Verdict
Summary
An eerie mood permeates and envelops the strange Russian film The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, which somewhat resembles some of the gothic Hammer / Amicus productions of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, but with a decidedly unique Slavic approach. It’s horror-adjacent with weird, ghostly, and smoky / foggy imagery, and while it has some nudity, it’s not especially sexy and ends up feeling like the residue from a disjointed dream or nightmare you may have had and hold onto in your inner psyche rather than some kind of visceral experience. It’s an interesting film, but I likely won’t be revisiting it anytime soon.
Plot:
At the turn of the century, a scholar combs the countryside, collecting legends and folklore.
Review:
A well-dressed scholar (played by Boris Plotnikov) walks the Russian countryside, collecting tales and stories, with an emphasis on legends and folklore, and when he ends up in the sprawling estate (complete with a castle with some strange history) of a beautiful woman named Marsh Firs (Elena Dimitrova), he is flummoxed when she teases him that he’s stumbled into the greatest of all the local legends, that of a king named Stakh. The story goes that many years ago King Stakh and another royal went off together to hunt a rare animal in the countryside, but instead of it being just a regular hunt, King Stakh was stabbed in the back and murdered by the other man, setting a course for a series of horrible happenings on the estate. The scholar has never quite heard such a tale before, but as he spends time in the castle and wandering around exploring the surrounding area, he encounters ghostly apparitions, bizarre women who behave very (very!) strangely as if he’s the first living person they’ve laid their eyes on for many years, and he even gets into a duel with a man who takes offense at his inquiries. Later, the scholar has weird interactions with lost and displaced tatterdemalions, and ultimately, he is arrested for inciting a riot of villagers who burn down a house for thinking it’s inhabited by some kind of specters or witches. The scholar’s own tale seems as haunted as that of the long-dead King Stakh.
An eerie mood permeates and envelops the strange Russian film The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, which somewhat resembles some of the gothic Hammer / Amicus productions of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, but with a decidedly unique Slavic approach. It’s horror-adjacent with weird, ghostly, and smoky / foggy imagery, and while it has some nudity, it’s not especially sexy and ends up feeling like the residue from a disjointed dream or nightmare you may have had and hold onto in your inner psyche rather than some kind of visceral experience. It’s an interesting film, but I likely won’t be revisiting it anytime soon. It’s based on a novel, and directed by Valeri Rubinchik.
Deaf Crocodile has just released a Blu-ray edition of The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, and this is the first time the film is being seeing a North American release. The film looked completely adequate and presentable in a full-frame restoration, and comes with two audio commentaries, a video essay, a video introduction, and new cover artwork.
