There are a great many elements that go into making a good Horror movie.
For example, the very best chills are produced when audiences are presented with characters who are both believable in their thoughts and actions as well as being people we can all care about. Their struggle against whatever entity proclaims their doom needn’t necessarily be real – ghosts, ghouls, and goblins being what they may or may not be – but there should be a relatable core behind their set-up, the steps taken, and their onscreen attempts to circumvent their demise. While it might only be a first step, the closer a storyteller can position his players in the mind of the audience only helps draw them into the flight of dark fancy; the more we’re attached to them, the more we hope that they’ll survive, despite whatever circumstances could be attached by screenwriting invention. It’s just a great foundation, and there’s no denying its effectiveness throughout all of film history.
Of course, there’s much, much more to the formula for screen success. Horror films are usually replete with atmosphere. They’re sometimes tied to particular places or particular moments in history. It helps to ramp up the tension with effective jump scares and to keep audiences guessing with each new development. Yes, suspense certainly helps push all of the action in the direction of whatever climax is on the menu, but it shouldn’t happen just for convenience’s sake. Logic should prevail – how many Horrors are ruined by characters doing stupid things? – but there’s no better way to deliver high quality frights than to – first and foremost – give us ordinary players caught up in extraordinary circumstances. That makes the filmed world go ‘round, and it keeps viewers hoping and praying for an effective resolution.
Presently, writer/director Vyacheslav Rudenko only has a few features under his belt (if IMDB.com is to be trusted), and perhaps such inexperience led his 2021 entry – The Syndrome – largely vanishing from the theatrical landscape with so little impact. I’d never heard of the flick – not a bad thing in and of itself but I see very little written about it online from a few searches – and it shows up at the moment as having no professional reviews on IMDB.com, RottenTomatoes.com, and even Metacritic.com. Were this a new film, that might not be surprising; but usually after a few years there’s something of substance crafted somewhere on the Information Superhighway. With practically nothing coming up, I’m going to treat this one as fundamentally obscure, meaning I’ll spend a bit more time in discussing its plot below before getting into the weeds on my reaction.
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“St. Petersburg is shaken by a series of bizarre suicides preceded by visions of the Man in White. Yegor and Karina, who both lost their relatives earlier, struggle to solve the mystery before ominous entity claims their lives.”
For example, the very best chills are produced when audiences are presented with characters who are both believable in their thoughts and actions as well as being people we can all care about. Their struggle against whatever entity proclaims their doom needn’t necessarily be real – ghosts, ghouls, and goblins being what they may or may not be – but there should be a relatable core behind their set-up, the steps taken, and their onscreen attempts to circumvent their demise. While it might only be a first step, the closer a storyteller can position his players in the mind of the audience only helps draw them into the flight of dark fancy; the more we’re attached to them, the more we hope that they’ll survive, despite whatever circumstances could be attached by screenwriting invention. It’s just a great foundation, and there’s no denying its effectiveness throughout all of film history.
Of course, there’s much, much more to the formula for screen success. Horror films are usually replete with atmosphere. They’re sometimes tied to particular places or particular moments in history. It helps to ramp up the tension with effective jump scares and to keep audiences guessing with each new development. Yes, suspense certainly helps push all of the action in the direction of whatever climax is on the menu, but it shouldn’t happen just for convenience’s sake. Logic should prevail – how many Horrors are ruined by characters doing stupid things? – but there’s no better way to deliver high quality frights than to – first and foremost – give us ordinary players caught up in extraordinary circumstances. That makes the filmed world go ‘round, and it keeps viewers hoping and praying for an effective resolution.
Presently, writer/director Vyacheslav Rudenko only has a few features under his belt (if IMDB.com is to be trusted), and perhaps such inexperience led his 2021 entry – The Syndrome – largely vanishing from the theatrical landscape with so little impact. I’d never heard of the flick – not a bad thing in and of itself but I see very little written about it online from a few searches – and it shows up at the moment as having no professional reviews on IMDB.com, RottenTomatoes.com, and even Metacritic.com. Were this a new film, that might not be surprising; but usually after a few years there’s something of substance crafted somewhere on the Information Superhighway. With practically nothing coming up, I’m going to treat this one as fundamentally obscure, meaning I’ll spend a bit more time in discussing its plot below before getting into the weeds on my reaction.
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“St. Petersburg is shaken by a series of bizarre suicides preceded by visions of the Man in White. Yegor and Karina, who both lost their relatives earlier, struggle to solve the mystery before ominous entity claims their lives.”
The Syndrome opens with a random burglar stumbling across a dead man’s body concealed in the dark of an apartment’s locked pantry. He manages to evade capture and flees the building but not before he notices a curious figure: halfway down the alley watching him stands a masked man clothed all in white. In the matter of a few seconds, the stranger lights himself afire, and he goes up in a blaze with the burglar watching.
What the common thief could not have known was that by looking at the dead man in the apartment he’s been vexed by ‘the man in white,’ a shadowy supernatural figure whose origins are tied to Viktor (played by Aleksandr Kudrenko); the former mental patient somehow manifested this evil spirit from the ether into reality. Several years back, Viktor managed to squash the spell – the first person to witness an infected person’s body upon death inherits the curse to commit suicide in whatever fashion the man in white chooses. Since then, the man has lived in fear that the demon would somehow rise again and eventually come for him once more. To his horror, this would-be robber has done just that, and he’s the first victim in a new reign of apparent suicides.
Naturally, this sudden emergence of a hari-kari trend becomes local news, drawing the attention of Karina (Darya Melnikova) and Bogdan (Timofey Dashuk), siblings whose parents killed themselves during the original outbreak. Knowing that their parents were working with a police detective who disappeared near the end of the last epidemic, they seek out the officer’s son, Yegor (Ilya Korobko), in hopes that he may possibly know something about stopping the curse in its tracks. Initially, Yegor wants nothing to do with the two – he’s hellbent on finally getting out of St. Petersburg having lost both his parents as well – but he eventually gets drawn into the affair when he briefly saves the life of Vika (Varvara Verkhovykh), the man in white’s next casualty who passes the deadly jink onto Bogdan. Now with even greater personal connection, the three join forces, picking up Yegor’s father’s investigation where it last left off in hopes that they can save themselves from certain doom.
Initially, The Syndrome reminded me heavily of Japan’s Ringu, the 1998 Horror/Thriller that explored a transmissible curse to those who watched a cursed videotape: it’s the same basic structure – one hexed event directly leads to the next, and so on and so forth – but it varies by having the two players present at the first’s moment of death. While I won’t spoil the manner in which the team eventually concocts a way around the curse (suffice it to say that it, too, is reminiscent of things done theatrically elsewhere, mainly in Joel Schumacher’s 1990 Flatliners), it’s a fairly logical conclusion to make, though it (naturally) doesn’t quite go as planned. It also helps The Syndrome’s overall vibe in that the whole event feels like it could’ve been something done previously on Fox TV’s The X-Files, so perhaps a quick telephone call to FBI Agents Mulder and Scully might’ve been in order.
However, this isn’t meant to insult The Syndrome in any way whatsoever. In fact, it might be one big selling point, so far as I’m concerned.
Writer/director Rudenko clearly had an idea for what he wanted to capture aesthetically, and despite the occasional overlong sequence here or there I thought it worked quite swimmingly. St. Petersburg becomes part of the fabric for this dark spell – a big city shown with often empty streets shot under a flat sky – evoking a sense of things unsettled whilst the universe pushes back against closure. Even the open-all-night grocery store where Yegor eeks out what living he can never seems to have any customers; and the insane asylum that figures prominently into the second half can’t seem to muster but a single patient or two in every frame. Where have all the people gone? Why, it’s almost as if they were driven away by the first rash of unpredictable and unsolved suicides, and now the only folks left are those waiting to be finished off when the man in white returns to active duty.
As for the onscreen talent, Korobko is quite good as the isolated loner who wants nothing more than to get out of town. It isn’t until Yegor finds a sense of familial responsibility once more alongside Karina, Bogdan, and Vika that he breaks out of his funk and accepts the task at hand as being part of his destiny. Dashuk is good, though he really is given the least to do in all of the madness. Vitaliy Krylov – as Yegor’s Uncle Boris and big city detective – has a solid presence and is given a great comic bit as his introduction. Kudrenko handles his task as the broken man worn down by a curse of his own making quite nicely, though it might’ve been nice had the script given him some presence a bit earlier in the picture.
What the common thief could not have known was that by looking at the dead man in the apartment he’s been vexed by ‘the man in white,’ a shadowy supernatural figure whose origins are tied to Viktor (played by Aleksandr Kudrenko); the former mental patient somehow manifested this evil spirit from the ether into reality. Several years back, Viktor managed to squash the spell – the first person to witness an infected person’s body upon death inherits the curse to commit suicide in whatever fashion the man in white chooses. Since then, the man has lived in fear that the demon would somehow rise again and eventually come for him once more. To his horror, this would-be robber has done just that, and he’s the first victim in a new reign of apparent suicides.
Naturally, this sudden emergence of a hari-kari trend becomes local news, drawing the attention of Karina (Darya Melnikova) and Bogdan (Timofey Dashuk), siblings whose parents killed themselves during the original outbreak. Knowing that their parents were working with a police detective who disappeared near the end of the last epidemic, they seek out the officer’s son, Yegor (Ilya Korobko), in hopes that he may possibly know something about stopping the curse in its tracks. Initially, Yegor wants nothing to do with the two – he’s hellbent on finally getting out of St. Petersburg having lost both his parents as well – but he eventually gets drawn into the affair when he briefly saves the life of Vika (Varvara Verkhovykh), the man in white’s next casualty who passes the deadly jink onto Bogdan. Now with even greater personal connection, the three join forces, picking up Yegor’s father’s investigation where it last left off in hopes that they can save themselves from certain doom.
Initially, The Syndrome reminded me heavily of Japan’s Ringu, the 1998 Horror/Thriller that explored a transmissible curse to those who watched a cursed videotape: it’s the same basic structure – one hexed event directly leads to the next, and so on and so forth – but it varies by having the two players present at the first’s moment of death. While I won’t spoil the manner in which the team eventually concocts a way around the curse (suffice it to say that it, too, is reminiscent of things done theatrically elsewhere, mainly in Joel Schumacher’s 1990 Flatliners), it’s a fairly logical conclusion to make, though it (naturally) doesn’t quite go as planned. It also helps The Syndrome’s overall vibe in that the whole event feels like it could’ve been something done previously on Fox TV’s The X-Files, so perhaps a quick telephone call to FBI Agents Mulder and Scully might’ve been in order.
However, this isn’t meant to insult The Syndrome in any way whatsoever. In fact, it might be one big selling point, so far as I’m concerned.
Writer/director Rudenko clearly had an idea for what he wanted to capture aesthetically, and despite the occasional overlong sequence here or there I thought it worked quite swimmingly. St. Petersburg becomes part of the fabric for this dark spell – a big city shown with often empty streets shot under a flat sky – evoking a sense of things unsettled whilst the universe pushes back against closure. Even the open-all-night grocery store where Yegor eeks out what living he can never seems to have any customers; and the insane asylum that figures prominently into the second half can’t seem to muster but a single patient or two in every frame. Where have all the people gone? Why, it’s almost as if they were driven away by the first rash of unpredictable and unsolved suicides, and now the only folks left are those waiting to be finished off when the man in white returns to active duty.
As for the onscreen talent, Korobko is quite good as the isolated loner who wants nothing more than to get out of town. It isn’t until Yegor finds a sense of familial responsibility once more alongside Karina, Bogdan, and Vika that he breaks out of his funk and accepts the task at hand as being part of his destiny. Dashuk is good, though he really is given the least to do in all of the madness. Vitaliy Krylov – as Yegor’s Uncle Boris and big city detective – has a solid presence and is given a great comic bit as his introduction. Kudrenko handles his task as the broken man worn down by a curse of his own making quite nicely, though it might’ve been nice had the script given him some presence a bit earlier in the picture.
But I’m giving my highest praise to the ladies as Melnikova and Verkhovykh both manage to bring the emotional weight of their respective positions when it matters most. They are the two key counterweights that hold the center – that manage the balance – necessary to make so much of this spectral caper work as strongly as it does. Verkhovykh is brilliant as the emotionally broken catalyst whose eyes portend doom and gloom at every turn, while Melnikova imbues her Karina with the kind of moxie necessary to truly be ‘the final girl’ in the whole dastardly business. She refuses to break, even when that means curling up in a fetal position in the tub so that she can cry alone in relative silence. She’s not about to show anyone that she’s vulnerable, and that’s a character choice I strongly salute when I see it, especially in Horror.
The Syndrome (2021) was produced by Azion Cinema and Sem Holmov. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Warner Archive. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be exceptional throughout the picture’s run. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Gasp! There isn’t a single one, and, yes, that’s sad as I truly wanted to spend a little more time in this world even at the risk of inheriting the curse on my own fragile soul.
Strongly Recommended.
While some might dismiss The Syndrome (2021) as being a bit derivative and maybe even slow in spots, I’d argue that there’s not all that much wrong about being associated with such popular efforts as Fox TV’s long-running The X-Files or even Japan’s pretty stellar Horror flick Ringu (1998) or its Americanized retreads. That’s pretty good company, if you ask me. Rudenko effectively crafts a dour existence against the backdrop of St. Petersburg, lightly suggesting Folk Horror in a few spots before succumbing to having a dark spirit hinging upon the perpetuation of evil deeds to fuel its existence carry his picture through its dreadful finish. Unlike other pictures, this one actually ends with a promise of hope in spite of all the loss preceding it, so let’s hope producers let sleeping dogs lie and not spoil the magic with an unnecessary sequel.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Warner Archive provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of The Syndrome (2021) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
The Syndrome (2021) was produced by Azion Cinema and Sem Holmov. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Warner Archive. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I found the provided sights-and-sounds to be exceptional throughout the picture’s run. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Gasp! There isn’t a single one, and, yes, that’s sad as I truly wanted to spend a little more time in this world even at the risk of inheriting the curse on my own fragile soul.
Strongly Recommended.
While some might dismiss The Syndrome (2021) as being a bit derivative and maybe even slow in spots, I’d argue that there’s not all that much wrong about being associated with such popular efforts as Fox TV’s long-running The X-Files or even Japan’s pretty stellar Horror flick Ringu (1998) or its Americanized retreads. That’s pretty good company, if you ask me. Rudenko effectively crafts a dour existence against the backdrop of St. Petersburg, lightly suggesting Folk Horror in a few spots before succumbing to having a dark spirit hinging upon the perpetuation of evil deeds to fuel its existence carry his picture through its dreadful finish. Unlike other pictures, this one actually ends with a promise of hope in spite of all the loss preceding it, so let’s hope producers let sleeping dogs lie and not spoil the magic with an unnecessary sequel.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Warner Archive provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of The Syndrome (2021) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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