The horror film "The Konotop Witch" by director Andriy Kolesnyk has been released in Ukrainian cinemas, and its premiere took place at the Odessa International Film Festival. Expectations were high, but the film received mixed reviews, mostly negative. Film critic Igor Kromf decided to give his assessment of the film and tell us whether it is worth spending time on this film.
The plot of the film has no connection to the novel of the same name by Grigory Kvitka-Osnovyanenko. It is based on a modern meme about Konotop witches cursing the Russian occupiers, which emerged at the beginning of the war. The idea of expanding this meme into an hour and a half horror film turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt.
The film tells the story of the Witch (Tatyana Malkova), who is in love with a former soldier, Andriy (Taras Tsymbalyuk). Her love forces her to abandon magic, but after a tragedy - Andriy's death - the Witch returns to her dark deeds to take revenge on the Russians. The plot in the style of "Predator" is typical of horror films, where a group of soldiers face mystical horror. However, in "The Witch of Konotop" the situation is reversed: the Witch is a positive character, and the soldiers are antagonists.
Director Andriy Kolesnyk and screenwriter Yaroslav Wojciechek chose a script where the negative characters are the military, and the Witch gets the role of a brave heroine. However, the character development is superficial. The audience does not learn details about the Witch's magic or her enemy Morok, which only reinforces the impression of the film's inferiority.
Russian soldiers are presented stereotypically: a stern commander, an imperialist with a red beard, a representative of “small nations,” etc. The film also includes a rape and revenge storyline, which looks cynical and seems to exist only to demonstrate the cruelty of the Russian military.
The quality of the special effects is particularly disappointing, with cheap sets and meager budgets. In contrast, much of the violence and murder scenes are left behind, which diminishes their impact and creates the impression of a lack of serious resources.
The film's ending, where the Witch, pregnant with love, does not kill the commander-in-chief, seems like a misplaced attempt to inject sentimentality into a naive storyline. It feels more like a soap opera than a horror film.
“The Konotop Witch” is part of a new wave of cinema that has been dubbed “victory exploitation” or “cinema bayraktarshchyna.” These films use memes and stereotypes to create a plot without a deep understanding of the war. So far, it seems that “The Konotop Witch” is an inflated bubble of a wartime meme. Given that the film is supposed to become part of a franchise, questions about the quality of Ukrainian cinema remain open.
