Vedma

Language : Russian

 

Year of release : 2006

 

Run time : 1h32min

 

Genre : Thriller / Horror

 

 

This movie has been translated as 'The power of fear' or 'Evil',but Vedma actually means Witch.

 

Vedma is a remake of an 1968 Russian horror movie, Viy,inspired by the short story of Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol.

 

A journalist is given a tip for a story in a bewitched place where dark forces seem to rule the laws of nature.

He almost gets into a fight with a man in a restaurant,as he was snapping pictures,and is rescued by a priest. After a conversation with the priest,he takes off towards the mystical village. As he is tired,he parks the car on the grounds of an abandoned farm,to sleep.

 

Night falls,and it's a very rainy night. On the radio,the DJ talks about the powers of water,and how water acts as a conductor for the forces of evil, giving them greater power. This adds up to the fact the planets are aligned into something called the Axis of the Devil,which happens only every 12 years. Warning people to stay away from bewitched places and to carry charms and amulets for protection.

 

Leaving the car he is locked out of it,and decides to take shelter in the house. An old woman lets him in,and gives him a room. As he takes a bath,a young woman comes in and wants to join him. Just that,she turns into the old woman again,so he tries to kill her,so she disappears with the bath water.

 

Running away,he finds the car of the priest,and him dead. Without any clothes,he takes the ones of the priest. He is found by a patrol car,and afraid of the consequences of what happened in that house,he pretends to be the priest,and from then on,everybody takes him for a priest.

 

Apparently the villagers were expecting a priest from the Vatican,specialized in exorcisms and such,to perform a 3 day mass on a dead woman who was considered to have had dark powers ,and who was killed by a dark entity.

The police tell him that the house he was in was abandoned for 30 years .

 

To his surprise,the dead woman is the woman he saw at the abandoned farm,and she was very much alive. She's also the daughter of the sheriff.

 

He is expected to exorcise the dead woman,but him not only not being a priest,but also being an atheist,can't actually do it. The man who's been helping him every night,sort of,who tells him what to do and how to do it,reciting Bible passages in Latin from his home,as he is in a wheelchair,tells him to find strength from his belief in God,but he doesn't have any,or from love,but he never loved anyone.

 

The villagers don't really seem to care if he is a real priest or not,they want to be rescued from this witch.

At night,the police lock him in the church and things happening to him at the hands of this witch who rises from the grave,turn his hair white.

 

The characters have American names and everything is written in English.

 

I loved the soundtrack,the visual effects were amazing..I loved how the movie was shot,the angles from which it was shot and the passing from scene to scene.

 

The actors were great,especially the lead, Valery Nikolaev, who gave an outstanding performance,he was a joy to watch.

 

This was one of the first Russian movies I ever watched,and made me want to watch more,as I loved it.

 

The movie is out on DVD.

 

The band Nox Arcana made a video for the movie in 2008,entitled Night of the Wolf,the link here :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP3zLExMIzE

 

Here is the YouTube link to the movie,but it's in Russian and it has no subtitles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRUh_EAwaNY

 

 

Rating : It's so money !