Demon – aka Ha’dibouk – is a 2015 Polish-Israeli horror film directed by Marcin Wrona from a screenplay co-written with Pawel Maslona. The film takes its inspiration from the Jewish legend of the dybbuk but puts a modern spin on it.
On September 19, 2015 director Marcin Wrona hanged himself in his hotel room, which was during the Gdynia Polish Film Festival, where the film was shown in competition.
The film is being released in the US by The Orchard on September 9, 2016.
Main cast:
Itay Tiran, Tomasz Schuchardt, Andrzej Grabowski, Adam Woronowicz, Wlodzimierz Press, Tomasz Zietek, Katarzyna Gniewkowska and Agnieszka Zulewska.
Plot:
Peter is a successful young architect living in London. When he falls in love with the beautiful Zaneta, he agrees to move back to her small hometown in Poland.
They have inherited an old house and barn from her family and Peter has grand plans for fixing up the place, even putting a swimming pool in the back yard.
But when he starts digging the hole for the pool, he discovers what appear to be human bones. That night, he has a strange dream about seeing a young lady out by the hole…
Reviews:
“Up until its unfortunate third-act detour from intriguing verisimilitude to frustrating abstraction, director Marcin Wrona’s Demon enthrals as an atmospheric ghost story with a cheeky undercurrent of absurdist humor.” Joe Leydon, Variety
” … an entrancingly ambiguous, heartfelt and stalwart spin on possession platitudes. Wrona renounces the shuddersome special effects we’re all too accustomed to when it comes to demonic possession films, in favor of forging a much more atmospheric, speculative, and ultimately, far superior supernatural yarn.” Shock Till You Drop
“Tiran certainly leveraged his experience as Hamlet on the stage with Israeli Cameri Theater to shape Piotr’s character. His acting evokes the convulsive body of a werewolf that cannot turn into a wolf, and possibly is only faking madness in front of Żaneta’s family and the other guests.” Giuseppe Sedia, Kracow Post
