The series "Territory" is a Russian horror movie for which one is not ashamed

The Territories genre is claimed to be a combination of folk horror based on the beliefs of the inhabitants of the Perm Territory, road-movie and family drama. And if Russia has already learned how to cope with the last two genres, then the application for horror immediately causes concern. Almost all domestic films and TV series that try to scare the viewer with tales about Baba Yaga, goblin or witches look funny at best, and more often just ashamed.

But, judging by the first two episodes, "Territory" has a chance to at least partially correct the prevailing stereotype. Though the desire to tell too much can ruin everything.

Hurrying plot

The parents of 19-year-old Yegor Chudinov (Gleb Kalyuzhny) disappeared during an ethnographic expedition to the Perm region. The young man, together with his uncle Nikolai (Andrey Merzlikin), goes in search. Near the town of Kudymkar, they meet students Tanya (Ksenia Otinova) and Nadya (Anastasia Chistyakova), who are studying local folklore. Having united, the heroes continue to explore terrible places, plunging more and more into the world of mystical beliefs and otherworldly creatures.

The main and so far the only drawback of the series is that the authors too quickly throw characters into the thick of events, really preventing the audience from getting to know them. Oddly enough, at first it was not Yegor himself who was the best registered, but Nikolai. He works as a pathologist, hence the cynicism and harshness, but at the same time the hero is caring and knows a lot.

Although Yegor is most likely deliberately made mysterious. With his past, strange scar and missing parents, the main plot twists will surely be connected. Here are just a family drama, which the creators of "Territory" clearly want to tell, can greatly interfere with the gloomy atmosphere. Few manage to maintain the necessary balance between the two genres.

But Tanya and Nadia at first look like just additional characters who have two main tasks. First, they explain mystical events. No wonder the heroines were made philologists studying folklore - the easiest way to endow them with knowledge. And secondly, they will get into trouble so that Nikolai and Yegor save them. "Girl in Need" is a very popular movie cliche.

But if you can get acquainted with the main characters in the course of the development of the plot, then various mystical creatures and unusual places replace each other very quickly. As we said, the authors declare the Territory genre as a road movie. After the first episode, the characters move to a new location. Although almost nothing was said about the previous location.

If the characters continue to move in the same way in each subsequent episode, there is a danger that the whole atmosphere will be lost. In order for the viewer to believe in the mystical worlds of horror, it is better to reveal them in detail, and not surprise with the number of locations. Due to such a mistake, many did not like the final episodes of another TNT and Premier hit - "Survival Games". Due to the frequent changes in mood and terrain, towards the end it seemed that the creators simply ran out of ideas.

But there is a possibility that the further plot of "Territory" will take a different path, and the series will turn out to be very good.

Unfunny beliefs

Often, when making folk horror films, Russian directors take on some familiar character in order to immediately attract attention. But the trouble is that neither Baba Yaga nor the evil mermaids seriously frighten the viewer. Moreover, they try to convey the whole nightmare in such films through bad special effects.

The creators of "Territory" did more interesting things. They took the real myths of the indigenous inhabitants of the Komi-Permyatskiy Okrug. Those who are interested in folklore have heard about the white-eyed monster people, who supposedly possessed witchcraft knowledge and went underground, someone read about small demons hiccups. But these tales are not very well known to the general public, and therefore they are not tired of them.

Having thrown their heroes into the wilderness, the creators of "Territory" acquaint both them and the audience with terrible beliefs. Sometimes the horror in the series looks too grotesque: for example, if a witch appears, then it is either a hermit in rags or a terrible grandmother. But the whole modern genre sins like that, with the exception of such masters as Ari Astaire and Roger Eggers.

Otherwise, the balance of goblin and other mystical creatures and realistic creepy scenes is maintained well. In a couple of scenes, the series is really scary, and this is already a success for such a project.

Retro village atmosphere

The advertising makes a special emphasis on the participation of the producers of the main nostalgic hit “Peace! Friendship! Gum!". And despite the fact that in "Territory" the action unfolds today, the series also manages to plunge the viewer into the atmosphere of the past. The thing is that the heroes find themselves in remote villages, where time seems to have stopped.

The contrast is very vivid: Yegor has a modern smartphone and Bluetooth headphones, while the bus driver plays music on an old cassette recorder. Even the district police officer gets in touch through an ancient landline telephone, and in the houses there are pot-bellied tube TVs.

And the show is completely impossible to accuse of exaggeration. In the Russian hinterland, there really are similar settlements, where elderly people wear old sheepskin coats all year round, everyone is related to each other, and the only bus runs no more than once a day.

It is easy to fit scary scenes into such an environment that will definitely scare the typical city dwellers - the main target audience of the series.

Territory is another confirmation that Russian TV series producers have finally found the right direction for the industry's development. He does not copy Western stylistics and refers to Russian folklore. Decent shooting and surroundings of the hinterland only complement the sensations. It is only important that the authors do not rush, do not mix genres and allow the viewer to plunge into the atmosphere of horror.