This movie is about Vampire Queens in a Gothic Victorian Mansion. Black Vampiress, White Vampiress. Viktoria is Lady Macbeth, painted for the back row . Jealous and witchy. A Gypsy Potion. Like a Fairy Tale "dead water". The mineral water that tastes like champagne. All of father's love, and inheritance and the boy that I love. Haunted Lady in the Painting, Puce Moment, Japanese Opera. It's like dreaming without sleeping.

This is the second movie I have now watched from Czech(oslovak) director Juraj Herz. Herz' Beauty and the Beast was a stunningly dark fairytale of a movie that I enjoyed immensely. While the set-up for Morgiana could be described as fairytale-like, they are vastly different. BatB's cinematographer, Jiří Macháně, made that movie feel imposing, larger than life even, whereas this feels understated in comparison. Ofcourse, BatB had a lot more outlandish elements as well, giving it an otherworldly atmosphere from the get-go.

Iva Janžurová does a tremendous job in the dual role of good sister/bad *murderous psychopathic* sister. At first I wasn't even aware that she portrayed both. Very convincing!

Gotta keep the devil down in the well!

Almost like a silent film in how gaudy and loud the make-up and performances are. When combined with some crazy subjective camera work (cat POV!) and a bombastic score, one could probably watch this without subtitles and understand it well enough. Recommended if you'd like to watch Poe and Klimt collaborate on a Czech new wave project (and why wouldn't you?!).

"I wanted you to talk of dreams you never dreamt."

Outstanding Eurocore psych-out, like PETRA VON KANT's bitter tears laced with LSD and cyanide, all primary color hallucinations and Siamese cat POV shots. Communist censorship reportedly stripped this of an organizing plot twist, but the dark star it orbits is still a collective -- maybe even suicidal -- act of self-delusion.

"Something has agitated your nervous system. That's why lights, sounds, and colors disturb you."

Morgiana plays like a feature length Kate Bush music video with loud scarves billowing in the wind, cliffside ocean murders, spooky cats, Victorian love triangles, poison induced freak outs, candlelit lurking, and drunk carriage collisions. Slow, but creeps over you like baroque bad mushroom flop sweat. I love how the camera creeps down corridors and pans across open courtyards and leaps across tables like layers upon layers of lurid theatrical high society gowns caught in a deadly current. Not enough cat POV! The best of no-budget Czech New Wave aesthetics combined with the Dark Romantic murder and madness of 19th century horror fiction.

Melodramatic disintegration of the female mind is a subgenre that rarely rises above its misogynist roots. Even the best examples often suffer from the sexist assumptions, implications, and themes; when these films are at their best, they tap into something true about patriarchy's impact on women by accident. Many of them, like Symptoms and Morgiana, pit woman against woman in a tired format of womanly jealousy. And yet, even in films like this with problematic portrayals and stereotypes, there is power in these performances, in seeing a woman carry a film, in sharing and empathizing with her pain. The horror is internalized violence and misery. In spite of themselves, films like this resonate.

October count: 5/31

A gothic hallucinatory nightmare with blackmail, envy, attempted murder, gorgeous costumes, garish makeup, and cat POV. In other words, a masterpiece.

as a descent into deception and jealousy, this is pretty cool. it's like a fairytale mixed with 70s weirdness. however, and i feel like such a bore for complaining about this, i wish the narrative would've gone somewhere more satisfying. it's worth a watch for the crazy costumes, pov-shots (from the cat's view!!!!), and incredible performance by the lead actress in a double role alone but otherwise, there's little to latch onto beyond typical good vs evil tropes.

i can't help but point out how something about the use of said tropes reminiscent of classic fairytales and the almost campy mood give the evil sister such a gay-coded villain vibe. wish they would've done a bit more with that

The Czech New Wave was on another level, man. This is such a fun, campy, gothic film. Not gonna lie, I found myself laughing at some of the violent moments, I don’t know if they were meant to be funny or not. But this movie is a really good time and was surprisingly really well written. I also liked how the movie is simply named after the main character’s cat, which represents her guilt as it watches her do all these bad deeds. 

Iva Janžurová plays dual roles, and she completely loses herself in both of them. I kept forgetting it was the same actress. Also, the opening scene, some of the score and some of the imagery reminded me a lot of The Childhood of a Leader, I wonder if Brady Corbet was inspired by this.

Feel like this would be a cult classic if it was more widely available.

Reviewed on Cinema Eclectica.

You know slow-burn horror? Well, the exact opposite of that. Juraj Herz's deranged Gothic melodrama sets up its essential situation in the first ten minutes, then thoroughly exhausts itself running a series of increasingly bizarre variations on it. Herz is not a director who particularly cares if you like his characters, and the divide between Iva Janžurová's two sisters - one dark-haired and wicked, the other red-haired, innocent yet suspiciously popular with soldiers - is played in a consistently parodic register. That said, I suspect Herz felt the most kinship with the cat.

THEY'RE THE SAME ACTRESS WTF

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Pacing gets a little wonky towards the end, but man oh man, what a makeup and hat journey. Fully never not beautiful to look at.

kind of obsessed with this

the make up!!!

A sister plans to poison her identical sibling in this relishable Czech exercise in Gothic style from the director of The Cremator (1969).

Every shot is breathtaking.

The villainess is by far best-dressed when it comes to sister murder, animal cruelty, naked girl crippling, and suicide.

After seeing The Cremator and then this, wow, I adore Juraj Herz. That amazing film score, the fashion, the mood... I love it all. Also, the same actress is playing both sisters! Wouldn’t have even noticed had I not read it—she’s that good. 

Apparently this was originally based off of a story that involves schizophrenia, but depicting such a thing on film in Czechoslovakia at the time was deemed sadomasochistic and against the law.

It looks great!

Uuuug ya. Some fashion and makeup inspo.

a wig reveal that rivals season 2 melrose place