Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 27, 2022

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as a part of All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror.

All the Haunts Be Ours advertises itself as "the most comprehensive collection of its kind", which may initially beg the question as to "kind of what?". But the release also comes with a front cover sobriquet proclaiming it "a compendium of folk horror", which may then beg the next obvious question as to what exactly "folk horror" is. In that regard, this set begins with a fascinating and diverse documentary which has its own subtitle referencing folk horror, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, which provides a veritable glut of clips from international films which director (and this entire set's guiding light) Kier-La Janisse has assembled to help define the genre, but perhaps the best answer is to simply echo a certain Supreme Court Justice named Potter Stewart who was trying to decide a case involving supposed pornography, and who famously opined, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it. . ."

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach takes a slightly different approach to crafting a "were-creature" (as in werewolf) story than does its disc mate Wilczyca, and in fact this film may be more immediately accessible and probably visceral than the other Polish entry, if only because this film has an at least somewhat less protracted narrative, and a kind of opulent but slightly Gothic visual style that may remind some of the glory days of Roger Corman. Kind of fascinatingly, while Corman helped make his name with (supposed) adaptations culled from the work of Edgar Allen Poe, this piece owes its genesis by Prosper Mérimée, the French icon also responsible for giving the world the source for Bizet's immortal opera Carmen.

The story follows a pastor named Wittembach (Edmund Fetting), who is traveling through backwoods Lithuania via a rather luxe train, where he is invited to tea by a dowager figure in the next room over, Catherine, Duchess of Pacow (Zofia Mrozowska), who is riding with her niece Julia (Malgorzata Braunek), and governess Pamela (Hanna Stankówna), but kind of interestingly this quartet of characters is introduced only to have Wittembach take off on his own to the estate of Count Michał Szemiot (Michał Durlasz), ostensibly to do some Bible translating and folklore research. What ends up happening is another tale of an outsider kind of infiltrating an insular community and discovering a perhaps shocking set of secrets.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Duchess and her cohort do return to the story, and in fact a major plot strand involves Michal wanting to marry Julia. But what really drives the horror angle here is Michal's mother, a mentally unbalanced countess (also portrayed by Zofia Mrozowska), who was attacked on her wedding night be a bear and who has come to believe Michal is a were-bear. Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone thinks she's nuts, and the film has some kind of disturbing vignettes involving "treatments" she's subjected to.

With these plot points in place, it's probably not hard to guess where Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach ends up going, but in that regard while the destination is probably foretold, the journey is, again kind of like Wilczyka, arguably more about mood and tone rather than a steady supply of shock and gore. The film is rather opulently mounted and definitely has a mood that is almost metaphysical at times.

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Severin's insert booklet states this was "restored in HD from the original negative by WFDIF in Warsaw", matching the same description that Wilczyca's technical mention merited. Like Wilczyca, this is a very appealing looking transfer where a nicely nuanced palette is one of the strengths. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, the film has a surprisingly opulent production design (much more so than Wilczyca, at least in terms of sets and probably in terms of costumes as well). The palette, while maybe showing just hints of yellow at times, still radiates some intense hues, as can be seen in some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. Detail levels are generally excellent throughout, though this film is probably less gory than Wilczyca, albeit with some closing imagery that comes close to that other Polish film in terms of displaying carrion. Grain is once again on the fine side, but still clearly visible, and resolves naturally.

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track in the original Polish. This film, again like its disc mate, benefits from consistent use of ambient environmental effects, though in this case, perhaps in a slightly less quasi-hallucinatory way. This film has a much more supportive score than Wilczyca in my estimation, and Wojciech Kilar's contributions are well represented on this track. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Wild Country of the Were-Bear (HD; 13:51) is an interview with director Janusz Majewski. Subtitled in English.

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach is perhaps a bit more traditional than Wilczyca, but it also has the same strange almost meditative quality that the other Polish film offers. I think one thing this film probably shares strongly with Wilczyca is that audience expectations coming into it may frankly not match what's ultimately in store, and in that regard, both this film and Wilczyca may reflect similar reactions to any number of the other films collected in All the Haunts Be Ours, especially outings like Witchhammer and Tilbury (for radically different reasons, it should be mentioned). Therefore, Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach , while probably not seeming quite as slow as Wilczyca, may in fact be too much of a slog for some, to a predestined end. Those willing to let Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach weave its own rather unique spell may find this story rather compelling. Technical merits are solid and the interview with the director interesting. Recommended.