How Visuals Discourage from Seeking Social Change: Conveying Passiveness in Russian Horror TV Series

There are many ways in which a system may convince people to accept it. Beside the ‘positive’ propaganda, there is also a ‘negative’ one, presenting the alternative to the system as the greatest threat. In Russia, this kind of propaganda may take an interesting form: Grigory Yudin asserts that ‘sinister’ theories have permeated the minds of Russians, positing the world as inherently flawed, where the only possible goal is not to make it worse. They make Russians passive, driven by the fear of any change (Yudin and Kagarlistky 2022). An interesting example of such a visual propaganda may be found in the TV series released following the centenary of the October Revolution (1917), all of them paradoxically adopting an anti-revolutionary tone: Channel One series Trotsky (2017), Russia-1 Channel series Demon of the Revolution (2017), and NTV Channel The Road to Calvary (2017). As Mariya Arkadevna Litovskaya notices (2020, 313, 318), their moral is unequivocal: revolutions should never be undertaken. The horror narratives convey these meanings even more clearly, constructing visual images imbued with horrific terror images. This paper focuses on two of them: Kinopoisk Kitchenblock (2021-3, orginal title Пищеблок) and Start Karamora series (2022, original title Карамора). The first one starts in the Soviet lager in 1980, invaded by the communist vampires. Killing of the main vampire symbolises the beginning of the liberal revolution – but this every revolution fails as all of them: the White Army officer was a vampire, embodying the oppression of the tsarist regime; then he was killed by Serp and Molot, who, in turn, became vampires themselves; then the series’ heroes kill Serp, but one of them becomes vampire. Season Two further clarifies the anti-revolutionary message. It suggests that the biggest error was attempting to modernise Russia in the first place. Salvation, it proposes, lies in returning to pre-modern Russia – faithful to its traditions and its Orthodox Church and free from modern Western ideologies, whether Marxist or liberal. Karamora series is set in the twentieth-century pre-revolutionary Russia. The eponymous hero Karamora, an anarchist revolutionary, discovers that imperial elites are vampires and becomes vampire hunter. The narrative visually presents the monstrosity of the revolution in the scene in which Karamora releases kappas who attack everyone around them. Karamora stands amid the slaughter, laughing devilishly and covered in blood, while vampires Svechnikov and Runevsky, alongside a group of tsarist soldiers, attempt to contain the massacre and protect the city. Notably, the mass of kappas is red – the symbolic colour of revolution. A contrasting image is given at the end of the series that moves the viewers to an alternative twenty-first century. Russia remains an empire, with vampire-tsar Nikolai II on the throne, a radio announcement highlights its imperial naval force. Saint Petersburg thrives as the capital, resembling a hybrid of modern Petersburg and New York, with skyscrapers and urban prosperity. The narrative therefore suggests that even an imperfect system is better than what would follow a revolution and portrays revolution as inherently dangerous – always bloody, chaotic and lawless.