The Only Mystery Here Is How Anyone Stayed Awake
Let’s start with the obvious: Gogol. Viy isn’t just bad—it’s the cinematic equivalent of trying to read Russian literature while being repeatedly slapped with a jar of borscht. Directed by Egor Baranov and masquerading as a supernatural thriller, this 2018 sequel to Gogol: The Beginning manages to be simultaneously overwrought, underwritten, and incomprehensibly obsessed with farm animals, fog, and foreheads drenched in spiritual sweat.
The film wants to be a gothic blend of folklore, fantasy, and detective noir. What it delivers instead feels like The Brothers Grimm after an unfortunate head injury.
Plot? What Plot?
According to the official synopsis—and I use “official” as loosely as the film uses logic—Gogol. Viy follows the tortured writer Nikolai Gogol (Alexander Petrov), who, between fainting spells and prophetic nosebleeds, tries to solve a series of ritualistic murders in the Ukrainian countryside.
But don’t get too comfortable with that premise. Within ten minutes, we’re neck-deep in flashbacks, visions, prophecies, and scenes that feel like deleted cutscenes from The Witcher 3: Confusion Edition.
One moment, Gogol’s having daddy issues and discovering his father may have made a deal with a noseless demon (not to be confused with Voldemort’s Russian cousin). The next, he’s shooting people near cursed flowers and chatting with witches who look like they shop exclusively at “Medieval Hot Topic.”
There’s a bear ravine, a magical flower, and at least three separate resurrections. Half the movie is spent explaining the plot of the first film, while the other half foreshadows the next one. Somewhere in between, actual storytelling was murdered and buried in the haunted forest.
The Cast: Committed, Confused, and Chronically Constipated
Alexander Petrov plays Gogol with the intensity of a man who just realized his paycheck depends on pretending to see ghosts. He spends most of the movie staring dramatically into fog, clutching his temples, and sweating like he’s perpetually allergic to the script.
His co-stars don’t fare much better. Yevgeny Stychkin as the investigator Binh (imagine a Russian Hercule Poirot if Poirot drank moonshine from a skull) spends his scenes muttering exposition while looking like he’d rather be anywhere else—perhaps in a better movie.
Mylène Farmer shows up for emotional gravitas, but the script gives her dialogue that sounds like it was translated from Russian to Klingon and back via Google Translate. “You must not walk where the dead dance beneath the moonlight!” she warns. Thanks, Mom, I’ll add that to my morning routine.
Even the villains—the mysterious sorcerer Basavryuk and the Dark Horseman—seem tired of the endless monologues. By the third act, the Horseman appears to be cantering slowly out of sheer boredom.
Horror Without Horror
For a film marketed as fantasy-horror, Gogol. Viy is about as scary as a damp postcard. Every attempted scare is smothered in so much melodrama that it becomes accidental comedy.
We’re treated to gothic crypts, candle-lit séances, and a soundtrack that screams “ominous” in capital letters. Unfortunately, none of it sticks. Instead of tension, you get theatrical absurdity—a Scooby-Doo mystery where everyone forgot to take their medication.
The titular demon, Viy, does make a brief appearance, looking like a rejected boss monster from a PlayStation 2 game. But instead of inspiring fear, he inspires questions—mostly “Why does he look like that?” and “Did they run out of budget halfway through rendering his face?”
The Script: A Beautiful Catastrophe in Cyrillic
It’s rare to find a script that manages to be both overcomplicated and insultingly simple. Gogol. Viy somehow achieves both. It juggles so many subplots that by the halfway mark, I started wishing for a murder—preferably my own.
Every character talks like they’re reciting haunted poetry at an open mic night. Conversations go like this:
Gogol: “The flower blooms once a year, yet bleeds forever.”
Side Character: “The blood of the innocent purifies gold, but only under the moon of sorrow.”
Me, watching: “Please, someone pass me the subtitles, a map, and a stiff drink.”
By the end, Gogol literally dies, comes back, and dies again, proving that not even death wants to stay in this narrative.
Pacing: The Real Villain
If pacing were a crime, Gogol. Viy would be serving three consecutive life sentences. Scenes stretch endlessly, padded with long stares, slow walks, and redundant dialogue. It’s like watching paint dry in a haunted monastery.
The movie’s idea of building suspense is to play the same eerie violin note for twenty minutes while everyone looks suspiciously at each other. When the violence finally happens, it’s so heavily stylized that you half expect a “Presented by Zack Snyder” watermark to appear.
Cinematography: Gothic Gorgeousness, Wasted
To be fair, the film looks stunning. The lighting, the fog, the sprawling Ukrainian landscapes—it’s all deliciously moody. If only someone had remembered to attach a coherent story to those pretty pictures.
It’s the cinematic equivalent of a lavish wedding where the groom never shows up. You admire the décor, you sip the champagne, and you wonder why you’re still here.
Religion, Magic, and Utter Nonsense
At some point, the movie tries to make a grand statement about faith, superstition, and the blurred line between reality and imagination. Unfortunately, it does so by introducing random Catholic rituals, pagan spells, and one exorcist named Homa Brutus who appears halfway through the film, performs an exorcism, and promptly dies.
It’s unclear if he was meant to be heroic or just lost on his way to another franchise.
By the time the Dark Horseman murders another group of victims in the finale, it’s impossible to tell who’s cursed, who’s dead, or who’s just method acting their way through existential despair.
The Tone: Shakespearean Tragedy Meets Soap Opera
The film takes itself so seriously that it wraps back around into parody. Every death is accompanied by operatic music, every revelation by slow-motion tears.
When Gogol realizes he might be part demon, he reacts not with terror but with the solemnity of a man realizing he’s out of vodka. It’s all so earnest that it becomes kind of adorable—like watching someone recite Hamlet in a thunderstorm while wearing a cape made of bad CGI.
The Ending: Plot Holes on Parade
The climax of Gogol. Viy tries to set up the sequel, Gogol. Terrible Revenge, by ending on—what else—a funeral. Gogol dies heroically, maybe. Or not. The editing is so chaotic that it’s hard to tell if he’s actually dead or just taking a dramatic nap.
The Dark Horseman rides away, presumably to murder clarity itself, while the camera pans dramatically to tease the next installment. At this point, I half expected the noseless demon to turn to the camera and whisper, “Buy tickets for the next one, comrade.”
Final Thoughts: A Russian Doll of Disappointment
Gogol. Viy is like a nesting doll of confusion—open one mystery, and inside you’ll find another, even smaller mystery that still makes no sense.
It has moments of beauty, flashes of creativity, and performances that almost save it from collapsing under its own weight. But for every inspired gothic image, there are ten scenes of overwrought nonsense.
If you want a supernatural thriller that’s moody, stylish, and Russian, watch Night Watch. If you want to experience existential despair and mild motion sickness, by all means, dive into Gogol. Viy.
Verdict: ★☆☆☆☆
A gorgeously filmed migraine that mistakes confusion for complexity. The scariest thing about it? There’s a sequel.
