Russian horror — original cinema
Slavic horror is not a copy of Western horror, but a separate genre universe. Ancient villages, deep forests, abandoned estates, monotonous provinces, northern skies and myths passed from mouth to mouth for centuries. For a horror film all this is not 'scenery' but a ready aura of fear that needs no building or inventing — it exists on its own.
Russia has a rich and original history, and it is exactly what gives the genre something foreign studios lack: its own voice. Kikimora, domovoy, leshy, rusalka, Baba Yaga — these characters are recognized by millions of viewers, yet almost nobody has made honest genre cinema about them. Alexander Makaroverse and his team took that niche.
Alexander Makaroverse: horror since childhood
Alexander Makaroverse comes from Kazan, where the feeling of a thousand-year-old city, legends and the Tatar soil of Slavic culture meet in almost every yard. Since childhood he did not just watch horror films — he absorbed their mood, while listening to his grandmother's stories about evil spirits, reading fairy tales and bylinas, and taking an interest in the history of Ancient Rus'.
- Mythology — leshies, rusalkas, kikimoras and domovoys as living screen characters, not exhibition pieces of ethnography.
- History of Rus' — the eras where fear was everyday reality: dark forests, bonfires, peasant life, northern lands.
- Slavic traditions and customs — rituals, superstitions, holidays, fortune-telling. Everything that frightened and fascinated people for centuries.
- Folklore — it became the script foundation of 'Tales of the Rus'', a series of short films by the UNIVERSE OF HORROR studio.
That's how the author's method was born: not to invent fear but to find it in native culture. Every studio film grows out of a story — someone else's or his own, heard in a village or found in an ancient text. That is why Makaroverse's horrors resemble nobody else's: they have their own language, their own sounds of the forest and their own chill running down the spine.
The path: from Kazan — to Hollywood, and from Hollywood — back to the roots
Makaroverse's biography is the path of a persistent loner who first followed his dream alone, and then built a whole ecosystem around himself. He picked up his first film camera at seven, and has been interested in directing since he was thirteen. To buy his first laptop and edit his first commercial orders on it, the future founder worked as a street sweeper, cleaning yards from five in the morning. To save up for film equipment, he shot more than two hundred weddings.
The turning point came in 2016: his short film The Plantman won the Russian stage of the international contest Picture This by Sony Pictures — Alexander became the only representative of Russia to reach the international final and flew to Los Angeles. At Sony Pictures he was shown the studio where one of his favorite composers, Hans Zimmer, recorded soundtracks, and the place where the Oscar statuettes are kept. And Alexander sat in the chair where the brilliant director James Cameron had sat. That trip 'wiped away all frames and borders' — and gave him the belief that the impossible is possible.
Hollywood impressed him — but did not replace it. Coming back, Makaroverse did exactly what was inside: his own Slavic horror. In 2019 he opened the film company UNIVERSE OF HORROR and launched the 'Tales of the Rus'' project. In 2024 his script about a kikimora was sold to a Hollywood studio. And in 2025 he founded the Makaroverse Media Alliance — a union of film, music, photo and IT studios.
38 film festivals around the world
Makaroverse's horrors took part in 38 international film festivals, winning 4 victories, 6 finals and 14 awards in total — and all these numbers refer specifically to the studio's horror films. Among the platforms — Spotlight International Film Festival, The Midnight Film Festival, New York Movie Awards, Videoscream, Prague Film Festival, Rome Prisma Film Awards, Canadian Cinematography Awards and others.
The full chronology of participation and awards is on the page 'Film Festivals and Awards'. Success at festivals proves the main thing: an original Russian horror is understood by juries all over the world — if it has an honest story and a director's vision.
Russia — the ideal location for original horrors
Makaroverse deliberately does not limit shooting to a studio or a single city. His theorem is simple: the deeper into the region, the closer to primal fear.
- Moscow and the region — Soviet gothic, quiet outskirts and the forests near Moscow. More →
- Saint Petersburg — fogs, courtyard-wells, northern mysticism. More →
- Kazan — a thousand-year-old city at the crossroads of cultures and eras. More →
- All regions of Russia — location shooting across the whole country. More →
UNIVERSE OF HORROR crews travel to villages, forests and estates of Russia: the film company looks not for a 'staged' terror but for a place where it is really felt. The full cycle — from script to editing and festival release — is done in-house, without contractors.
Makaroverse today
Today behind the name Alexander Makaroverse stand the film company UNIVERSE OF HORROR, the Makaroverse media holding, thousands of projects and thousands of hours of footage. He remains a director in his own chair: he creates plots, searches for locations, edits, and writes music and sound. That is why every picture of the studio keeps a single authorial signature — it is not conveyor assembly from a template, but an integral world built by one director and his team from script to final sound.
If you are looking for who truly shoots horrors in Russia — you have found it. Tell your story, and it will become a film. Leave a request →
