Coming Soon
THE NINTH HEART
1979
Director
Juraj Herz
Starring
Ondřej Pavelka
Anna Maľová
Julie Jurištová
Runtime
88 MINUTES
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Presented by Kier-La Janisse (director of WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK HORROR) in celebration of her new Severin blu-ray collection ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS: A COMPENDIUM OF FOLK HORROR VOL. 2!
Though Juraj Herz’ most critically-lauded work remains his 1969 nightmare THE CREMATOR, his opulent fairytale THE NINTH HEART is an uncanny trip into an underworld of automatons, stolen hearts and magic. A struggling student befriends an itinerant marionette troupe (led by iconic actor Josef Kemr, who also appeared in folk horror favorites MARKETA LAZAROVÁ and WITCHHAMMER), and when they collectively run afoul of the local Lord, he volunteers to rescue the Lord’s daughter, who has been put under a spell by an evil alchemist. Inanimate objects spring to life as the living succumb to death in the topsy-turvy world of this dark fable.
Herz has been noted by historian Kat Ellinger as the only filmmaker in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia to openly identify as a horror director, and studied puppetry at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alongside Jan Svankmajer, who would remain a key collaborator (Svankmajer’s wife Eva designed the poster for THE NINTH HEART and both provided visual effects and animation). It is thus in THE NINTH HEART that many of his aesthetic and thematic obsessions converge — puppetry, poverty, imprisonment and death — illuminated by a parade of golden candelabras and a playful sense of the grotesque. (Kier-La Janisse)
Though Juraj Herz’ most critically-lauded work remains his 1969 nightmare THE CREMATOR, his opulent fairytale THE NINTH HEART is an uncanny trip into an underworld of automatons, stolen hearts and magic. A struggling student befriends an itinerant marionette troupe (led by iconic actor Josef Kemr, who also appeared in folk horror favorites MARKETA LAZAROVÁ and WITCHHAMMER), and when they collectively run afoul of the local Lord, he volunteers to rescue the Lord’s daughter, who has been put under a spell by an evil alchemist. Inanimate objects spring to life as the living succumb to death in the topsy-turvy world of this dark fable.
Herz has been noted by historian Kat Ellinger as the only filmmaker in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia to openly identify as a horror director, and studied puppetry at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague alongside Jan Svankmajer, who would remain a key collaborator (Svankmajer’s wife Eva designed the poster for THE NINTH HEART and both provided visual effects and animation). It is thus in THE NINTH HEART that many of his aesthetic and thematic obsessions converge — puppetry, poverty, imprisonment and death — illuminated by a parade of golden candelabras and a playful sense of the grotesque. (Kier-La Janisse)