Viy (1967): This Halloween – dare to enter the circle!
Friday 31st October, 7.30PM | Halloween!
Treadgolds Building, 1 Bishop Street, Portsmouth, PO1 3DA
Join us for a live cinema experience that will transport you back to a world of ancient folklore and forgotten terrors. Travel with the young monks as they wander across the sunlit fields of old Ukraine, slipping slowly — and then swiftly — into the dark heart of a haunting legend.
Through a brand-new live re-score by Rusty Sheriff, the timeless story of Viy (1967) is reimagined as an immersive sound and cinema performance.
Featuring songs by the Two Colours Ukrainian Choir led by Olena Ivanchuck.
Experience the eerie beauty of a world where superstition and faith collide, where shadows stir beyond the edge of sight, and where fear itself takes shape.
This is Viy as you’ve never seen — or heard — it before.
Dare to look — if you can — when the Viĭ himself rises and expect the UNEXPECTED.
Suitable for 12+ years
Tickets: From £18 in advance, £24 on the door!
Viy (1967): A Forgotten Film of Ukrainian Origin
Viy may be known as the Soviet Union’s first horror film, but its creative roots run deep into Ukrainian soil. Based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol, born in Poltava in 1809, the film draws from a world steeped in Ukrainian folklore — where demons walk the earth, the dead do not rest easily, and religion intertwines with superstition. Gogol himself framed the tale simply: “The story is a folk tale. I do not know whether it is true or not, but they say it is.”
Though long claimed as a Russian literary figure, Gogol’s imagination was shaped by Ukrainian language, landscape, and lore. That cultural DNA survives in the film adaptation — from the village rituals and Orthodox funerals to the rural interiors, costumes, and dialects woven into the sound design.
But perhaps most crucially, Viy was brought to life on screen by Alexander Ptushko, born in Luhansk (modern-day Ukraine), who served as the film’s artistic director, effects supervisor, and — by many accounts — its uncredited director. His signature can be seen in every painted backdrop, flying witch, and stop-motion horror. Without him, the film likely wouldn’t have been made at all.
Set in a distinctly Ukrainian landscape, shaped by Ukrainian minds, and telling a story rooted in Ukrainian myth, Viy deserves to be reclaimed — not as a Soviet oddity, but as a landmark of Ukrainian gothic cinema.