“A Russian Guide to Scary Movies”: Russia Beyond the Headlines

Russia’s first horror films appeared before the Revolution in 1917 and, unfortunately, did not survive to present day. These first films had largely to do with the flowering of symbolism and other decadent tendencies in Russian literature that actively promoted interest in mysticism.

Later, horror movies were not produced in the Soviet Union, where the only permissible artistic method was socialist realism. The screen version of Nikolai Gogol’s “Viy” remains the only example of a horror movie made in Soviet times. A revival of interest in the genre began in the late 1980s, during perestroika. Since then, many little-known, low-budget Russian horror movies have been shot, but the worthwhile films in this genre are more aptly described as thrillers.