Carpathian Creature Feature
Directed by Isaiah Saxon
Starring Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Finn Wolfhard
Released April 25th, 2025
Rated PG-13
Maxim (Willem Dafoe) is a man in charge of a group of young boys from his village who have been orphaned as the result of attacks by reclusive forest creatures known as Ochi. Maxim gives the boys weapons training so that they may better defend the village from the Ochi. He doesn’t seem to have a firm grip on sanity, but the boys cling to their rifles and pledge to rid the countryside of the dangerous animals. After a violent encounter between the boys and the creatures, Maxim’s daughter Yuri (Helena Zengel) finds a frightened, abandoned Ochi, and resolves to reunite the tiny animal with its family. She leaves a note for her father and takes off to find the home of the Ochi. While on her journey, Yuri is reunited with her mother Dasha (Emily Watson), who left Maxim years ago due to his mental instability. Dasha, sporting a wooden hand, offers Yuri (and the audience) more information about the history of the Ochi.
If you threw Gizmo and Grogu in a genetic blender with a lemur, the result might be something like the Ochi: furry brown monkey-like creatures that possess sharp fangs and a love of song. Like birds or whales, the Ochi language is based in song, though humans have been too busy killing them to listen. I suppose The Legend of Ochi is about mankind’s foolhardy desire to dominate nature rather than living in harmony with it, and this makes for a decent basis for a fable.
Further driving the point home that this is meant to be a fable is the inclusion of cars and fashions and music that all seem incongruent and divorced from any particular time period. At one point when Maxim is preparing to lead an expedition to retrieve his daughter, he dons a suit of armor that would look at home on a conquistador. Why? I do not know. To me it smacks of the filmmakers being weird for weird’s sake. I understand that this may work for some viewers, but I appreciate a reason behind weirdness. Perhaps I missed it.
Emily Watson gives a quality, reserved performance, though her character is little more than exposition mom. Not one to ever sleepwalk through a performance, Willem Dafoe brings a welcome madness to his character, as thin as it is. I cannot let you know if Finn Wolfhard is any good as Petro, one of the boys tasked with attacking the Ochi, because he’s barely in the film. But he’s probably better than Helena Zengel, who fails to give Yuri sympathetic qualities. I do not wish to speak harshly about a young actor’s performance, so I will simply say I hope she finds a project in the future that may allow her to better demonstrate her capabilities.
A24, a distributor known for dark, challenging art-house films, ventures into slightly new territory with The Legend of Ochi, a family fantasy flick that at times comes across like a dark, challenging art-house film. David Longstreth’s bombastic score does not do the film any favors. Longstreth’s music has a grim sensibility that fails to let in any whimsy, swelling with suffocating themes that overwhelm delicate scenes. Shot on location in the Carpathian Mountains and Bucharest, the scenery is striking and not something we have seen very much on screen. Beautiful landscapes notwithstanding, the film is far too morose to appeal to children and not ambitious enough to capture the attention of older audiences.
The Legend of Ochi does not have a very interesting story, memorable characters, or much of anything to recommend about it, unless you’re super into puppetry. A team of seven puppeteers worked in unison to bring the Ochi to life, and the result is indeed remarkable, especially considering the film’s small budget.