The mistress of a haunted castle is prepared for safe slumber in one of many haunting and picturesque moments from the Russian horror fable THE SAVAGE HUNT OF KING STACH.


hiding place in an oversized doll house; a puppet show of the Stach/Jankowska myth in which birds fly out of the puppets when they are decapitated; cowskull- and goat-headed scarecrows on horseback; a grandfather clock tolling from within the ashen ruins of a burned house; the hands of the hero, determined to stay at Marsh Firs until he touches one of its ghosts, fearfully reaching out into the dark to realize his dream. The scene in which Bielarecki is chased into the marshes, in slow motion, by the thundering hordes of King Stach—not the film’s cli- max, incidentally—is incredibly hair-raising. Due either to Rubin- chik’s concept of the film or its de- liberately hazy characterizations,


it feels a bit less than the sum of its parts on first viewing (at least in Russian, with English subtitles), but those parts, en- compassing moments of haunt- ing joy as well as terror, are uncommonly effective and plen- tiful, so it’s an impressive achievement nonetheless. Spot- checking the film’s English dub suggests this might be the bet- ter way to see it; the track is not well-synched, but is very well- acted and may offer the boost needed to underscore THE SAV- AGE HUNT OF KING STACH as a genuinely classic horror film of the 1970s.


The standard transfer is col- orful but a bit soft, closer to what one expects of a 1970s TV pro- duction than a 35mm feature, yet


this film did achieve international release, including New York playdates in 1981. The Russian audio (which finds Bulgarian ac- tress Dimotrova dubbed by a Russian) is available in the origi- nal 2.0 mono and a 5.1 remix with more thundering hoof- beats, with additional 5.1 op- tions in dubbed English and French, and subtitle options in English, Russian, French, Span- ish, German and Italian. This is a Ruscico release, but for some reason not yet available from the US-based Ruscico.com website; we found the disc at www.petershop.com, a German import source that provides ex- cellent and speedy service and carries a variety of other hard-to- find Russian fantasy films.


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