{"id":5832,"date":"2015-09-23T22:39:39","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T21:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=5832"},"modified":"2017-03-12T19:40:33","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T18:40:33","slug":"demon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2015\/09\/23\/demon\/","title":{"rendered":"Demon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Demon\"<\/a>
Demon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nSeen at TIFF 2015<\/a><\/b>

\nDirector:<\/B> Marcin Wrona

\nWriters:<\/B> Marcin Wrona, Pawel Maslona

\nCast:<\/B> Itay Tiran, Agnieszka Żulewska

\nPoland, Israel 2015

\n94 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Polish filmmaker Marcin Wrona delivers one of the scariest, most sickeningly creepy horror films of the year.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

****<\/b> out of *****<\/b><\/p>\n

The dybbuk has always been one of the most bloodcurdling supernatural creatures, yet its presence in contemporary horror films has, for the most part, been surprisingly absent. Rooted in Jewish mythology, it is the spirit of someone who has suffered a great indignity just before death and seeks to adhere itself to the soul of a living person in order to end its own purgatorial suffering. Alas, it causes as much nerve-shredding pain to the spirit as it does to the body of the one who is possessed. Invading the physical vessel in which a fully formed spirit already resides is no easy task and can result in a battle of wills, which not only implodes within, but tends to explode into the material world with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

Demon<\/i> successfully and chillingly brings this nasty, unholy terror to the silver screen, where it belongs. The late Polish filmmaker Marcin Wrona (who died suddenly and mysteriously at age 42, just one week after the film\u2019s world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival) hooks us immediately and reels us in with an almost sadistically gleeful use of cinema\u2019s power to assail us with suspense of the highest order.<\/p>\n

On the eve of his wedding to the beautiful Zaneta (Agnieszka Żulewska), the handsome young groom Peter (Itay Tiran) discovers the remains of a long-dead corpse in an open grave on the grounds of his father-in-law\u2019s sprawling country estate. He becomes obsessed with this ghoulish treasure lying within the unconsecrated earth of a property bestowed upon the couple as a wedding gift. Not only will the nuptials be performed and celebrated here, but the happy twosome have been blessed with this gorgeous old house and lands as their future home.<\/p>\n

Much of the film\u2019s stylishly creepy events take place over the course of the wedding day. Wrona juggles a sardonic perspective with outright shuddersome horror during the mounting drunken celebrations at this extremely traditional Polish wedding. As the band plays, the guests dance between healthy guzzles of vodka, whilst the dybbuk clings to the poor groom, his body and soul wracked with pain. When Peter begins to convulse violently, the lone Jewish guest at the Roman Catholic wedding, an elderly academic, is the one person who correctly identifies the problem.<\/p>\n

Wrona\u2019s camera dips, twirls and swirls with abandon as the celebratory affair becomes increasingly fraught with a strange desperation. Are the guests merely addled with booze, or is the estate a huge graveyard of Jews murdered during the Holocaust? Is it possible that an army of dybbuks is seeking an end to their lonely, painful purgatory?<\/p>\n

Demon<\/i> raises many questions, but supplies no easy answers. What it delivers, however, is one of the scariest, most sickeningly creepy horror films of the year. If anything, the dybbuk has<\/i> finally found a home in the movies, and we\u2019re the beneficiaries of Wrona\u2019s natural gifts as a filmmaker, as well as the largesse of this ancient supernatural entity, which so happily enters our own collective consciousness as we experience its nail-biting havoc over a not-so-holy matrimonial union.<\/p>\n

Greg Klymkiw<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

Watch the trailer:<\/b><\/p>\n