Main cast: Yana Yenzhayeva (Zhenya), Konstantin Beloshapka (Kira), Ilya Yermolov (Viktor), Nikita Yuranov (Oleg), Varvara Borodina (Sonya), Sabina Akhmedova (Aza the Gypsy), and Larisa Domaskina (Zhenya’s Mother)
Director: Svyatoslav Podgaevskiy
Dark Spell is a Russian film about what happens when one messes with a love spell.
Zhenya is married to the ridiculously pretty Kira and they have a baby together. She’s a seamstress and he’s an artist (the “making statues” kind, not the pop music kind).
Well, one day she finds him sticking his bits into his model, and it turns out that he wants out all along. Our dear is determined not to let him go, supposedly because she doesn’t want her baby to grow up without a father. When her mother mentions the possibility of using a love spell to get her husband to love her forever and ever, she decides to ask Aza the Gypsy—that’s what this character is listed as in the credits, so the perpetually offended ones can write to the people behind this movie, instead of me, to screech and rage—for one such spell.
Aza warns her that the spell is dangerous, because this spell is called Black Wedding for a reason. It’s irreversible, and you know it is: there is a very thin line between love and hate. Zhenya doesn’t care, she wants her husband back, so the spell is cast.
Things quickly go wrong. Kira becomes devoted to Zhenya, to the point that he gets very jealous and even violent when someone else gets Zhenya’s time and attention. This includes Viktor, her client Sonya’s husband-to-be, whom Kira quickly falls in love with after getting Kira back because why not, and even her baby.
Oh boy, Zhenya. This is a chick-lit heroine in the wrong genre, because she acts like everything is about her, consequences be damned. Were this a movie based off a chick-lit novel or with chick-lit sensibilities, this dear will be pushed forth as some quirky darling that just wants a man to validate her entire self-worth as a woman. Since this is a horror film, though, yikes.
I cringe when the spell also somehow destroys the upcoming wedding of Viktor and Sonya, and I wince when Zhenya decides that Viktor is the one shortly after. No, let me rewind. From the very moment she shows up in this movie, this character is already making eyes at Viktor. Hence, this makes her decision to cast the Black Wedding spell on Kira even more foolish, as one of the conditions for the spell to work is that her love for Kira must be true. Well, it isn’t, as they are together mostly because he knocked her up, so oops.
Along the way, her baby is placed in danger, and a few people are placed in dire jeopardy and even killed because of Zhenya’s actions. It is only at the very end that she finally decides to pay the piper, but I feel that it’s way too late for me to start feeling sorry for her. She made her bed, so hey, she can lay on it. It’s just a shame that other people are dragged into the mess and will no doubt be traumatized for the rest of their lives, all because this character doesn’t want to admit that her marriage with Kira is over.
Sure, one can argue that perhaps Zhenya’s initial actions are understandable, but it really doesn’t help that this character is not likable from the get go. A part of me wants to see her suffer, heh. Unfortunately, others suffer in her place, hence my constant eye rolling at her.
To be fair, this movie is alright if I could overlook the fact that I don’t care for the main character. A lot of it is predictable, as the consequences of Zhenya’s actions are telegraphed early on, but the end result is still a watchable, if generic, kind of movie about a more supernatural kind of fatal attraction. The fact that the heroine finally is held accountable for her sins is a nice way to wrap the movie up.
Still, it’s hard for me to offer any enthusiastic recommendation for this movie because, sheesh, that heroine really brings it onto herself. It is such a damned shame that others are hurt badly because of her actions. A brief sight of that oh-so-pretty Konstantin Beloshapka’s rear end barely makes up for this. Maybe if he had shown more…
