Film / Grom: A Rough Childhood

This world is not a place for children.

"Dad always said that childhood is like a holiday. Sorry, not in my case. And it seems like I'm the only one to blame for this. Me."

— Igor Grom

Grom: A Rough Childhood is a Russian action film with elements of the Superhero and Cop Show genres, based on the comic book series Major Grom by publisher BUBBLE Comics. Produced by BUBBLE Studios, it is the prequel to Major Grom: Plague Doctor, set roughly twenty years before the events of that film in Saint Petersburg in The '90s. The plot follows a teenaged Igor Grom and his father, a police investigator named Konstantin Grom. In the first subplot, Igor and his friend, Ignat "Booster" ^note a side character who acted as Grom's informant in the first film are dragged into a shady affair and have to acquire a lot of money quickly. The second subplot focuses on Konstantin and his partner Fedor Prokopenko ^note Grom's Da Chief in the first film 's efforts to track down an Egyptian-themed Serial Killer named Anubis who is targeting gangs, allegedly using black magic.

The official trailer was released on 12 October 2022. A Prequel comic, "Grom: Anubis Rising", was released on December 16, 2022. The film was released on New Year's Day 2023.

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Grom: A Rough Childhood contains examples of:

• Abandoned Area: Anubis's temple is located in the remains of a burned-out church deep in a forest outside Saint Petersburg. Khmurova acquired it through her business connections vís a vís the cult.
  • In the beginning of the film, a family of Kazakh drug lords are seen operating a sweatshop out of an Abandoned Warehouse. After Anubis's assassins wipe out most of the family, Konstantin and Fedor interrogate the sole surviving member in a different warehouse.
• Anachronism Stew: If we assume Major Grom: Plague Doctor is set in 2021, the year of its release (which it probably is, considering some modern and even futuristic technology, like a hologram that appears during Razumovsky's presentation, is featured). Because this film takes place 20 years earlier, it should be set in 2001. However, it's obvious from the trailer that the setting is meant to be The '90s, judging by the fashion, pop culture, and sky-high crime rates, and the mention of the story taking place shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Handwaved slightly by the fact that the setting of the Major Grom franchise was repeatedly stated by the creators to be an Alternate Universe.
  • The dates on some of the props from Plague Doctor indicate that it film takes place in 2020, when Igor is 35 years old; Igor is stated to be 12 in Rough Childhood, which places the latter around 1997.^note This also means that A Rough Childhood takes place 23 years earlier rather than 20, as the captions claim. However, this only creates more anachronisms: the vehicles^note (the crooked businessman Igor and Booster encounter drives a new 1993 Cadillac Fleetwood), fashion^note (the same man wears a raspberry-colored jacket from Versace's 1992 collection), and pop culture references^note (parodies of Beavis And Butthead appear in the opening, Igor has drawings of Mulder and Scully and the T-1000 on his wall, quotes Darkwing Duck, and references Mortal Kombat (1992)) all date from 1992-1994. Furthermore, the chapter title for the film's last act is a quote from The Matrix, which was released in 1999.
  • The newsreel footage from the opening shows a young man breakdancing, which was no longer popular in Russia in the 1990s.
  • Igor's Disneyland tickets feature the 1960s font and design.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: The VHS sequence first displays an anarchist flag being unrolled from a building, then a rapid montage of gang violence, crime and drug use.
• Artifact Title: Subverted. When originally announced, the name of the film was supposed to be Major Grom: A Rough Childhood. However, the Major was later dropped from the title, because Igor Grom has not yet started working as a policeman in this film.
• The Bad Guys Are Cops: The movie's Big Bad, Anubis, is none other than Elena Khmurova, the chief of police.
• Bald of Evil: The acolytes of Anubis all sport shaved heads (painted with red clay and gold leaf).
• Bland-Name Product: There's a very large Adibas billboard visible in the first shot of the trailer; the same logo appears intermittently throughout the film proper.
  • During the newsreel sequence in the film's opening, logos for Tobias VHS cassette tapes, Lososte, MYTV, Oleg toys, ARMЯNI, Coco-Kloaca, Torbo chewing gum, Cheetez, MIKE, and SAGE (among others).
• Bondage Is Bad: The opening VHS sequence contains a long shot of a drug-addled man on a leash cavorting on all fours in front of a young girl. This is presented as a representation of the corruption and depravity infesting Russian society.
  • The herald of Anubis has his head encased in some sort of bondage jewelry (which appears to be piercing his skin in places).
• Book Ends: The film's opening scene shows young Igor Grom entering his empty apartment and standing in the doorway, staring blankly. At the start of "Episode 6", we return to the scene in the wake of Konstantin's death.
• Call-Back: While Konstantin and Igor are playing chess, Konstantin overhears on a news program that Anubis has eliminated six criminal groups around the city, and that their leaders have vanished without a trace. Later at Anubis's temple, his herald presents the bodies of those same six criminals to the cult as proof of Anubis's might.
  • Near the end of Chapter 3, Igor and Ignat are caught by an angry gangster, who hangs them on a fence by their coats. In Chapter 5, when the duo infiltrate Anubis's temple, you can see stuffing hanging out of the back of Igor's coat near the collar where the fence tore through it.
• Call-Forward: Khmurova dismisses Konstantin's reports of a serial killer who uses "black magic", noting that he recently claimed an eight-year-old boy had murdered his peers by setting them on fire. Konstantin retorts, "That kid's going to give us Hell one day!" Oh, Konstantin, you have no idea.
  • Konstantin says that he's saving up to buy a washing machine for the apartment. Indeed, in the present day Igor has a washing machine in the spot where his father once kept their washtub.
• Casting Gag: The actor who plays Igor Grom’s father was previously considered for the role of Igor himself in Plague Doctor, but was rejected for looking too old.
• Christmas Episode: Promotional material indicates that this film is somehow one to the Major Grom franchise. (However, it would be a New Year’s episode, since Christmas is largely overshadowed by New Year in Russia and other ex-USSR countries.)
• Cowboy Cop: Like son, like father. Constantine Grom has the same disregard for authority and violent methods his son demonstrates in Plague Doctor (the only difference being that he actually carries his assigned firearm).
• Crapsack World: 1990s Saint Petersburg, newly liberated and flooded with Western goods and ideas, is a hotbed of crime, corruption, and depravity. With inflation through the roof, law enforcement severely underfunded, and no functioning court system in place, gangs rule the streets and scammers disenfranchise the poor and vulnerable. Nowhere is this better illustrated than when Grom and Ignat walk through the city square, past overflowing dumpsters, a gang of street punks, buses stalled by protesters, a burning police car, a shooting victim lying dead in the street, a funeral procession…
• Cult: Fittingly for the Nineties setting, as that time was a breeding ground for all sorts of sects. The film's A Plot revolves around a cult that has formed around a figure calling themself Anubis, who allegedly possesses supernatural abilities (and is using them to take over the criminal underworld). The group has all the trappings of a mystery religion: an eerie candlelit temple, masked robed guards, loincloth-clad acolytes, strange rites around a fire, and even blood rituals. The cult is ultimately revealed to be a Scam Religion, perpetrated by the head of the police department.
• Dead Guy on Display: As proof of Anubis's power, their herald presents the cult's newest members with the bodies of six of the city's crime bosses, wrapped and posed like mummies — minus the actual mummification. The cultists are noticeably disgusted.
  Herald: [K]now this: enemies can do no harm to Anubis, because Anubis has no enemies. Alive.
• Death of a Child: In the '"Anubis Rising'' prequel comic, Prokopenko's wife, Elena, is pregnant with their first child when she's caught in gang shootout at a shopping center. Fedor is informed that she's in the hospital, and might lose the pregnancy; while the outcome isn't revealed, it isn't difficult to guess, given that the Prokopenkos don't have any children of their own in the future.
• Deliberate VHS Quality: Used to demonstrate the time period, accompanied by an Aspect Ratio Switch.
• Delinquent Hair: Some of the citizens of Saint Petersburg sport this; we see a few street punks with spiked, neon-colored hair.
• Denser and Wackier: While Plague Doctor was almost completely dark and serious in tone, A Rough Childhood balances out the dead serious A Plot (revolving around a murderous cult with possibly supernatural abilities) with a more colorful, slapstick-y B Plot involving Igor's quest to earn money for plane tickets (and to pay off an angry gangster, whose car they accidentally damaged). In the film's third act, the two plots converge for some Black Humor.
• The Dragon: The unnamed Herald of Anubis, a sinister-looking bald man clad in a loincloth and bondage jewelry who speaks Latin. Khmurova says he's simply her "idea guy".
• Drugs Causing Slow-Motion: Anubis's pollen alters one's perception, causing everything to become distorted — including time.
• Easter Egg: In the VHS sequence, during the shot of a breakdancing kid, there's a hard-to-notice Ankh symbol drawn on a cardboard sheet (which fits the Egyptian theme of the film's villain). Ankhs and other Egyptian symbols also appear hidden in graffiti, flyers, and advertisements throughout the film (showing how widespread Anubis's influence has become in the city).
• Expy: All referencing notable figures from the real-life 90s:
  • Vrodin is one of Sergei Mavrodi, a mathematician and conman who masterminded one of the largest pyramid schemes in history. Vrodin’s name is a bit similar, and he too wears glasses. His pyramid is slightly less successful than Mavrodi’s, though, since he begs Anubis to help keep it up.
  • Alexei Prishurov, the investigative journalist who recruits Igor and Ignat is a dead-ringer for Vladislav Listyev, a highly regarded Russian reporter. For an added reference, Listyev founded the VID company. Its creepy logo is referenced in the film in the scene where Prishurov gives the boys his camcorder.
• Fictional Counterpart: The Criminal Hour news program shown in the trailer uses the same typeface and generally looks like Criminal Russia, a real documentary series from the 90s. The “Hour” gimmick, with the program’a runtime displayed in a corner, is taken from another news program, the Saint-Petersburg-local 600 Seconds, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Foreshadowing: While cooking breakfast for Igor, Konstantin bites into a tomato, which bursts on his tank top, leaving a red stain. In the film's climax, he gets fatally shot by Smirnov in the exact same spot and bleeds through his tee-shirt.
  • In the "Anubis Rising" prequel comic, Alexey Prischurov states that Elena Khmurova isn't just an ineffective head of police, but actively making crime worse in the city. After he says this, Anubis is shown carrying out an attack on the Zharovka crime gang.
• "Friends" Rent Control: Konstatin Grom lives in a gigantic loft apartment with just his son, in a building that's otherwise split into family units packed with people. No police detective living in St. Petersburg during the Dashing Nineties would be able to afford such living quarters, even with its run-down state and bad location.
• Generic Graffiti: Seen throughout the film (with occasional hints of Cyrillic and Egyptian symbols) as a sign of the decay and degradation rampant in Saint Petersburg.
• Genre Savvy: During the temple shootout, Ignat buys Igor time to escape and go after his father by using a trick he learned in the movies: he throws his hat into the air, causing all the combatants to turn and fire on it (while Igor escapes).
• Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Igor and Ignat attempt this in an effort to earn enough money for two plane tickets to Disneyland. They trick the neighborhood kids into paying to watch Igor perform an "experiment", in which they heat a stolen cartridge from Konstantin's service weapon until it fires. Unfortunately, the bullet ends up going through the window of a crooked businessman's new car; to appease him (and prevent themselves from being killed), they end up giving him all their newly-earned cash. The duo then attempts to earn back the money by obtaining footage of the inside of Anubis's temple for a news reporter.
• God Guise: The cult's leader fashions themself after Anubis, the Egyptian god of death, complete with a jackal's head mask, a blood ritual echoing the judgment of a soul in Egyptian Mythology (in which initiates have their blood weighed against a feather before they're permitted to enter Anubis's chamber), and turning their slain enemies into mummies.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Konstantin and Fydor pull this act with Madik (the surviving member of a Kazakh family of drug lords) in the first act, with Constantin as the Good Cop and Fydor as the Bad Cop. When Madik calls their bluff, Konstantin informs him that they're both bad cops; he's just the worse of the two (before proceeding to beat him up and threaten to drop a weight on his head).
  • Played straight for the rest of the film, with Fydor as the Good Cop and Konstantin as the Bad Cop
• Guns Akimbo: Both Anubis's Herald and Smirnov adopt this pose during the gunfight, firing with both hands.
• Heroic Bluescreen Of Death: Igor reaches this when he witnesses his father's untimely death — which he indirectly caused. He doesn't snap out of it until many years later, when he witnesses a woman being assaulted while on patrol as a cop.
• How We Got Here: The film opens with Igor Grom entering the apartment alone and standing in the doorway, bloody and battered, staring blankly. We then cut to several days ago, and (after some opening narration from Igor) gradually learn that Konstantin Grom's investigation into the Anubis cult — and Igor's attempts to earn them money for a vacation — resulted in the former's death; Igor is returning home after watching his father die at Anubis's temple.
• Imagine Spot: Multiple times throughout the film, Igor imagines various aspects of his life, including his Internal Monologue, playing out in anime-style cartoon sequences. This is the precursor to his situational analyses that we see in Plague Doctor.
  • While watching a news program about Anubis as he and Igor play chess, Konstantin imagines the show's host turning and speaking directly to him, and the black bishop on the chess board morphing into Anubis.
• I'm Going to Disney World!: Igor wins two tickets to Disneyland for making first place in a citywide academic decathlon. He wants to take the trip so that he and Konstantin can finally spend some quality time together. Unfortunately, a plane ticket alone costs Konstantin's entire salary (and a half), and he's saving up to buy a washing machine for the apartment; rather than forget about the trip, as his father suggests, Igor decides to come up with the money on his own, kicking off the film's B Plot.
• Ironic Echo: "Can we go to Disneyland?"
• Killer Cop: Khmurova guns down the city's top crime families (with help from her assassins).
• Lawman Gone Bad: Two examples:
  • Colonel General Elena Khmurova slaughters the city's criminal underbelly as Anubis, while simultaneously exploiting its corrupt businessmen for financial gain — and, possibly, more leads on criminal activities.
  • After shooting Elena, Yuri uses the opportunity to steal from the cult. When Konstantin tries to put a stop to it, Yuri shoots him — in front of Igor, no less.
• Lucky Charms Title: The original Russian title is Гром: Трудное Детство. That last O is stylized as a smiley face with "X" eyes.
• Manly Tears: In the end of A Rough Childhood, Yulia finds Igor sitting on the floor of his apartment, looking through his childhood sketchbook, having just awakened from a dream about his father. When he comes across the roll of the Polaroid he took of his father on the day he died, and the roll of money he acquired that same day (the acquisition of which was connected to said death), he begins to weep. Yulia puts her arms around him.
• Match Cut: In the VHS sequence, there's a shot of a girl blowing a bubblegum bubble, which transitions to a junkie inhaling toxic glue from a pink bag.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: One of a nineties hit "Call Me With You". Presents an interesting contrast with the first film's trailer, which used a cover of "Changes" by Kino, originally performed by a man, sang by a female voice, while this trailer covered a song originally sung by a woman with a male voice.
• The '90s: The year the film takes place in is a bit unclear (see Anachronism Stew), but it's clearly meant to be the so-called "Dashing Nineties": a chaotic time in Russia after The Great Politics Mess Up when organized crime was thriving, there were Ridiculous Exchange Rates and basically no rules.
• Onscreen Chapter Titles: Each act of the film begins with a title card bearing a thematically-appropriate (and era-appropriate) pop culture quote.
• Police Are Useless: Saint Petersburg's law enforcement is horribly underfunded, understaffed, and utterly unequipped to make any sort of impact on the crime wave that overwhelms the city. In the prequel comic, Alexey Prischurov bemoans the ineffectiveness of Saint Petersburg’s law enforcement, and Khmurova in particular —and expresses the belief that she isn't just allowing crime to proliferate through inefficient leadership, but actively making it worse.
• Ponzi Scheme: One of Anubis's "clients" is Vrodin, a businessman running a highly successful pyramid scheme; he turns to Anubis for protection after his investors go to the authorities. Also doubles as a Stealth Pun. (Pyramids? Anubis? Get it?)
• Prequel: One to Major Grom: Plague Doctor, with mostly the same characters, but twenty years earlier.
• Psycho Pink: Hot pink is prevalent throughout the film, owing in equal parts to the 1990s setting and this trope (in this case, representing chaotic change). It appears in nearly every scene in the first five acts of the movie, from the graffiti to Igor's sketches (and animations).
  • Anubis's hallucinatory pollen is a bright, magenta pink color.
• Retcon: In the film, it's confirmed that Konstantin Grom was the officer who investigated Sergey Razumovsky's murder of three boys on a beach; indeed, a flashback in Plague Doctor shows an officer — who identifies himself as "Uncle Kostya" and mentions that he has a young son — questioning young Sergey. Not only does the man who appears in that scene look completely different (due to the part being recast), but he's a uniformed, By-the-Book Cop; a far cry from the hot-headed, cigarette-smoking, plainclothes police major we meet in A Rough Childhood!
• Roger Rabbit Effect: An animated doodle-like demon is composited onto a real street and a cartoony rocket in the same style shoots out of a real rocket launcher in the VHS sequence.
  • In the film proper, Igor's drawings frequently overlay (or even replace) the action onscreen, giving the viewer a glimpse into his thought processes and daydreams
• Scam Religion: In the opening montage, Igor explains that religious scams proliferate in post-Soviet Russia, as everyone is looking for a new meaning in life. The cult of Anubis is the newest and most powerful of these, promising prosperity and protection (both legal and physical) for followers if they open their wallets—and death for anyone who opposes them.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The cult of Anubis was created by Khmurova as a means to both control the criminal underbelly of society and extort money from its most powerful oligarchs (possibly to obtain funding for the police department, though it isn't stated) by way of serial murder and psychological warfare. The group's rumored supernatural abilities are accomplished by stealthy assassins—and hallucinogenic dust.
  Khmurova: (to Konstantin) I have them all under control. All it took was a made-up, delusional legend. [T]hanks to me...the filth is off of the streets. I do the same thing you do, only a hundred times more effectively
• Sequel Logo in Ruins: A variation: the logo from Plague Doctor appeared to have a glass or plastic material and overall looked very solid, while this movie's logo is two-dimensional and looks as if it's been hastily stenciled onto a wall. This is in keeping with the societal chaos presented in the film, as well as the 90s setting.
• Serial Killer: Anubis and their acolytes wipe out the city's criminal gangs when they refuse to bend the knee. Between the start of the prequel comic and the end of the film, at least six crime families have been wiped out.
• The Stinger: Halfway through the end credits, we return to the mental hospital from the first film's stinger, where a straightjacketed Sergey Razumovsky is taunted by the head doctor, who promises to give him a sedative if he lets The Bird out for five minutes. Razumovsky complies (causing his eyes to turn golden yellow), and The Bird threatens the doctor, promising to break out and kill him and the nurse before escaping. The doctor chuckles and leaves Razumovsky in the care of the nurse, who informs him that they have "visitors".
• Tie-In Novel: The film had a Prequel comic, "Grom: Anubis Rising'', which dealt with the events in the week leading up to the start of the film.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Igor spends much of the film engaging in increasingly risky ventures in his quest to earn money for a Disneyland vacation with his father. In the end, he gets the money he needs (and then some), but his actions end up inadvertently costing his own father's life — to which he is a firsthand witness. Afterwards, he trudges back to their apartment alone and stands in the doorway, letting the roll of money fall to the floor. The end of the film reveals that he never spent it.
• You Didn't See That: In the prequel comic, Yuri Smirov is exposed to Anubis’s hallucinogenic pollen during the Clockwork Grenade–Black Hand shootout and passes out. Igor Grom and Booster Ignat come across his unconscious body while exploring the neighborhood, and (assuming he's a druggie) offer to help him. Smirnov runs off, telling the boys, "You didn't see me."

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