A mystical drama based on a story by V. Korotkevich. The film is set in out-of-the-way Belarusian woodlands at the end of the 19th century. A young ethnographer, Andrej Bielarecki, comes here to research local folk legends… A film that justly claims to be the first Soviet mystical thriller. A gripping, suspenseful plot. Terrifying medieval legends turning to real horror. “‘Stach”’s been assigned a most honorable place in history, next to ‘Cat’s Eye’, ‘Night of the Living Dead’, and a masterpiece of the national sub-horror, the animation ‘Hazelnut Twig’.” (Denis Gorelov, “Izvestiya”)