The archivist who found it, Irina Volkov, nearly threw it away. But the word intrigued her. Kokoshka is an old Russian diminutive—a child’s term for a mother hen, but also a folklore name for a protective spirit of the coop. Not quite a horror, not quite a lullaby.

In the summer of 1992, a rusty film canister was discovered in the basement of a condemned Moscow film studio. The label was hand-written in fading Cyrillic: (Kokoshka). No director. No year. No studio stamp.

No one knows if Kokoshka is a masterpiece, a prank, or something else entirely. But if you ever find a rusty canister labeled with that word, do not open it. Or do. But if you watch it, do not fall asleep near an egg.

The story, as she pieced it together over three sleepless nights, is this: