Why is Sarik Andreasyan no longer worth laughing at? His new works inspire horror – Executioner

Cringe projects are stronger than the hate of BadComedian fans.

Sarik Andreasyan is a meme-man who has been laughed at by inertia since BadComedian’s reviews of “Lopukhov”, “That Carloson!” and other embarrassing comedies Enjoy Movies. But those days are long gone, but Sarik remains, and he is stronger than ever. If you’ve been to the cinema recently, you’ve probably seen an advertisement for his new film “Indecent Guests,” where Pavel Priluchny and Maxim Lagashkin play swingers with on-screen wives. I don’t know about you, but this sight broke something in me.

Andreasyan found cheat codes from the film industry and has been successfully hacking it for many years, not paying attention to the haters. Recently, his phenomenon was analyzed in detail by the patron of the Friday! TV channel. Nikolay Kartozia. There are no questions: Nikolai Borisovich brilliantly scattered everything from a producer’s point of view, but we will talk about Sarik in simpler language – from the viewer’s position. And we will see the terrible truth: it will no longer be possible to laugh at Andreasyan in 2024.

How did Sarik Andreasyan earn such a bad reputation?

BadComedian and (to a lesser extent) Ruslan Usachev, who reviewed “What Men Do,” are partly to blame for his canonization. Bloggers saw in Sarik what he essentially is for them: an ideal supplier of cringe content. And the early 2010s were a time when people still loved to laugh at something with a simple “Look how bad it is!”

Andreasyan really got into cinema with a very simple concept: you take KVN stars and cast them in cheap comedies, and at the end you get more or less high-profile films. If it weren’t for the reviewers, this scheme would have worked quietly. There have always been plenty of bad comedies, but we know nothing about their directors and producers. Andreasyan has become a cult figure, like Tommy Wiseau, although this is a very wrong comparison: the film “Room” is an insanely chaotic creative, and Sarik’s films are a cynical bet on names and a sacrificed reputation.

In a normal world, we would have forgotten about Andreasyan the moment he failed to break into the international market with 2015’s American Heist, where he brought in Adrien Brody and other fallen stars. But this would have happened only if Sarik had not given a damn about his reputation as an artist. The second option is that we would simply leave him behind, tired of mocking unfunny comedies. But, unfortunately, Andreasyan turned out to be talented – though not in the place where movie and TV series viewers would like.

Sarik has conquered almost all the streams

It just so happened that Sarik is a brilliant and very ambitious businessman. And he went much further than was expected of him. Instead of simply delivering comedies with withered KVN stars to cinemas, he began a large-scale expansion of the streaming market. And he succeeded absolutely everywhere.

“Chikatilo” with Nagiyev is one of the most successful series on Okko. And in 2024, he released a successor project: “The Shadow of Chikatilo” – a story about the Angarsk maniac Mikhail Popkov. In the wake of universal love for the true crime segment, there is no doubt that the ratings there should be in perfect order.

For Premier and the TNT channel, Andreasyan’s big hits were “Restaurant by Concept” and “Poor Oligarch.” Again, absolutely classic tags were used: prison, bandits, oligarchs. None of these projects had good critics, but none of them were stopped by that.

Sarik conquered the KION online cinema with the help of the provocative project “Life on Call,” which was originally called “Skin Market” – in honor of the infamous telegram channel. Orgies, swearing and everything else brought insane ratings, which, as usual, had nothing to do with quality. Andreasyan on streaming is one giant success story.

Andreasyan works cheap and fast

Here we will still turn to the text of Nikolai Kartozia, because he pointed out an important aspect of Sarik’s activities, which many people forget about. Andreasyan and his brothers are beloved by industry experts because they get the job done in record time—twice as fast as anyone else in the market, according to Kartozia. Series with 20+ episodes are filmed in less than six months. And you can’t even imagine how much money it saves.

The sad truth about filmmaking is that audiences don’t fully appreciate how expensive it is. Literally everything costs money: equipment rental, payment for all site employees, extras, catering, script edits, advertising. On-location shooting is always more expensive than working in studios. Post-production is also not a cheap pleasure. And all kinds of royalties and bonuses are stipulated in the contracts of various artists.

Under these conditions, Andreasyan not only works quickly, but also reduces the cost of production at each of the possible stages. The only task is to achieve the minimum acceptable quality, and let the nerds with cool diplomas worry about the details. And if in Hollywood such schemes will not work, if only because the minimum amounts of payment are regulated by a huge number of trade unions, then in the Russian market Sarik has a blast as best he can. Or maybe he’s very cool.

Accordingly, people with money, for whom cinema and TV series are a business, will not even think about listening to Evgeny Bazhenov or other critics of Andreasyan. He does it cheap, quickly and effectively, and no one else can do it. Therefore, we need to continue working with Sarik. Everything is very simple. Yes, there are also prestigious streaming projects, but to some extent they are filmed with money earned by Andreasyan’s trash series. Something to think about, right?

Sarik works brilliantly with shock effect

Not everyone wants to understand who worked on a particular project. It’s scary to imagine how many viewers went to Sony’s films “Morbius”, “Venom” and “Madame Web” in full confidence that they were part of the Marvel cinematic universe. Sarik Andreasyan also skillfully uses this effect and invests as much as possible in PR and loudness of headlines. Judge for yourself.

“Chikatilo” is a series about the most famous maniac for the Russian public. “Life on Call” – scandalous escort theme + a huge number of hard erotic scenes. “Restaurant by definition” is a prison. “Indecent guests” – sex. And so on. Sarik Andreasyan always takes on only what will attract attention in the headlines. A very working tactic.

His “Unforgiven” and “In the Sun, Along the Corn Rows” are based on true events that have been widely reported in the news. And “Onegin” easily fits into the tradition of creating a trashy multiverse by Russian writers, again, working on a famous title. Nothing fancy.

Only one project stands out – “Earthquake”, where Andreasyan talked about the disaster that occurred in Armenia in 1988. This is a rare title where Sarik shows passion, personal interest, and the desire to do well, and not just commercial flair. Oddly enough, “Earthquake” with this approach became one of Andreasyan’s most unpopular projects. The conclusions are quite obvious.

Sarik’s new projects confirm that he will not stop

There is no point in fighting Andreasyan. There is no point in criticizing him. And being angry that you didn’t like the next film or series to which Sarik put at least a finger of one hand is also pointless. Be angry only at yourself. Because if you suddenly become a viewer of Andreasyan, there are only two options: you either fell into a trap, or you work somewhere in the media – and in this case, accept our condolences, colleague.

So, what did Sarik do in 2024? Actually, a lot of things. We have already said about “The Shadow of Chikatilo” – the series started on Okko on April 4 and tells about the Angarsk maniac Mikhail Popkov, the most media-famous serial killer in recent years. But instead of calling the project “Angarsk Maniac,” Sarik made it a franchise and conditionally tied it to “Chikatilo” with Nagiyev. Shameless? Yes. But how logical!

Another project is “Indecent Guests”, where Sarik is a producer. The 18+ comedy has only just begun to be shown in cinemas, but the main points are already obvious: this is yet another shocking content on the topic of sex. Played by Maxim Lagashkin and his wife Ekaterina Stulova, the family begins experiments in their personal lives, succumbing to the persuasion of another family – they are played by Pavel Priluchny and Zepyur Priluchnaya-Brutyan. Vladimir Sychev and Yanina Studilina, who shone brightly in “Life on Call,” are also included.

It would seem, what could be tricky here? Trailer, ladies and gentlemen. The trailer for “Indecent Guests” is a separate issue. The fact is that the actors do not play themselves, but in the trailer they are presented as the Lagashkins and Priluchnys, which, of course, makes the situation more exotic and attracts more attention. From a PR point of view, this is an amazing move. And you don’t even have to check: it will work.

We laughed at Sarik Andreasyan for a very long time, but he is too great an opportunist for this to harm him in any way. This train will stop only in the event of some radical changes in the Russian film industry. And that’s not a fact. To some extent, this even causes admiration – no one else is capable of successfully selling hack work with such bestial ferocity and coming out a winner every time.