Gothic: An Illustrated History, by Roger Luckhurst (Princeton University Press, 2021)
At the climax of Viy, the intensely Gothic 1967 film adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s original short tale, the hapless seminarian Khoma is assaulted by a phantasmagoria of ghouls and goblins. Grasping hands burst from the walls, sinister, bat-faced demons creep out of the shadows, skeletons clatter their bones and chatter their teeth. Eventually, goaded by the witch who summoned them and empowered by the great demon Viy himself, the cavorting cavalcade break through the magic circle that surrounds Khoma and beat him to the floor. The last we see of the young man is as a motionless figure lain spread-eagled on the floor, dazed if not dead and his hair whitened by terror. It is a dizzying, joyful and unsettling piece of cinema that leaves the unwitting viewer in a similar state.
