GHOUL (2015)

Studio:       Entertainment One
Director:    Petr Jakl
Writer:       Petr Jakl, Petr Bok
Producer:  Petr Jakl
Stars:     Jennifer Armour, Alina Golovlyova, Jeremy Isabella, Paul S. Tracy, Inna Belikova, Vladimir Nevedrov, Yuriy Zabrodskyj

Review Score:

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Summary:

A documentary film crew researching cannibalism in Ukraine awakens the evil spirit of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

American cameraman Ryan, Ryan’s girlfriend and show host Jenny, and producer Ethan travel to Ukraine to film a documentary titled “Cannibals of the 20th Century.” In addition to interviewing locals about The Holodomor, the 1932-1933 famine created by Joseph Stalin, the filmmakers’ focus is meeting with Boris Glaskov, a man charged with cannibalism who decided to speak about it openly.

In Kiev, Valeriy acts as the crew’s guide and contact with Boris while Katarina functions as their translator. The filmmakers learn that Boris was accused of killing a colleague, and suspected in other disappearances, but was never formally charged for the murder since a body was not recovered. Professor Dmitri Antonov adds that under hypnosis, Boris claimed he was driven to cannibalism by a supernatural force.

Valeriy takes everyone to Boris. Boris hands over the keys to the isolated old house where the supernatural encounter with his colleague supposedly took place. Boris claims he will meet the crew there at a later time to reveal details of what happened.

Claiming her presence will assist them when speaking with locals, Katarina has a psychic witch named Inna join the crew. Everyone travels through the village of Yablochnoye on the way to the house in the forest. There, the group finds a homemade Ouija board carved into a table and uses it to summon a spirit.

The next morning, Valeriy is missing. Inna claims Valeriy was killed by a spirit and the rest of them are trapped in the house until they have another Ouija session to appease the entity.

Unexplainable events begin plaguing everyone, including Inna having intimate knowledge of personal secrets. The group reviews footage of the previous night’s Ouija session and sees Inna cursing Valeriy, but no one remembers the encounter taking place.

Jenny, Ryan, Ethan, Katarina, and Inna use the spirit board again and are led to dig in the middle of the barn outside. They unearth a box previously seen in the attic. Among the objects inside is a videotape from January 17, 1995 showing Boris tearing at his own flesh before attacking his colleague.

Strange activity continues haunting the house. Jenny and Katarina wake up one morning to find scratches on their bodies they presume came from sex. They check surveillance video to corroborate their assumptions, although neither Ryan nor Ethan recall having sex with the respective women.

A picture found in the barn box identifies the village of Yablochnoye, which in turn leads Katarina and Ethan to research the town’s most notorious resident, executed serial killer and rumored cannibal Andrei Chikatilo. Ryan and Jenny discover Valeriy’s car with a tree branch through the windshield and blood covering the interior.

Inna tells everyone that the surrounding area is shaped like a pentagram and built atop subterranean tunnels with the house as the only safe structure at the epicenter. Another Ouija session leaves Inna in a seeming state of possession. The others are led to a dig site outside where they unearth bones and uncover a hole leading to an underground cavern. Jenny becomes possessed and pushes Ryan in the hole before fleeing into the forest.

Ethan goes after Jenny and finds her unaware of what she just did. Unable to find Katarina or Ryan after returning to the hole, they go back to the house where Inna is catatonic. Ethan and Jenny find a video camera. Watching the tape inside it, they discover that Ryan and Katarina both went down the hole and were apparently attacked or killed by something unseen.

With the glass planchette moving on its own, the spirit board tells Ethan and Jenny to eat Inna in order to be released from the house. Possessed, Inna attacks. Ethan and Jenny flee outside where they are pursued by a supernatural presence. Ethan is suddenly pulled into the trees while Jenny falls into an underground cavern.

Jenny follows Ethan’s pleas for help only to see him pulled down a tunnel. Jenny finally finds Katarina, who tells her that Boris has been eating flesh at Andrei Chikatilo’s command so that Andrei’s spirit inside him can become stronger. Andrei also wants Katarina to eat flesh so that he can be reborn into this world. Boris suddenly attacks, kills, and eats Jenny. He then forces Katarina to swallow Jenny’s flesh as he caresses her stomach, indicating that Andrei will be reborn inside her.

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Review:

Soviet serial killer Andrei Chikatilo was a despicable person.  Between 1978 and 1990, Chikatilo butchered over 50 women and children in ferocious fashion after spending several previous years committing a series of savage sexual assaults.  By all accounts, Chikatilo, who was executed in 1994, stands among the worst murderers in human history.

Despite rumors of eating his victims having never been corroborated, you might think a film crew making a documentary on cannibalism near Chikatilo’s birthplace of Yablochnoye might have heard of the notorious man known as “The Butcher of Rostov” as well as “The Red Ripper.”  They haven’t.  You might also think that with the goal of producing a pilot hoping to find funding for further episodes, their project might choose a better title than “Cannibals of the 20th Century,” as it is hard to imagine PBS biting at the bit to add that after “Downton Abbey” on their broadcast schedule.

Americans Jenny, Ryan, and Ethan are overseas researching the manmade famine of 1932-1933 that caused widespread cannibalism under Stalin’s fist in Ukraine.  They also have a more modern angle in mind by aiming to interview Boris Glaskov (fictional), an admitted cannibal who would have been tried for murder had his missing colleague’s body ever been found.

Thanks to the bribery of local guide Valeriy and the attractiveness of translator Katarina, Boris has agreed to tell his tale to the filmmaking trio, provided the interview takes place in the creepiest, most isolated woodland house imaginable.  Oh, they’ll also need a psychic witch to help conduct spirit summoning sessions with a homemade Ouija board.  What can go wrong with those ingredients, right?

Plenty.  Boris wasn’t acting alone when his teeth tore into his partner.  He had help from the ghost of none other than Andrei Chikatilo himself, back from the dead to put an evil plan for resurrection into action.  His supernatural spirit roused out of Hell, Chikatilo now holds everyone hostage in a waking nightmare of possession, bloodletting, and feasts on human flesh.

Certainly not the best, definitely not the worst, “Ghoul” is an above average first-person fright film.  The movie’s mix of true crime history with “found footage” fiction is not quite on the same level of serial killer exploitation as The Asylum’s “8213: Gacy House” (review here) or “100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck” (review here), at least.  There is much more earnest intent here to be legitimately terrifying with supernatural shocks, a claustrophobic climax, and gruesome carnage.  Seeing one man rip his own skin, one woman bite off her own tongue, and one cat turned inside out are among some of the standout scares poised to make even steeled stomachs squirm.

Setups for story beats don’t always make sense.  When the Americans lose their translator, yet the spirit board carved in the Ukrainian alphabet needs to communicate with them for a scene, somehow they suddenly understand what it spells, complete with English subtitles onscreen for those of us following along at home.  There are also minor goofs like a camera’s date stamp changing between 11/27 and 11/28 during the same scene.  Realism may not be the movie’s strong suit, something usually essential for effective “found footage,” but the sincerity from director Petr Jakl’s staging suggests his firm focus on fright is more important above everything else.

“Ghoul” is formulaic, though not wholly forgettable.  If nothing else, the Ukrainian backdrop makes for a landscape more engaging than a nondescript forest or plain-walled asylum when going through the usual motions of exposition.  And while a movie intended for entertainment is probably the last thing considered reliable for factual information, brief points of history offer additional interest relating to real-life horrors.

“Ghoul” can best be encapsulated by the boilerplate summary often heard echoing when describing any number of contemporary “found footage” films.  I.e. if you’re among those fed up with the subgenre, there is nothing new to see here.  Tolerant tastes forgiving of formula on the other hand, may find fright in the isolated setting and rawness of the terror, even if “Ghoul” doesn’t possess the power to pull the socks from your feet.

Review Score:  60

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