A children's horror story or the urban legend of the Queen of Spades is familiar to every compatriot. To build a horror film on its basis is a potentially winning attempt, it is strange that nobody thought of this before Podgayevsky. The movie "Queen of Spades" received mixed reviews. But the opinion of most critics is unanimous: this is a standard film project that uses proven plot twists and canonically genre cliches. The spectrum of associations caused by watching the film is the broadest - from "Mom" to "Women in Black."
Mandatory program
Writer and director Svyatoslav Podgayevsky, sincerely loving and understanding the genre, shooting the film "Queen of Spades" (reviews as one confirm this fact), confidently skated the "mandatory program." He managed to fulfill all the basic elements surprisingly competently, making bored stamps work and not letting the viewer get bored. Everything is in order with the connectedness and dynamics of the narrative. The corresponding gloomy musical accompaniment is provided by the disturbing melodies of Pavel Ruminov, who returned to the horror genre after Dead Daughters. The juicy picture among the oppressive atmosphere is the merit of the operator Anton Zenkovich and his "depressed" camera. And the entourage of apartments of domestic new buildings when watching the movie "Queen of Spades" reviews is called the main distinguishing feature, thanks to which you can not confuse the Russian horror with overseas counterparts.
Plot
Reviews and reviews of the movie “Queen of Spades” with great regret note that the plot twists and turns of the horror, hiding behind a stylish impressive picture, do not shine with originality or novelty. Four teens of different ages decide to conduct a mystical rite to call the Queen of Spades. The direct performer becomes twelve-year-old Anna (Alina Babak), after which the whole company becomes the object of persecution for an otherworldly creature who has appeared in our world. The protector of the kids is the father of the main character and the involved "specialist." "Queen of Spades" - horrors, reviews of which only do what they say about the secondary and illogical nature of the film.
Casting cast
It is certainly worth noting that the more than successful hit of almost the entire acting team in the stereotypes of the genre is a huge advantage of the Queen of Spades picture. Critics' feedback on the skill of the involved actors is mostly laudatory. The only exception was Evgenia Loza, who, according to moviegoers, was not able to penetrate the idea of horror and unleash the potential of her character. Igor Khripunov, Alina Babak and Vladimir Seleznev were especially distinguished and looked advantageously against the rest. Alina’s acting was eerily reminiscent of Linda Blair from The Exorcist, Khripunov looked convincingly in the image of a layman who encountered the supernatural for the first time. Well, Vladimir Seleznev embodied the collective image of the fighters with the undead from Van Helsing to the old woman medium from Astral.
First swallow
Trying to get away from author's cinema and begin to form a typical “viewer” industry, domestic cinema is trying to work on entertainment genres. Significant successes in this field have not yet been observed, but The Queen of Spades (film critics testify to this) is a significant step in this direction. The brainchild of Podgaevsky is a real "pop" movie product, a mystical horror that, although it looks at American horror films and collects their cliches, it has an adequate working design. And in the secondary and illogicality, you can blame any modern horror film.
Film structure
The structure of the picture consists of conditional two heterogeneous parts. The first focuses on a group of teenagers conducting a black rite, and the appearance of an auto mechanic - Anna's divorced father with a rather obscure past. After a successful call, teenagers try to understand what a vengeful spirit needs and how to get rid of it. At this time, one of them dies a painful death, someone just thoroughly scared. In this part, the director demonstrates confident high-quality work with genre tools. Then the second part begins, in which a “specialist” appears, who knows much more than others. A series of “explanatory” dialogues starts immediately, the action switches to adult characters. The culmination is the act of expelling the demon, taking place in the hospital and terribly reminiscent of the “Box of the curse”.
"Queen of Spades" of domestic cinema
Judging by the fact that films based on Pushkin's “Queen of Spades” were shot at the very dawn of the emergence of cinema in Russia, this work is very popular among people of art. And it’s easy to shoot - bulky scenery is not needed, there are no battle scenes, but there is plenty of drama.
- The first production is the short film The Queen of Spades (1910). In the project of director Peter Chardynin, little remains of the original, only a brief outline. Moreover, the opera was taken as the basis, and not the story itself. There is no musical accompaniment, only captions. The style of the time is theatricality, an abundance of makeup. Watch curious.
- The second film adaptation of The Queen of Spades (1916) is an innovative production of Jacob Protazanov. The picture surprises with the thoughtfulness of the screen compositions, the size of the plans, lighting and double exposures. The acting, especially the king of the Russian silent film industry Ivan Mozzzhukhin, is more than psychological and nuanced. The director boldly experiments with retrospective techniques, the author’s vision of heroes.
- The third picture is The Queen of Spades (1960). Director Roman Tikhomirov presented to the audience a timeless classic in excellent performance. This is a solid musical film, based on the Pushkin novel with an opera arrangement of the great P.I. Tchaikovsky.
- The fourth film adaptation is The Queen of Spades (1982). The film was also shot based on the work of the same name by A. S. Pushkin. Without exception, all the reviews on the movie “Queen of Spades” (1982) mark a distinctive feature - the director Igor Maslennikov introduces the storyteller, played by Alla Demidova. Screenwriter Alexander Shlepianov did not remove a word from the original. The viewer hears the "Pushkin" language, which characterizes the entire era, forming the atmosphere of the film.