Sous le signe du démon

Easily the best Russian slasher, although there are virtually none. It's not streaming anywhere in the world except for Germany. SSD (let's call it Soviet Stories of Death, since it was never released in English-speaking countries) is a dirty, mean-spirited parody of reality TV with added arterial spray. Love in the Wild meets notoriously macabre Soviet campfire tales and gives birth to this horrid Friday the 13th knock-off with over-the-top acting.

Voyeuristic take on a familiar pulp plays off better than it might seem despite not being groundbreaking (My Little Eye, anyone?) The supernatural twist is also not something new for the genre, the problem is that the script didn't properly portray it, and it wasn't utilized in a satisfying manner. The gore is relatively tame, but Russian movies, as a rule, rarely get visceral-thus the lack of body count horror movies from the country.

All and all, SSD is an uncut gem never discovered by the international audience. It's bolder than other slashers from exotic places, and it doesn't disappoint more than a regular Kane Hodder flick available in every existing streaming platform.

You have to give the guys who made this some slack/credit. There are not that many Russian slasher movies out there. That being said, there have been quite a few other Russian movies out there and most of them have been better than this one. Trying to copy a well known formula isn't a bad idea though.

It tries to put some sense into the whole thing, but it doesn't really work that well. And the DVD cover (for the German DVD that is) looks better and more promising, than the movie itself. It's nicely shot, but after half the movie is over, it goes into hyper-speed and tries to avoid boring moments for the viewer. What it does achieve though, is letting you feel kinda strange at what you're seeing.

Still the ending left me baffled and with at least one question. Unfortunately no one else seemed to have bothered with that question or just didn't care enough yet.