Vedma (2006) User Reviews

The English version is too badly dubbed and so too confused to amount to much

[dbborroughs · 3/10 · 2 May 2009]

Nikolai Gogol's story "Viy" has been filmed again and released to home video in the US via Faith Films.

The original story concerns a priest who has to watch over the body of a witch with only his faith to protect him. Greatly expanded and set in America, though clearly filmed in Russia (the houses,clothing and furnishing are all wrong despite the English signs), this is an odd film that doesn't really work.Part of it is the weird setting that tries very hard to be backwoods America but clearly isn't.There are also some weird, intentionally oblique moments as the main character being a reporter at the start and a priest a short time later. I'm not sure why they did that, even after watching the making of piece on the DVD) The other problem is the dubbing which is beyond awful. Its done in such away that everyone speaks when their lips are not on camera- or if they are the voices don't even remotely match the lip flaps. I don't know if its Faith Films fault or that of the producers who made the film hoping to dump into the West (revealed in the making of piece).

The film isn't very good. As I've said it has all sorts of technical issues that just make this an odd ball curio. Despite some really good looking horror images the film never works as a horror film. As film to engender faith its much too confused in this retelling to amount to make anyone feel anyone closer to god.

Given the choice I'd give it a pass, even at a bargain bin price. My advice would be to find the 1960's version of the tale called Viy which will bring both some shivers and some understanding about a belief in god.

Horror film? Horrible film, more like it!

[Fredegonde · 1/10 · 3 December 2006]

POSSIBLY VERY MINOR SPOILERS

This movie is billed as the first Russian horror movie. Unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, "The Witch" (its Russian title) will take a place of dishonor in the gallery of horrible Russian movies. It is based on Nikolai Gogol's story "Viy" which is a classic in Russia. "Based" is the key word here since no familiarity with the story is required. Instead, the less you know about Gogol, the better.

It is a unique production because we are quite used to directors taking stories from other cultures and adapting them to their own culture. The spate of American remakes of foreign films is a prime example, but then again, Sturgess turned Kurosawa's Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven with splendid results, and Kurosawa transferred Shakespeare's Macbeth into Japan to make an incredibly powerful Throne in Blood, while King Lear became a riveting Ran. However, with "The Witch," we have Russians transplanting a Russian classical tale onto the American soil. The movie was shot in Estonia in English with the aim of dubbing it into English using American actors and have reasonably synchronous lip movements.

As a natural consequence, lost is the colorful Ukrainian background for the story, in comes a drab American small town seemingly lifted from some outdated horror book manual. Gone is the boozy seminarian Khoma Brutus, instead we have a boozy journalist who is about to win Pullitzer prize, and who at the same time writes about X-Files-like events and frequents Miss Boobs contests. (I never thought Pullitzer prize was given for that kind of writing, now I humbly stand corrected.) In a strange nod to Russianness, the journalist is named Ivan Berkhoff. They should've named him John Smith because it is impossible to get more hackneyed, clichéd and generic than this movie.

Berkhoff goes to a town named Castleville, gets stranded on a dirt road, staggers on until he finds a dilapidated house and is rather un-welcomed by an old crone. All that to the accompaniment of a radio announcement about the forces of evil being at their most powerful, and people better staying indoors and avoiding water. Need I mention that it's raining really hard? After a few supposedly frightening scenes which had me laughing, the story finds our journalist dressed as a priest, he's mistaken for a priest, and the local sheriff tells him his daughter who died after being brutally attacked wanted the new priest to pray for her for three nights. At this point, the action supposedly starts. Those who have time to kill are welcome to it.

What is wrong with this film? Everything, starting with the dialog and down to the prop department. The dialog which I heard in Russian was clearly originally written in English, and it was compiled exclusively from clichés and platitudes picked from American films. The actors just as clearly struggled with English because the timing of their speech was labored and unnatural, and the Russian dubbing followed suit. The acting is mostly atrocious, and not only because the actors find it often difficult to talk but because they don't have anything approaching a range of facial expressions. For the most part, they're just blank or you wish they were. The only exceptions being the sheriff played by Lembit Ulfsak, a fine Estonian actor, and Arnis Lizitis who plays a wheelchair bound resident of Castleville. Oh, and a rooster of course who's absolutely natural on camera! I know actors complain of being upstaged by dogs and cats but when Nikolaev is upstaged by a rooster it is a sad testimony to the general quality of acting in the film.

There wasn't a single scary moment in the entire film, and there wasn't a single original moment in the film either. Mind you, this comment's coming from somebody who's rather inexperienced with horror. The film is filled with standard moves used in horror movie since the genre's inception. At a critical moment, the camera lingers lovingly on a kerosene lamp. The lamp promptly goes out. It must have seen a few horror movies, too. An example of supreme idiocy comes at another moment, a character jumps out of a bathtub and runs at the camera. He's wearing something the looks like loincloth! It doesn't get any more idiotic than this!

Those in Russia who liked it claim it should've been advertised as a mystical thriller. I wasn't thrilled either. It was run-of-the-mill from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the entire population of the little town behaved as if they knew exactly they lived in a horror movie, except they weren't quite sure whether it had zombies or not. Therefore, some of them acted zombie-like just in case.

The makers of the film say it's about finding faith. Such a fine collections of idiotic actions, stupidly contrived moments, and, yes, clichés, doesn't deserve to be about finding faith. The movie is so thoroughly and utterly fake it deserves only to be an exhibit in a wax figure museum.

One of the worst horror flick I've seen

[vampyy · 2/10 · 5 September 2007]

As a horror-movie fan I try to watch all significant novelties of this genre, especially those which are the products of my native cinema. And I can say that that the "Power of Fear" (or "Vedma" as the Russian title of it) is one of the weakest film among them. Firstly, it can't scary even a little kid, it paces so slowly and so predictable that there is no place for the real horror. Frankly speaking, it's bad in all points: from the goofy plot (I don't know why the Russian producers/director decided to transform the classic story about Ukrainian witchcraft into some lame and ridiculous modern-day-America thriller. I absolutely agree with the previous reviewer – it doesn't thrill a bit) and to the terrible and cheesy actors' work. All actors including the leading Valeri Nikolayev and Yevgeniya Kryukova who are quite famous in Russia look like wooden dolls or something like that and it seems to me they didn't even bother to play at all, only spoke their English lines without any expression. And at the end I don't really understand why they filmed this flick in English with Russian actors? I think it was their wrong turn. At least they could cast some American or English actors for the leading parts to make them look more convincing. The same I can say about so called "small American town backgrounds" which were shot in Estonia and look like it. The only positive moment I found in the "Power of Fear" is the visual effects. They are not excellent but rather good for the Russian film. And the music is OK, at least it doesn't irritate me. That's why I give it two stars. Overall, if you want to see good horror film – don't waste your time and money on this boring flick. And if you are looking for something that claims to be a Russian horror I'd advise you to find a copy of "Viy or The Spirit of Evil". It's really the terrific movie based on the same novel as "Power of Fear" but much, much better.

Better than average horror

[abrill-900-493845 · 13 September 2014]

I watched this on Netflix. I am going to dissent from the other reviews, and say I once I got past the awful dubbing, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I hadn't seen any other versions of the story upon viewing this.

The art direction and special effects are fantastic. The scenes inside the sanctuary are simply stunning. I never got the impression that this was supposed to be America.

It has one of those ephemeral European feels that are reminiscent of Hammer Horror films, or Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka. A world that resembles our own, but lies just outside its borders. This feeling is captured in the forest, in the village, and on the river.

This story is told through the lens of cultural faith in Christianity. One need not be Christian, nor believe in vampires, to appreciate the struggle that plays out of a single man attempting to stand against an overwhelming force of evil.

You just might enjoy it more with the sound turned down. It is a shame Netflix doesn't have a subtitled copy.

My Review

[joemamaohio · 1/10 · 28 October 2008]

Ivan (Valeri Nikolayev) is a bitter, cynical journalist who investigates the unexplained. He travels to this small town where it's said that a witch (Ita Ever) is terrorizing the community.

His car stalls and he takes refuge in a small building, and meets a beautiful, mysterious girl. Suddenly she turns into a demon and he kills her, and the town is wondering who murdered this woman...who I guess was the witch but I am not entirely sure. Ivan is now being pursued by her spirit, or something, and he has to have faith, or something, to beat it.

I really hate Christian films. They are usually filled with lame actors, stupid storyline and minimal effects. Not to mention that this isn't just a Christian film...but a foreign one as well. The voice-over actor for Ivan made the movie more comical than terrorizing, because it is so high pitched and whiny. You won't miss much by missing out on this film.

Great Art, Lousy flick

[RobinCook70 · 1/10 · 20 August 2008]

I rented this film yesterday mostly due to the good-looking art and the summary given on the back of the jacket. After popping it into my DVD player I re-examined the jacket cover and even though I took the cover out of from the plastic viewer, I STILL could not read any of the production detail information about the film. This film is entitled Evil on the Jacket and had to locate it by going to Faith Films website to find out any linkage to it here on IMDb.

The filming and special affects done in the film looked quite good ... THEN, a line-reading actor spoke. Oh dear ... this actor's reading sounded like some pimple-faced high school jock whose voice just managed to change pitch, and no attempt given to go beyond reading the lines from the script. At first I thought I got a bad disc out of audio sync, then had to surmise it was a foreign film since I couldn't read the jacket... English dialog dubbed. If they'd casted the right person for dubbing the dialog, this film MIGHT have been decent. I gave it a chance of about 20 minutes before ejecting it when I discovered the bad line reader wasn't going to get killed off, but stay as the constant main fixture. Yes, it is THAT bad! The jacket cover art and the art done in the film are great, so gave the one star, but minus 1,999,999 stars for the rotten dialog. I do not recommend this one!

It's not THAT bad.

[Bill357 · 6/10 · 19 March 2009]

It's not that great either.

I thought it was better than a lot of the Saw knock offs and the pretentious political crap disguised as horror movies that I've been picking up lately at the Wal-Mart.

The dubbing was very poor and the plot was weak but I wasn't exactly bored to tears either. I think anyone who reads the back of the DVD box will pretty much know what to expect.

However, the cinematographer and production designers were first rate. Their work was reminiscent of the Italian films of the nineteen sixties and early seventies, Mario Bava etcetera. They should be in Hollywood making better movies.

Did anyone notice that after the lead actor's hair was scared white, he bore an uncanny resemblance to Bob Geldof?

An interesting version...

[misticnoa · 6/10 · 25 January 2011]

I've been looking forward to take a look at this film ever since I've heard it has been released. It has been difficult to find, though. Many years ago, I have seen a Serbian film "Sveto mesto" ("Holy Ground") which turned out to be fairly good and which I later found out to be based on Gogolj's "Vij". It was one of those rare occasions in which an adaptation is perhaps even better than the story that originated it. It remained one of my most favourite childhood films ever since. When I heard of the Russian version a few years ago I thought it must be even better. I was first taken aback by such a low rating of 3! After I've seen the film and read the comment I pretty much understood why something like this had happened, as the film itself, viewed from the angle of an independent viewer, not concerned with Gogolj's story, or not knowing the background or caring about it, is not the greatest horror film ever, not even a good one at all. The point is this hasn't been made to be a typical horror flick in the first place. It also wasn't meant to scare. It is simply a slightly different version of a classic story we all know, with good special effects that add a lot to the atmosphere. And I also disagree that it was about finding identity or anything like that. It's a folklore story about witches. The scenography is the most beautiful thing about this film. The camera work has also done a very good job. The actors, to be honest, haven't had much chance to show off throughout the film. The story should be out of discussion as we all know what is it all about. The original story is slightly altered as the priest is transformed into a journalist who encounters a priest and after some unfortunate incidents assumes his identity. And so what if it's being situated in an American town doesn't seem realistic? Personally, I don't think that makes any difference. While I watched it, I didn't give much thought to where it all happens, whether in America or rural France. I agree about the bad English subtitles, and I've also read comments about bad dubbing- My opinion about dubbing is that ANY DUBBING IS BAD DUBBING. Besides, it's for lazy people who can't even bother to read the subs. I don't get that. The film could have been a lot better I agree on that. But I also think it wasn't all that horrible after all.