"Sheitan Warrior" is Serbian homage to teenage slasher-horror-comedy movies from the eighties and, if you are at least a bit familiar with this genre, there's no need for me to describe you the story itself. The movie combines elements typical of high school comedies from the '80s and '90s with a slasher-horror story in the style of Freddy Krueger or Jason, but does it in the Serbian way. Here you will find a comedy based on a social critique of the society, characters who are representatives of various classes and groups that the local audience will easily recognize, especially if they grew up in the nineties, but also interesting pseudo-historical/mythological elements that we have not met before in domestic cinema. In terms of effects and production, "Warrior" is lagging behind the world, but it is also quite ahead of what we are accustomed in the domestic film and its flaws are quite covered by good directing and acting. The cast is mostly amateur, but in minor roles there are also many great names of domestic cinema and theater, such as Petar Bozovic, Svetlana Bojkovic, Marko Nikolic (for the third time in his career in the role of Karadjordje), Branislav Lecic, Dragan Nikolic, Irfan Mensur, Teofil Pancic, Eva Ras, as well as Bora Djordjevic. The amateur part of the cast is occasionally over-the-top, with several shame-transfers, but it is possible that it is deliberate. Most of the kids very convincingly play typical representatives of various teenage groups, and Vladimir Tesovic is simply hilarious in the role of nerd who is constantly bullied, which drives him to utter madness and makes him turn to the forces of evil.
Objectively, in terms of world cinema, this is not a particularly good movie, and probably does not deserve the rating I gave it, but considering that, for this climate, the film is quite genuine and brings a breeze of freshness to the stale Serbian scene, as well as the fact that it is made by inexperienced students with a budget ridiculous for such a project, as well as invested effort worth every respect, from this point of view rating seven is an insultingly low.
7/10
