eight years later in 2013 she received a disc anonymously with files on it and patched the film together from that. Given there is then an intertitle that says the footage was shot in 2015 someone got the dates wrong (the later date would seem to scan though). The preamble, however, does mention Gogol’s story and the similarities.

the vloggers

So, the three travel vloggers go into a bar (perhaps communal hall) in the town (having had Holly moan about the lack of amenities, such as wifi). Chris is loud and obnoxious, the sort of idiot that chants USA for no reason at inopportune times, he remains through the film an unlikeable character. It becomes apparent that he is in a relationship with Holly and Miranda is new to the crew. Chris’ enunciation is odd also, sounding like the Peter Loew character from Vampire's Kiss. Having not managed to make the bartender (Roger Dvorak) understand them they speak to Sergey (Greg Dixon), who speaks English, and order vodka.

sitting with the dead

Sergey sits with them and a man (Michael Guthrie) comes over and insists on them drinking. He is Khoma Brut, Sergey explains, (the name taken from the protagonist of Viy) and he drinks both because a distant relative (Tammy Wells) has died and to celebrate inheriting real estate. Sergey says that people should sit with the deceased for three days praying but this person was a witch and no-one sits with her at night. Chris gets excited and wants to see the ritual, when this is refused, he offers to say the prayers and leave the cameras… oh and offers $500 apparently.

eyes open

So, they are taken to the house and when they get there the official mourner (Lynne Rose) leaves, as does Sergey. Of course, they still have their camera (and it seems odd that they were allowed to bring it) and record the night. This consists of low quality footage – in the found footage way - corpse eyes opening (a corpse sit-up they miss), a picture falling and a shroud moving. We also get the vloggers vanishing one by one, a failure to pray (of course the prayers are in Serbian) and one of them escaping the house with Sergey and Khoma carrying them back in. The denouement is the witch on her feet for a few seconds – whilst all this spoils the film, as we know they don’t survive it isn’t much of a spoiler.

restless dead

What we don’t get is anything vampiric, none of the set pieces with the revenant that the story puts in place, no hagriding, and no summoning of the being Viy… the takeaway from the Viy story is no more than sit and pray for the dead witch and she is restless. Because of this, I have aimed at giving this an Honourable Mention rather than reviewing it. There is at least an attempt to build up an atmosphere, though they are fighting the very style they chose in order to do so (to me the found footage style is a hindrance rather than a help when it comes to atmosphere). Ultimately, unfortunately, with characters so annoying, you just don’t develop a bond as the viewer to care about their survival.

The imdb page is here.

On Demand @ Amazon US

On Demand @ Amazon UK