Gentlemen, I Abhor You! What is a Viy?

I mentioned Viy (1967) a few posts back. Ms. Spenser was intrigued, but there was no other way to watch except to buy it. So we did.

It is set in old Czarist Russia. Seminary school is letting out for a holiday. and a rowdy group of young students head out into the countryside. As darkness falls, they become lost, until they finally find  farmhouse and beg the old woman there for food or a place to sleep. She won't feed them (or give them vodka), but will let them sleep - but they will have to sleep separately. One of them, Leonid Kuravlyov, beds down in the stables. The old woman appears and tries to seduce him, but he resists. So she gets up on his back and starts riding him around. When they start flying, he realizes that she is a witch. On landing, he grabs a stick and beats her. She cries that he is killing her, and transforms into a beautiful young woman. He takes off back to the seminary.

At the seminary, the rector tells him that a rich merchants daughter is ill and has asked for Kuravlyov by name to come pray over her. When he arrives, he discovers that the daughter has died, but her last request was for him to pray over her body for three nights. When he sees the body, he realizes that she is the witch.

He tries to get out of the vigil, but the merchant is unyielding. If he parays for three night, he will be rewarded. If not, he will be tortured - to death. So he begins.

The first night, he starts to pray a bit, then takes a bit of snuff, just to help stay awake. His sneeze wakes up the corpse, who sits up in her coffin. He hurriedly draws a chalk circle, which she can't penetrate. She can seem to see him either. She only goes back to her coffin when the cock crows.

The next night is pretty much the same, but he has had more than a few drinks, and his circle drawing is a little wobbly. He spends the whole next day drinking, and is nearly legless when he starts the last night of prayer. This time, the witch calls up monsters and demons to torment him, but they are all stopped by the circle. Until she calls on Viy, the greatest demon of all.

In the epilog at the seminary, Kuravlyov's friends wonder whatever became of him.

This summary sounds like a good scary movie, but I left out the "best" part: It was partly directed by Alexsandr Ptushko, of the MST3K romps, The Day the Earth Froze, The Sword and the Dragon, and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. So the special effects and the demons and monsters are all either crude or charmingly childish, depending on your disposition. Due to this, and the levels of drunkenness attained by the protagonist, make this more goofy than scary. 

But we love the Ptushko movies, both as riff-fodder and in themselves. So we're happy with this purchase.