'A Ukrainian witch kicks the crap out of Russian soldiers': inside the horror films born in a war zone
In Ukraine right now, audiences are paying to see witches and zombies do the thing many can't in real life: fight back. It sounds wild until you remember what the country's living through. Revenge on screen becomes a pressure valve. A way to breathe.
The Witch: Revenge - also known as The Konotop Witch - didn't just connect, it blew up at the local box office. Around $1.4m in wartime. Curfews, power cuts, air-raid alerts, and still people found a way into cinemas. That tells you something about what stories are doing for people there.
Producer Iryna Kostyuk and her team shot it with the war roaring in the background. One detail sticks: the Russian uniforms used in the film were real, taken from the battlefield, cleaned, then dirtied up again to look lived-in. Some had names in the lining, crossed out and replaced. Imagine putting that on for a scene. Actors felt it.
The story is simple and brutal. A witch who gave up her powers takes them back after Russian soldiers kill her fiancé. For western viewers, it can feel severe. For Ukrainians, it read like straight catharsis. As Kostyuk put it, people weren't flinching at the violence. "People wanted revenge," she says. The film promised exactly that - "a Ukrainian witch kicks the crap out of Russian soldiers" - and delivered.
Building a horror universe in a real war
The Witch is the first entry in a planned cycle called Heroines of the Dark (movies and tv series) Times. The second film, The Dam, is finished and already in Ukrainian cinemas. It's a zombie action-horror about a squad of Ukrainian soldiers led by a fighter codenamed Mara, who stumble into a cold war lab where Soviet-era experiments went sideways. Soon they're battling undead soldiers and their own fear.
Tonally, The Dam sometimes winks at the audience - splattery gags, big jumps, the kind of over-the-top effects horror fans love. And then you remember: this was shot during air raids, with the crew relocating as needed, because that's just how you work in year four of a full-scale invasion. The tonal whiplash is part of the experience.
If you're looking at the market angle, there's a reason these stories center women. Right now, cinemas in Ukraine skew female - many men are at the front. There's also deep cultural soil to draw from. Ukrainian mythology is rich with powerful female figures, and the films lean into that. Not as a slogan - just as the most honest way to tell these stories.
From folk fantasy hit to a darker mood
Kostyuk also produced Mavka: The Forest Song, an animated folk fantasy that became Ukraine's biggest film ever with a reported $21m worldwide. People saw it as a story about protecting home. By 2024, the mood had shifted. Less mythic comfort, more edge.
But moods move. The Dam's domestic run has been modest so far, which Kostyuk reads as audiences craving lighter escapes right now. That can change again next month. War scrambles the calendar like that.
Taking the fight abroad - and what's next
The Dam is being introduced to buyers at the American Film Market, with hopes it connects beyond Ukraine - with horror fans, sure, but also with anyone watching Russia's imperial nostalgia curdle into real policy. That's the subtext: these aren't just monsters. They're the past refusing to stay buried.
There's a third film in development: a policewoman versus a cabal of neo-Nazi vampires. On the nose? Maybe. But subtlety isn't the point. Clarity is. You see what these movies are arguing for: resilience, accountability, a future where this stops.
Filming under sirens
Is it safe to make movies right now? Honestly, that question doesn't land the way it used to in Ukraine. Crews pick locations and deal with what comes. It's high risk, constant adjustments, and somehow they keep rolling. Kostyuk's team even shot a live-action Mavka - The True Myth - in forests and lakes during the war, delivering on schedule despite repeated alerts.
Here's what that could mean. Even if box office swings week to week, Ukraine's film infrastructure is still working, still exporting stories, still showing up to markets. That matters. Culture is a frontline too, and these films are planting a flag.
Maybe the cleanest takeaway is this: in a country under attack, horror isn't escapism so much as translation. It turns dread into something you can stare down for two hours, together, in the dark. And sometimes, that's enough to get you through tomorrow.
- FILM.UA - production company behind The Witch: Revenge and The Dam
- American Film Market - where The Dam is being presented to international buyers
