Previously filmed by Maria Bava in black & white, this richly coloured Russian version recalls those Eastern European fantasies the BBC used to regularly screen throughout the sixties & seventies and shares the bleak atmosphere of Jack Clayton's adaptation of 'The Bespoke Overcoat', with a spooky, long-haired witch that glides about like that in a modern Japanese horror; although a Japanese version would never have told this tale so succinctly.