Sanitary-oborotni (1984)

... aka: Санитары-оборотни

... aka: Werewolf Orderlies

Directed by:

Evgeniy Yufit

Due to strict censorship in Soviet cinema at the hands of the state-controlled film production and distribution department Goskino (USSR State Committee for Cinematography), a group of anarchists and provocateurs arose in the early 80s who set out to cause a ruckus. This group initially started out as a secret club of sorts who'd congregate in the woods. They eventually got their hands on some primitive film equipment and began making their own silent shorts, which intentionally set out to do things, and show things, that the major studios wouldn't. And thus "Necrorealism" was born.

These shorts were crudely-made, chaotic, absurdist, filmed without dialogue (music was sometimes added later) and frequently improvised. Most of them were obsessed with death, decomposition, bodily invasion / transformation and the concept of empty existence; a society filled with people who are perhaps technically alive but more akin to zombies i.e. simultaneously living and dead. Many offered up images of fighting, murder, cruelty, suicide, cannibalism, sadism and sexual deviance as shock tactics. And since the government controlled the cinemas and, by proxy, the content of films being show in them, these shorts were only screened on the underground circuit. Yufit (sometimes Evgenii Iufit), a student at a technical college at the time, became the leader of this movement and even formed his own independent studio called Mzhalala Film, which was also the countries first independent studio, to work on these films.

Werewolf Orderlies was their inaugural effort. It runs just 3 minutes, is black-and-white, was ineptly shot on extremely scratchy (I think) 8mm, looks more like it was made in the 1910s than the 1980s and was more-or-less just improvised right there on the spot.

A sailor carrying a hacksaw exits a train, walks across some tracks and heads out into the woods. A bunch of men, only a few of which are actually dressed like orderlies, follow him. Other men are around aimlessly and frantically digging through the snow with shovels. The sailor makes a fire in front of a tree, climbs up it and then jumps into a blanket held by the orderlies. They drag him into the middle of a field and he's killed after being beaten with shovels and having a tree branch thrown on top of him. We then see shots of a battleship and waves, probably taken from some war / propaganda film. There are no werewolves. The end.

What this started and why this even exists in the first place are both much more interesting topics to ponder than actually sitting through this silly no budget home movie. I'm assuming the stick-it-to-the-status-quo aspect comes from seeing a military man being senselessly killed, which, in a way, is a sort of anti-propaganda I guess. Yufit made a number of these shorts in the 80s before graduating to features like Daddy, Father Frost Is Dead (1991) and Silver Heads (1999) in the 90s. He passed away in 2016. His shorts now play at film festivals and are screened at colleges and such, plus they're on Youtube if you're interested.

★1/2

'Hukkunud Alpinisti' hotell (1979)

... aka: Отель 'У погибшего альпиниста'

... aka: Dead Mountaineer's Hotel

... aka: Hotel a Halott Alpinistához (Hotel for the Dead Climber)

... aka: Hotel "At a Lost Climber," The

... aka: Hotel of the Deceased Climber

... aka: Otel u pogibshego alpinista

Directed by:

Grigori Kromanov

Police inspector Peter Glebsky (Uldis Pūcītis) receives a phone call asking him to come to a very secluded ski lodge called the "The Dead Mountaineer's Hotel," which gets its name from a unnamed climber who was caught in an avalanche and carried 500 meters to his death there. The man's likeness is even found in the hotel lobby highlighted with neon as soon as you enter. While that sounds a little bit morbid and perhaps doesn't make this appear to be the ideal vacation retreat, it makes up for it with booze, billiards, a mini-nightclub and the scenery. Upon arrival, Glebsky is greeted by Alex Snewahr (Jüri Järvet), who owns the hotel and all of the surrounding land, including the mountains. Only there's a problem: Alex claims he didn't call the police. Sensing it was a prank, a false alarm or perhaps some kind of mistake made by one of the guests staying there, Glebsky calls up his superior and informs him that he'll be back the following day. After all, it's a treacherous and very dangerous drive through the snowy, foggy mountains to get there and certainly not one you want to attempt in the evening. Glebsky decides to stay the night. "Lell," Alex's Saint Bernard, is even kind enough to get his luggage and show him to his room.

Glebsky briefly meets the other six guests. There's Hinckus (Mikk Mikiver), a gravelly-voiced tuberculosis patient sent there by his doctor for some fresh air. The eccentric Simon Simonet (Lembit Peterson) first claims to be "commander of the cyber-forces" but then confesses to actually being a government physicist working on the top secret "Midas Project." He's come there to climb but since there's too much snow to do that, he opts to climb the walls instead. Alex's distant relative Brun (Nijole Ozelyte), who's basically just there loafing and smoking weed, is there, along with Olaf (Tiit Härm), the only other guy there under the age of 40. And then there's the attractive and glamorous, though very peculiar-acting Mrs. Moses (Irena Kriauzaite), who's married to the significantly older Mr. Moses (Karlis Sebris). Mr. Moses claims to be some kind of "traveling businessman" and just kind of sits back and watches as his wife flirts with anything in pants.

One of the guests drops an anonymous note on the floor addressed to Glebsky stating that Hinckus is actually a dangerous gangster and homicidal maniac known as "Owl" who's hiding out here and is plotting to murder somebody. Before the inspector can even confront him over the validity of those claims, there's an avalanche. Both the power and the phones lines are knocked out and it will take at least a week for someone to dig out the roads leading there. Sounds like the perfect time for a murder or two, doesn't it?

Olaf is soon found dead in his room; his arm outstretched toward a briefcase and his head rather unnaturally twisted around almost completely backwards. Coinciding with the discovery of the body is the arrival of a mysterious man who just sort of turns up there out of the blue claiming to be a friend of Olaf's. He - Luarvik (Sulev Luik) - proves to be every bit as strange as the other guests when he gains consciousness, claiming that while he knows Olaf he doesn't know what he looks like. He seems to be after something in his suitcase, which the inspector has hidden, and is also pallid, physically weak and needs to sleep a lot.

Though Hinckus would be high up on the suspect list, he is found knocked out and tied up to a bed. Simon is then found delirious and claiming he found (and tried to get romantic with) Mrs. Moses' corpse, though she is soon found still alive. Brun seems curiously unperturbed by the murder of Olaf and even jokes around about it. A strange contraption is found among Olaf's belongings that Simon hypothesizes is either from the military or outer space. And Alex keeps casually bringing up things like aliens and zombies ("the third state of living organisms"). Just what exactly is going on?

Can't really go into too much further detail as not to spoil the ending / resolution (fyi, don't look at my tags either!), only I'll say that it may or may not involve something supernatural / otherworldly and it's something so out there that the inspector (who narrates the proceedings; sometimes unnecessarily) hasn't told a soul about it even years after the fact. Gee, I'm not a lot of help, am I?

This is another of those movies that's not really within just one genre as there are elements of mystery / suspense, crime, science fiction, surrealism and horror all weaved in plus lots of flashbacks, nightmares, hallucinations and oddball characters and even some bizarrely-placed b/w newsreel footage showing real people falling to their deaths trying to escape from a burning high rise apartment building. While it's well-made, handsomely-shot and keeps you guessing, it's at its best as a visual piece and uses its locations exceptionally well. The sense of isolation is superbly pulled off thanks to lots of long shots of the hotel. There are loads of lens flares and beautiful shots of the sun peaking out from behind the mountains. The art direction on the hotel interior, which is usually dark but with shots of color and flickering light (thanks to them having to switch over to the generator), is also excellent. And the mood is perfectly set by Sven Grünberg's eerie synth score.

Based on the 1970 novel Otel "U pogibshego alpinista" by siblings Arkadi Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky. The brothers, who will forever be best known for writing Andrei Tarkovsky's highly acclaimed Stalker (1979), also adapted this for the screen. There was a 2009 DVD release from Ruscico (given the awkward title of The Hotel "At a Lost Climber") that includes English subtitles. The novel itself was finally made available in English in 2015 thanks to Melville House and is titled The Dead Mountaineer's Inn.

★★★

Zaveshchaniye professora Douelya (1984)

... aka: Завещание профессора Доуэля

... aka: Завещанието на професор Доуел

... aka: Head of Professor Dowell, The

... aka: Il testamento del dottor Dowell (The Will of Doctor Dowell)

... aka: Professor Dowell's Testament

... aka: Professor Dowell's Will

... aka: Testament of Professor Dowell, The

Directed by:

Leonid Menaker

Renowned scientist Professor Dowell (Olgert Kroders) has passed away. He was getting so into his work, and staying up so many consecutive days and nights, that when he went out driving (an activity that relaxed him) he was in no state to control his car when it skidded during a rainstorm and then went into a canyon. At least that's the official story. Now his work has been left in the hands of his two assistants, Dr. Robert Korn (Igor Vasilev), who started out as a surgeon in a provincial clinic before impressing the esteemed professor, and loyal Dr. Marie Laurent (Valentina Titova), who's been by the professor's side for a long time and seems to have been in love with him.

Dowell was so obsessed with his work that he left behind some collateral damage though, most notably a wife who was driven to an early grave and a bitter, estranged adult son named Arthur (Aleksey Bobrov), who doesn't have many nice things to say about him. Though Dowell was trying to find ways to help humanity, his work was appropriated by the military in the development of atomic weapons which actually have done the opposite. That's steered Arthur into a career as a documentary filmmaker whose latest film highlights war atrocities. It's a way for him to come to terms with the damage his father inadvertently caused.

A gathering is held at the professor's seaside home / lab where a group of scientists and potential investors are shown just some of the results of Dowell and Korn's experiments with animals. Thus far they've created a cat with webbed feet, a still-living dog head hooked up to a machine and a chimpanzee named Lilly who has had her head grafted onto another chimp's body and has thus far survived for a solid month, though judging by the droopy mouth and drool, none-too-well. They've managed to accomplish all of this by combining electronics, surgery a special blue serum. Ingredients top secret, of course. Professor Richardson (Ernst Romanov) and Dr. Gould (Aleksandr Porokhovshchikov) from the chemical corporation Mercury Inc. are interested in an exchange of data. Dr. Korn is interested in their money to further fund these experiments.

After screening black-and-white home movies of the late professor, they head outside onto the terrace where a statue to the late professor is revealed. It's his head atop a large stone pillar with the inscription, "Both my life and my death belong to science." Arthur plans on leaving after the ceremony but is pulled aside by groundskeeper Willie (Boris Tsymba), who informs him that he suspects foul play. Arthur decides to look into the accusations, starting with an examination of the accident site which reveals that Dr. Korn was likely with the professor on the night of this death. Arthur is able to enlist some help from childhood friend Baxter (Nikolay Lavrov), who's now a policeman.

As you can probably tell from the various posters, Dr. Korn is actually keeping Dowell's still-living head hooked up to some electronic contraption. As per the professor's last will, he's given Korn the right to actually do this so he could continue his experiments into death but he's now having a change of heart. For starters, he has deep regrets about the life he'd lived prior to "dying." Second, now that he's incapacitated, he's basically the captive of Korn, who won't allow him to see his son or even speak to Marie. He can only be audible as long as a special wire is plugged in, which Marie doesn't even know about.

Time is quickly running out for Korn. The Mercury Inc. reps are blackmailing him. After he rejects their initial offer of unlimited credit and state-of-the-art equipment in exchange for his data to use for their own nefarious purposes, they're quick to inform him that they own his debt and will simply shut him down and take whatever they want, anyway. And these guys are such terrible corporate scum they take great pride in the fact their chemicals have polluted six out of the seven continents on Earth. Getting more desperate, Dr. Korn and Marie start acquiring fresh corpses for their experiments, with the ultimate goal being to give Dowell a healthy human body to place his head upon.

Meanwhile, Arthur gets reacquainted with Angelika Guy (Natalya Sayko), an old flame of his who's now a famous actress and is back in town to visit and hiding under the alias "Anne Smith" so the press doesn't bother her. The two happen to be at a sleazy nightclub when a shoot-out occurs between police and smugglers over drugs hidden inside a nude sex doll (!) Many are killed, including Angelika, whose skull is crushed, and a singer / burlesque performer named Monica Brown (also Sayko). Dr. Korn and Marie end up with both bodies and construct a new being out of her, with Monica's head on top of Angelika's body. They rename their Frankenstein creation Eve, fit her with a metal collar to cover her scars and then study how well she does doing physical activities. However, she's conflicted about who she is and has shuffled memories from both of her components. Further complications arise once Arthur starts snooping around the lab.

It's pretty easy to see why this has received a lukewarm response from so many horror and sci-fi fans online but I honestly think much of this boils down to expectations. For starters, you have fans of the source novel objecting to all of the changes made for this adaptation. And then you have viewers seeing the living head on the cover, probably expecting a film similar to THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962) and then sitting down to watch this only to be disappointed that the effects are minimal, the action is virtually nonexistent, the pacing is slow, there's lots of dialogue and this never really strives to be overtly horrific or shocking. It's far too competently-made and serious to be good camp, yet not violent or exploitative enough to be good trash. Then what is it exactly? Well, to me, it's a mature and sometimes thoughtful rumination exploring medical ethics and the pitfalls of scientific discovery, most especially its abuse at the hands of the wealthy, greedy and / or powerful, with an aside about not letting one's own personal ambition destroy or harm others, including animals.

These same topics are tackled in countless other "mad scientist" films and, while the moral of the story is rather blatantly hammered out at the very end, I can't say I was horribly disappointed in how they handled this otherwise. On the contrary, I rather enjoyed how the genre tropes were placed front-and-center yet still utilized in a subtler and less obvious fashion than what is the norm. The fantastic is treated in such a sober, matter-of-fact way that this manages to take completely outlandish things and ground them firmly in reality.

On another note, the setting is rather unexpected for a Soviet film, as this is clearly shooting for a tropical atmosphere. There are lots of palm trees, beaches, monkeys, talks of the humidity and heat, men walking around with their shirts open like they're somewhere in the jungles of South America and a bunch of black actors cast in small roles and as background extras. This is all compromised by the fact much of the outdoor footage is overcast and looks gloomy. Signs are all written in English. I'm not even sure where this is supposed to be set.

This was (supposedly very loosely) based on Aleksandr Belyaev's popular 1925 novel Golova profesora Dovelja. An English version of that book was released in 1980 by Macmillan, uses the title Professor Dowell's Head and features an introduction by Theodore Sturgeon. A 2001 DVD release from Image Entertainment (under the title Professor Dowell's Testament) comes with English subtitles. An English dubbed version was also released.

★★1/2