Review: The Ninth Heart (1979) — A Folk Horror Fairytale
The Sun Pendulum in the Hall of Underworld Time, my favorite aspect of the film.
The Ninth Heart (1979) is a dark fantasy steeped in candlelight and shadow — a Czechoslovakian folk horror directed by Juraj Herz, where superstition breathes through every velvet curtain and echoing corridor. The film opens in a gypsy caravan, where risqué performances veil sharp mockery of the crown — and follows a poor student who accepts a strange commission: to awaken a princess trapped in an otherworldly trance. None who accepted before him have ever returned.
Beneath the royal court’s glittering rot, he discovers the spellwork of an occult advisor — an astrologist and sorcerer gathering nine human hearts to distill an elixir, so that he may possess eternal youth and marry the princess he keeps suspended between dream and death.
The film is an original fairy tale with motifs from Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, showcasing a darker version of the Jafar and Jasmine dynamic — and an inversion of the literary fairytale The Cold Heart, where the selfish bargain is no longer one man’s loss of his own heart, but a predator’s theft of nine others, each pulse sacrificed to the same cold pursuit of power over compassion.
What emerges is a fevered parable about vanity, temptation, and the soul’s slow petrification under the weight of obsession — a fairytale that feels sung underwater, glimmering and grotesque in equal measure.
It won Best Feature Film for Children in 1980 at the International Festival of Fantasy and Science Fiction Films in Madrid.
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Loves Me
The score of the film by Petr Hapka is considered one of the composer’s most successful creations. It opens the film, along with a striking animated sequence by Eva and Jan Švankmajer, the legendary stop-motion duo.
Skeletons tear a human heart in two, only for it to be restored in an alchemist’s flask using mysterious, winged ingredients — the astrological symbols of the planets. It’s a long overture that exudes ritualistic elegance: dark, poetic, and alive with forbidden knowledge.
Other than this opening sequence, my favorite aspect of the film was the set design by Vladimír Labský, which comes alive in the second half of the film within the underground palace of the Court Astrologer.
The Hall of Underworld Time
The sets unfold in rich detail: a glittering ball, a shadowed library, a gleaming laboratory, and — my personal favorite — the candlelit Hall of Underworld Time. There, a vast golden Sun serves as the pendulum of the clock marking the passage of all-time with sacred precision.
Each set is meticulously crafted, possessing beautiful props and details. Another stand-out was the laboratory machine, extracting the essence of human hearts to grant its master eternal youth.
The Laboratory Machine
The filmmakers enhanced the magic of these settings with prism effects and a shifting palette of colors, which transformed each room into a dreamlike, otherworldly space.
Equally haunting were the natural landscapes — mountainous cliffs and craggy paths leading to and from the underground palace — offering glimpses of wind, stone, and snow between the suffocating interiors. I couldn’t trace their exact filming location, though Studio No. 6 in Prague seems plausible.
In addition to the back half of the film, I also enjoyed its portrayal of gypsy caravan life in Bohemia, rendered with a realism I haven’t seen elsewhere on screen. While the chemistry between the lead male character and his gypsy love interest was tender and believable, it was the strange, charged dynamic between the Princess and the Court Astrologer that lingered most vividly — the dark, magnetic tension blooming between them as he seeks to claim her as his bride against her will.
The use of live animals was also a stand-out.
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Loves Me Not
The slapstick humor often jarred against the otherwise gothic, ritualistic atmosphere, and aside from the intoxicating chemistry between the princess and the astrologist, the characters frequently felt flat or underdeveloped. At times, the narrative drifted like a candle flickering in the wind, and I found my attention wandering from the story’s full potential.
Still, the premise brims with possibility: alchemy, dark rituals, stolen hearts, and cosmic symbolism — all awaiting a fully realized vision.
A modern reinterpretation, executed with the same devotion to atmosphere, could elevate Herz’s haunting tale into something unforgettable, where each shadow, each heartbeat, and each stolen pulse resonates with the weight of legend.
