In short: The Ninth (2019)

Original title: Devyataya

The late 19th Century, Petersburg. A serial killer murders women, using occult symbols in his bloody practice, seemingly working some kind of ritual. Policeman Sergey Rostov (Evgeniy Tsyganov), a man characterised by the improbable combination of a deep sense of responsibility and a death wish, investigates with the help of his underling Ganin (Dmitriy Lysenkov). A pentagram painted on an egg (hard-boiled, if you need to know) the killer has replaced the newest victim’s heart with sees Rostov looking for an occult expert. The occult researcher Golitsyn (Yuri Kolokolnikov), not really purposefully, points Rostov in the direction of British spirit medium Olivia Reed (Daisy Head, doing some pretty fun scenery-chewing), who has a successful Petersburg run with her very showy and theatrical spiritist revue, including an awesome/absurd costume.

At first, Rostov isn’t at all impressed with Olivia. She’s clearly faking a lot of her supposed powers, but she does indeed have visions that just might point Rostov in the direction of the killer. There’s a closer connection to the case, too, for the masked mystery maniac does use a ritual taken from a grimoire he has stolen from Olivia.

Nikolai Khomeriki’s The Ninth fits snugly into the realm of those high budget movies mixing traditional mystery, adventure movie tropes and a smaller or larger degree of supernatural business that makes these films nice fits for the Halloween season; it’s the same sort of thing you find in Guy Ritchie’s version of Sherlock Holmes or Tsui Hark’s version of Detective Dee, just with less genius thinker and martial arts.

I do have a large place in my heart for this sort of film, seeing as it mixes some of the bits of popular cultures the world round I enjoy the most. The Ninth isn’t as fun as the first Ritchie Holmes, nor as breathtaking as Hark’s Dee films, but Khomeriki and his scriptwriters (apparently this is based on a comic written by Marina and Sergei Dyachenko, who are rather wonderful novelists) are pretty good at transplanting the genre tropes into Russia. Petersburg in the late 19th Century is an excellent place to set this kind of tale, too, with its extreme contrasts between the rich and the poor, its imperial grandeur, and some damn fine architecture for a film to use. Sense of place, even if it is not a naturalistic portrayal of a place, goes a long way with me.

On the level of plotting and direction, the film is competent but not spectacular. The characters are moved through the set pieces well enough, and Khomeriki certainly makes things look slick, so it’s difficult not to feel entertained by the mix of light horror and action. From time to time, I would have wished for the film to do something a little bit cleverer than it strictly needed to or something more off-beat, but it always stays good popcorn cinema.

Which is never meant as any kind of damning criticism from me. As experience shows, even if some people can’t seem to see that because they are distracted holding their noses at something meant only to entertain, it’s not actually terribly easy to make this sort of film well, just ask DC. The Ninth, on the other hand, entertains me just fine.