Djordje Kadijevic, a pioneer of Yugoslav horror flicks with his 1973. television film The She-Butterfly, in his cinematic debut introduces the audience with the opposite side of the Peoples Liberation Struggle (a term used by the Communist Party which refers to the fight against the Nazi occupation, but also the civil war against the monarchists).
The story is set in the midst of an unnamed village somewhere in Serbia under the control of the Chetniks, the monarchist forces loyal to the pre-war government. The Chetnik movement had a reputation of occasionally co-operating with the Nazi puppet regime in Serbia during the World War, as their ideological stand opposed to bolshevism and communism managed to find a common language with the Nazis.
It is Christmas, and the villagers are hoping to spend it in peace, but the downing of a British aircraft and capturing of its pilots changes everything. The Chetnik commander, sergeant Katic, invites the pilots to a Christmas dinner and the plot thickens.
Kadijevic invokes a lot of symbolic in his work, like the parody of The Last Supper, by Da Vinci with a frontal shot of the dinner as the commander preaches his primitive life philosophy. The anticipation of the directors further interest in the horror genre comes from a character called Manolo who is the village executor. His terrifying figure is related to the demonic as he is feared by the superstitious people. Represented as a mystic deity larger than life, he doesn’t speak a word during the entire film.