The Anthology of Russian Horror revived the works of Pushkin, Green and Tolstoy. It turned out great
Miscellaneous / / April 02, 2023
Let's not be scared at all.
On February 16, on the Kinopoisk and more.tv streaming platforms, the premiere of the Russian Horror Anthology: Red Cast series (or Red Iron Road, as in the original) took place. Six cartoons are united by a simple concept - they are based on Russian literature. All this “red train” (something like a bloody train, as conceived by the authors) leads the viewer into the world of horror unknown to him.
Russian Horror Anthology: Red Cast is a joint project of the Canadian Lakeside Animation Studio, the Moldovan Studio Metrafilms Moldova, as well as the Russian NMG Studios and more.tv. Each of the six episodes was directed by a different director and producer. Four episodes are based on classical literature, two are based on contemporary. The first include "The Pied Piper's Daughter" (according to the story of Alexander Grin), "The Vampire Family" (according to the story of Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy), "The Forest Tsar" (based on the ballad by Vasily Zhukovsky), "The Undertaker" (based on Alexander Pushkin). "Mozharovo" and "Prince" - adaptation of the works of Dmitry Bykov * and Dmitry Tikhonov, respectively.
Very uneven
The general concept allowed the authors to make different, dissimilar works. On the one hand, this leads to diversity, on the other hand, to serious differences in quality. For example, "The Undertaker" is simply brilliant - both an interesting reworking of a literary source and a great stop-motion animation have affected. The result is an interesting read. classics without conflict with her.
But the episode "Prince" turned out to be bright (in the spirit of "Mad Max"), but it seems a little stupid - it is too chaotic.
At the same time, it cannot be said that the classic beats the present - the Mozharovo episode turned out to be excellent.
"The Forest Tsar", as if based on the ballad of Goethe (which penetrated into Russian culture thanks to the translation of Zhukovsky), is a dystopia in the spirit of "black mirror». A very bold departure from the original completely stands out against the background of other episodes - both ideologically and culturally. Perhaps it is worth watching last, as it can be confusing.
Not scary at all
The concept of "horror" is the most conditional. The same “social horror films” that have been fashionable in recent years sometimes do not even try to scare the viewer. This can be said about the "Anthology" - there is little scary and creepy here.
In most cases, cartoonists simply wave images that are considered scary - in a few episodes, zombies appear. "The Pied Piper's Daughter" will scare only those who find it hard to even look at drawn rats. This is where the horror ends.
By the third episode, it becomes clear why the series cannot be scary - it is too fast.
Too fluent
When watching most of the series, there is an excessive haste. The format, where episodes cannot run longer than 20 minutes, proves to be a problem for some stories. If you throw the viewer into "terrible circumstances" already in the third minute, then it is unlikely that he will be able to scare him. More measured stories ("The Undertaker" or "The Pied Piper's Daughter") have time to unfold, but the "Ghoul Family" looks like half a cartoon - very good, but half. At least three episodes (“Mozharovo”, “Vurdalak Family” and “Prince”) clearly require more timing
The first season of the Russian Horror Anthology showed that the chosen concept is quite viable - although this is hardly some kind of great discovery. A rather peculiar (as if random) choice of literary sources and a successful (in most cases) implementation resulted in good cartoons. If the project has a second season, and the creators fix the problems of the first, then the audience can get an excellent long-term project.
* Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents.
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Text worked on: author Dmitry Kamyshenko, editor Alina Mashkovtseva, proofreader Natalya Psurtseva