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| Courtesy of Trans F |
Regarded as the
scariest Russian film of all time (Иди и смотри Come and See still
holds that crown for me), the film was one of the very first post-Soviet
Russian horror films and was for years considered to be the benchmark for contemporary Russian
horror. Unavailable for decades outside
of VHS downloads until a recent restoration cropped up in Russian media, the
film can now be seen as one of the most profoundly disturbing horror films of
Russian or any form of contemporary world cinema: a film that starts out
ominously and only descends further and further until it leaves you near broken
in its ferocious wake.
Andrei Kruititsky
(Alexander Zuev) is investigating a series of grisly familial suicides
involving a young mother named Olga and her children in a local flat. The only key clue to the suicides comes from Olga’s
on/off lover who claims she was driven to suicide by the spirit of her dead
father who died years earlier in a chemical plant accident. After making the claim Olga was haunted
repeatedly by her father urging her to take her own life, he too falls victim
to suicide.
Believing the whole
thing to be an elaborate put on by criminals, Kruititsky meets Olga’s sister
Marina (Maryana Polteva) and her young daughter whom he quickly forms a rapport
with. Soon however, his bond with Marina
and her child starts to turn dark as the spirit physically appears to
Kruititsky and the little girl falls near deathly ill in a truly terrifying
sequence of the sweat covered child’s face looking on in terror as the
ambulance races through a dark tunnel towards a ball of incandescent light.
A film that proves
to be far more deeply disturbing throughout than most domestic horror films at
the time let alone Russian films, The Touch starts out as a waking
nightmare with some of the most frightening scenes taking place out in the open
in broad daylight and relentlessly careens towards its dark and uncompromising
finale. Much of this comes from the film’s
sonic tone by Leonid Desyatnikov who delivers a bone chilling score right from
the opening credits as well as Boris Kocherov’s claustrophobic and occasional
fish-eyed lensed cinematography.
Performances by the
two leads Zuev and Polteya are powerful if not a little deliberately erratic at
times, giving way to nebulous undisclosed fears causing the characters to act
out. One of the film’s greatest strength’s
is how minimal the approach to the physicality of the supernatural is. Save for a brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it
shot of a spiritual manifestation moving around a room, we’re never really
shown the face of the demon save for photographs of the late father when he was
still alive. For what could have devolved
into a silly premise, The Touch makes the supernatural proceedings real
and raw with an unshakable feeling of dread throughout.
That this turned out to be the final
film of Mkrtchyan only furthered the film’s reputation as a film that could
make your superstitions come true, a top-to-bottom relentless dose of unease leaning
towards the upsetting. That it is
virtually unknown throughout world cinema is a tragedy as it is unquestionably
one of post-Soviet Russia’s most terrifying cinematic incarnations ever
attempted with more than a few profoundly disturbing developments along the
way. If you have the means, The Touch
is a piece of international horror whose ability to make one’s skin crawl
will startle even the most hardened fans of the scary and macabre. You won’t know what hit you.
--Andrew Kotwicki
