SHADY MOVIE THROWBACKS: The Secret of Anastasia (1997)

The name echoes through hallways, in near-empty rooms and abandoned warehouses, in corners of bars and off the lips of 21-year-old animation students smoking weed in their dorm rooms. Don Bluth. Don Bluth, they say.


Bluth is either a great of animation or a great failure of animation, depending on how you're inclined. If you grew up in the 80s, 90s or even 2000s, there's a huge chance you watched one of his movies, even if you don't know his name. A competitor against Disney who was willing to go darker than the Mouse ever was, Bluth was responsible for such classics as The Secret of NIMH, The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and An American Tail... and also such forgotten failures as Rock-A-Doodle, Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park, The Pebble and the Penguin, and Titan A.E. The latter bombed horrifically at the box office, ended the existence of like three separate studios, and Bluth hasn't been heard from since.

Oh, and also it's a well-known fact that he's a huge kinkster.

Inflation, transformation, vore, mouths, even BDSM...

is there a fetish that's not covered here?

Bluth also, in association with the now-defunct Fox Animation Studios, produced 1997's Anastasia, which is more than likely the work he's best remembered for.

Anastasia concerns the titular Russian grand duchess, who was supposedly killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918, but who - according to many rumors, and the movie - actually survived to reclaim her birthright. This animated musical was very well received (85%) by critics, made a killing at the box office, is well-remembered even today, and actually has a musical based on it that premiered in 2017.

Those among you who are film-savvy might be wondering why I'm talking about Don Bluth. And the answer is: to throw you off. The movie we're going to discuss was not made by Don Bluth or Fox Animation Studios. Very much not so.

Look, frankly, I'm not a huge fan of Anastasia. It perpetuates roughly 233,584 easily-Googled lies about Russian history, the story and voice acting are both janky (with no offense to America's Sweetheart), and the animation is kind of weird and jerky compared to its smoother Disney counterparts. And to DreamWorks. My god, Anastasia had no excuse to look so weird when DreamWorks was out here releasing The Prince of Egypt only a year later.

Poetry! They should've sent a poet!

But with that being said, The Secret of Anastasia - the movie we're actually going to examine here - makes Anastasia look like The Prince of Egypt had a baby with Doctor Zhivago.

It's extremely common for an upcoming big-budget animated movie to inspire lower-budget, terrible knockoffs. The Little Panda Fighter to Kung Fu Panda. Ratatoing to Ratatouille. Little Cars to Cars. (Of all these, the one I most recommend watching is Ratatoing, which is... an experience. You can find it here.) The Secret of Anastasia, released in 1997, is one of these; obviously, it copies Don Bluth's Anastasia.

Anastasia kind of has a bonkers interpretation of the real-life story: in this version, Grigori Rasputin is a witch or a demon or something, who lives in hell, and whose curse on the Romanov family starts the Russian Revolution. (Which is super not what happened.) The Secret of Anastasia takes things even further: in this version, Rasputin doesn't make an appearance, the Russian Revolution is hardly even mentioned, and the royal family are... turned into sentient musical instruments/ghosts???? (Which is EXTREMELY not what happened.)

But. Listen. If I'm gonna be 100% honest, I almost prefer The Secret of Anastasia's musical soundtrack to Anastasia's. It's got a WAY better villain song, that's for damn sure. (It's 2018. Can we finally admit that "In the Dark of the Night" is unlistenable?)

Just so you know, there was actually yet another direct-to-video terrible ripoff released in 1997. And this particular version somehow managed to have the most 90s music any movie has ever had, ever.

Just to be perfectly clear: this is NOT the movie we're

talking about. The Secret of Anastasia is not even 

half as 90s as this.

Let's get to the review!

First of all, the whole movie is available in all its glory on YouTube. If you want to watch along, here it is.

It's been up for 4 years. I seriously doubt the original 

studio is around to claim copyright anymore.

The movie opens with some vaguely "Russian" background music, and the narration of a grown-ass man who is clearly trying to sound like a kid, with limited success. "Once upon a time, in this really enormous place called Russia, which was cold a lot, but actually very beautiful..." There you go. That's the best description of Russia I ever heard in my life. Whoever wrote this movie really earned their paycheck. The narrator then goes on to say that "A tsar is like a king," and let me forewarn you, this is the only historical detail this movie is gonna get right.

The narrator introduces the royal couple, Nicholas II and Alexandra, and their three children, Alexei (the narrator), Tatiana, and Anastasia. All are introduced through their portraits. (In real life there were five kids [they omit Olga and Marie], and you don't pronounce it "Tat-anya," but whatever.)

The narrator, Alexei, says that they lived in "The Imperial Castle of Moscow," which was actually not a thing. Again, it took two seconds of Googling to figure that out. The royal family actually lived in the Winter Palace, which was in St. Petersburg.

Also, who among us doesn't have a framed picture of

our house up on our wall?

Alexei then says that "the time of marching boots, the big revolution" changed their lives forever. Anastasia's father hides her behind some curtains (or, y'know, wherever the hell her shadow is supposed to be coming from) while an attack on the palace takes place.

"Just stare at this gigantic painting of our house,

Anastasia! It shall give you comfort!"

I just want to mention that the Romanov family wasn't killed in a palace, they were killed in a dirty basement in some random house. But I guess the movies' jobs are to make things more glamorous.

This then appears on the screen:

UAV Entertainment no longer exists; they pretty much dissolved by 2006. In their heydey, they were responsible for such mockbuster masterpieces as The Secret of the Hunchback, Young Pocahontas, The Secret of Mulan, The Amazing Feats of Young Hercules, and Moses: Egypt's Great Prince. Yes, that's right, they dared to lampoon The Prince of Egypt. You're lucky you don't exist anymore, UAV, because if you did, I'd be coming for you.

Presumably years in the future, in the dead of winter, we see a very evil-looking masked man conversing with his evil henchman, Goofinoff. The evil man demands to know where "the girl" is. Goofinoff, through much blathering, says that she's in the ruins of the palace.

Send this to your crush with no context.

The grey man hears some beautiful singing coming from inside the palace. Here we're treated to our first song, "In the Sun," which is not bad whatsoever. In fact, it's actually quite good.

But, trust me on this, it's not the best song in the movie.

The movie kind of glosses over how Anastasia stayed in the palace for however many years and no one noticed. But, more importantly, we are now introduced to... the monstrosities.

No.

NO.

I guess that UAV saw that Fox Animation's Anastasia was gonna have Rasputin be a zombie demon who lives in hell, and they were like, "Shucks, we can make our movie have an even more bonkers twist than that!" And so, the big twist in The Secret of Anastasia is that Anastasia's siblings and parents are undead sentient musical instruments. I don't even know how to explain this to you. The tsar is a tuba, the tsarina is a harp, Tatiana is a cello and Alexei is an accordion. That's all the explanation I can give for this trippy nightmare. Also, for some reason, Tatiana (sorry, Tat-anya) is the only one with a Russian accent.

We learn, courtesy of harp-mom, that Anastasia's memories are faded and confused, just like in the movie it rips off. Then comes an insistent knocking at the door, and everyone runs off (yes, the tuba and the accordion and the cello all run). At this point, we see the evil guy and Goofinoff once again, and some abuse happens.

Goofinoff needs to report this to Evil HR.

I know that it's pretty obvious from the fact that it's a dime-budget mockbuster, but the animation in this movie is pretty terrible. I especially love this part where the accordion and harp are "running" up the stairs.

This goes on for several seconds.

This weird-ass little family runs upstairs and bars the door. The evil guy (whose name is revealed as the Bad Cheka) bangs on the door and says, "Open in the name of the Cheka." Goofinoff takes it a step further: "Yeah, the Cheka! This is no neighborhood watch! This is no welcome wagon! This is no pizza wagon! This is no - " And then we hear a smack.

I kind of like Goofinoff.

Anyway, the Cheka continues to bang on the door for like 5 minutes, while Anastasia makes a face that suggests she had a wild night last night.

"Jesus Christ, I am HAMMERED. Fuck off, harp."

Just before the evil guys break in, Anastasia and her musical friends jump out an open window, grabbing onto a curtain that's WAY longer than it ought to be.

No curtain needs to be this long.

One of the bad guys grabs the curtain, and, instead of pulling Anastasia back in... he cuts it???

And he looks so damn confident about it, too.

Everyone ends up sledding through the woods to freedom, while the Cheka orders his "nincompoop" minions to get them. Goofinoff is like, "What he said!", and apparently this is enough to warrent yet another torrent of abuse from his boss.

Will justice ever be served for poor Goofinoff?

Anastasia wonders what the secret police (Cheka) want with them. The harp won't tell her, only saying that they can never go back. They head off and somehow sneak into a train, where I notice that Tatiana (sorry, Tat-yana)'s Russian accent has completely disappeared for some reason. Yay for consistency.

Anastasia starts crying about how she'll never see her home again, and then randomly, a trunk in the corner starts shaking and yelling, "For pity's sake, don't cry!" The voice introduces itself as General Vladimir... uh... something Russian. (If only this movie had an official cast list. Then I'd know how to spell whatever 20-letter Russian name he just spouted off.)

The tsar says that he remembers someone of the same name: "Nice lad, untrustworthy soldier, but harmless." But... if this guy was a soldier when the tsar was alive... when Anastasia was a little kid... then he's got to be like, 20 years older than her. And he's the love interest. Goddamn, this isn't something I caught as a little kid. (Yes, that's correct, I watched this movie as a little kid. Otherwise I would probably have never heard of it.)

The general emerges from his suitcase and immediately falls in love with Anastasia the moment he sees her. And what he sees is this:

JESUS.

The general thinks she's kidding when she says her name is Anastasia, and provides a ton of exposition by revealing that there was a lost princess named Anastasia, for whom a 10 million pound sterling fortune lies in a bank in Copenhagen, awaiting her return. (I'm not even going to Google if this is historically accurate. I'm so weak. So tired.)

The general starts talking about how he wants to pass her off as Anastasia to claim the fortune, even though she has none of the regal bearing. For god's sake, this movie couldn't rip Anastasia off any more if it tried. It even tries to copy the sizzling romantic tension between the heroes of that movie, and kind of vaguely succeeds, sort of, kind of. Okay, not really. Anyway, the general offers to take her to Copenhagen, teach her to be royal, and split the fortune with her, 60-40. The tuba starts negotiating with him, and the general happily argues with it, until he finally realizes he's talking to a tuba, and is like, "Wait a minute!" (As you do.) However, Anastasia says that she was just throwing her voice.

By the way, it has not yet been revealed why the general was in a suitcase. And I don't know if it will ever be.

They head to Copenhagen, hoping to fool the dowager empress, Anastasia's grandmother (for god's sake, this movie couldn't rip off Anastasia any more if it tried!!!!). The general (Vladimir) doesn't believe that Anastasia is the princess, but his references to royalty are bringing back her memories. When he takes her to her hotel room, she says thank you, he shuts the door, the instruments start talking, and then like 30 seconds later, Vladimir sticks his head back in and goes, "You're welcome." Uh. I have no idea why that happened, but okay.

The instruments order expensive room service (do... they need food????). And did I mention that the accordion makes horrific noises whenever it moves? So obviously, the filmmakers decided that they needed to insert several sequences of Alexei jumping on the bed.

I hate him.

Dmitri, uh, I mean Vladimir, comes back and tries to teach Anastasia how to be a princess. He says, "The first thing you need to learn is how to hold your head." To which Anastasia replies, "I intend to hold it on top of my neck." Wow. Her biting wit, amirite?

Vladimir and Anastasia then perform a pretty decent, cleverly-rhyming song called "A Princess After All." Although it was released nearly a decade earlier, this song very strongly reminds me of the vastly superior "To Be a Princess" from Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. (Do not fucking try me. Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper is a quality movie.)

Here's one...

...and here's the way better one.

During this song, Anastasia changes into her princess outfit, and prepare yourself, because this is the only thing she's gonna be wearing for the rest of the movie.

Honestly? It's a design improvement.

Vladimir introduces Anastasia to a group of aristocrats. The angle of the camera gets very weird whilst he does this.

Um.

When Anastasia is presented before the duke, he immediately rejects her as a sham. Gaining confidence, Anastasia insists that she is the princess, and reveals the truth by speaking about a memory that only she would know (in which the duke snuck off to the servants' quarters to drink half a case of vodka at her fifth birthday party. Charming fellow). The duke is not convinced, but everyone else is.

Suddenly, a dashing prince enters the room out of nowhere, and doesn't look villainous whatsoever.

I bet this guy's name is Goodguy McStraightlaced.

Or else it might be Hans.

This guy is Prince Paul, and he immediately ingratiates himself to Anastasia, while a pissed Vladimir looks on. This reminds me of a moment from Kung Fu Panda 3.

By the way, just to update you, we still don't know why the general was in a suitcase.

The prince offers to introduce Vladimir and Anastasia to the dowager empress. Also, he puts his finger on Anastasia's forehead for, like, 10 awkward seconds. WTF?

"Oh, I'm just checking to see if you have... er... the

fabled Romanov birthmark. Yes, it's right here. Cool."

Anastasia, Vladimir, and Prince Paul wander around in a very dumpy-looking zoo for a while, wherein Goofinoff endures even more abuse for no reason.

WHEN will justice be served for poor Goofinoff?!

That night, Anastasia and Prince Paul have a rather odd-looking dinner.

A giant loaf of bread, a few carrots, a few lettuce-looking

things, some brown thing and more carrots on the side,

and a single gigantic piece of pie? How nutritious.

When Anastasia slurps her wine, she looks quite drunk. (Sorry for so many screencaps. There's just SO much to talk about.)

This is straight out of Real Housewives of Copenhagen.

And I'm gonna have to foist another screencap upon you, because the color scheme of Anastasia's dress in this dancing scene looks a tad familiar.

I mean... just a teensy tad. (Coughidenticalcough)

Just one more screencap, and then I promise I'll limit myself, but Vladimir looks extremely pissed as he watches Paul and Anastasia dance.

Like, "I wouldn't want to run into him in a dark

alley" pissed.

Not long afterward, the Bad Cheka and his minions are standing around being evil. Goofinoff wonders whether the Bad Cheka can actually get the dowager empress to meet with Anastasia. Because of course Prince Paul is the Bad Cheka. No one could have seen that coming.

It's not like he's extremely villainous or anything.

Meanwhile, Vladimir is pissed that Anastasia has spent the past week with the prince. Overhearing them, the Bad Cheka says that it's time they do something about the general.

Quite rightfully, Anastasia accuses Vladimir of being jealous. He vehemently denies it.

"Jealous? Me? Of a guy who's 20 years younger than 

me, a million times richer, has a way cooler goatee, 

and is a literal prince? The devil you say!"

As soon as Vladimir leaves, Anastasia bursts into tears (and honestly I have no clue why, since everything is going fantastically for her other than Vladimir being a dick). In attempting to comfort her, the harp gets into.... kind of a compromising position.

No comment.

While stomping off, Vladimir gets confronted by the Bad Cheka's goons, who beat the crap out of him. The next day, Anastasia wonders where the general is, but Prince Paul convinces her to face the dowager empress without him. She does so, a very brave task, considering that the dowager empress looks mean as shit.

This is the pinnacle of evil old lady character design.

The dowager empress doesn't believe that Anastasia is the princess at first, receiving her very coldly and accusing her of being a charlatan. Anastasia roasts her, saying "You won't believe because your heart is closed so tightly that you can't feel" (ouch!), before leaving the room. Then, she starts singing the song from earlier, "In the Sun." Hearing her, the empress is shocked, and realizes that she is the real Anastasia, since the empress was the one who taught her the song.

The empress accepts Anastasia as her granddaughter, and reveals that she and Prince Paul were engaged as children, and will now be married. Then, it immediately cuts to a scene where Vladimir (with a bag of ice on his head and a black eye) and Anastasia are arguing over whether she'll marry Prince Paul. I guess they glossed over the part where she asked him, "Hey, you're super beat-up, what happened to you?" But whatever.

Suddenly, we randomly get an interlude where Alexei the accordion has a comedic adventure in the kitchen.

Because we totally needed this.

The prince and Anastasia are having dinner, during which the prince says that his palace has 1250 rooms. He must be a pretty big shot, because the world's biggest palace today, Istana Nurul Iman, only has 1788 rooms. Anyway, something shocking happens - the Big Cheka's goons arrive and kidnap Anastasia, taking her to some dumpy, abandoned house somewhere. Here, it is finally, explicitly revealed that Paul is the big bad - he's an imposter who killed the real Prince Paul and took his place years ago. And at this point, we get one of the greatest villain songs of all time. (Which ended up having a trope on TV Tropes named after it. High honors indeed.)

I love this. Completely unironically.

And once again, Goofinoff gets viciously manhandled. Will the abuse ever stop?

#JusticeForGoofinoff

Honestly, I'm not sure what "Prince Paul"'s plan is. Anastasia was already going to marry him willingly, and so he was already going to get his hands on her fortune... so why the hell would he kidnap her? Makes no sense.

Anyway, back at the hotel, Vladimir is trying to call the cops about the kidnapping when he gets hit with a massive truth bomb: the harp, tuba, and cello can talk. But he pretty much immediately accepts it and starts arguing with them. As you do.

Ultimately, Vladimir and the instruments decide to head off and save Anastasia. Vladimir asks if everyone knows the plan. The tuba says "Right." The harp says "Right." The accordion says "Right." The cello says "Correct."

What an icon of sass.

They knock out the soldier guarding the door, then make their way inside. Somehow, the slow-rolling accordion manages to trip two soldiers (who could've just... I dunno... jumped the fuck over him?), while the cello knocks a guy out with her bow and the tuba proves impervious to bullets. I think Goofinoff expresses my feelings very well here.

"DO something! Come on, you guys! They're just

instruments!!!"

Vladimir makes his way up the stairs and finds Anastasia, and the two profess their love, despite the fact that they have spent quite literally 100% of this movie arguing. Also, Anastasia somehow turns her waist 360 degrees like some kind of mutant owl.

No one is this flexible.

The Bad Cheka enters the room (very evilly), and he and Vladimir have a fight, during which they just... roll the fuck out the window. I've GOT to gif this.

I hate it when this happens to me.

They end up falling into the water. The instruments jump into the water to save Vladimir, who, for some reason, and despite the fact that he was in the water for like 10 seconds tops, is somehow dying. I honestly have no idea why he's slipping off this mortal coil, but whatever. Anastasia says that she loves him more than her own life... even though they've known each other for like, 2 weeks... and, again, have spent 100% of that time arguing. I hate this.

The instruments offer to save Vladimir, and this is the point where the instruments' identity as Anastasia's family is revealed. Alexandra says that if they'd told Anastasia who they were earlier, they'd have to leave her - "That's the rule." For god's sake, that's the rule of WHAT? Heaven? God? The angels? Why are you here, instrument ghosts? What the fuck is going on? Ugh, whatever.

Anyway, Alexandra says that if Anastasia sings, and the instruments go away, then Vladimir will come back to life. Anastasia sings yet another perfectly servicable song.

The music in this movie is delightfully adequate.

Vladimir comes back to life, and the royal family disappears, while an extremely dramatic cartoon sun rises.

Look at this gigantic thing and its dumbass rays.

The narrator says that Vladimir and Anastasia lived happily ever after. "And how many accordions do you know who could say that?! Hahaha!" Is that supposed to be a joke, Alexei? Shut up. You know nothing.

And that's the end!


In many ways, this movie is fine. It's horribly animated, sure, but in a way that provides lots of entertainment. The voice acting is decent, the music is fine, the villain song is great, the plot is okay, and it's just a good way to kill an hour if you're into this kind of thing. It's pretty much the Citizen Kane of shitty animated ripoffs.

By the way, if I ever do another review of a crappy mockbuster... I promise I'll do Ratatoing. (Which is just... a fantastic piece of cinema.)


Oh. And Did Goofinoff ever get his justice? No. He did not.

Perhaps in another life, my sweet angel.