Movie Review: Demon (Polish)

Marcin Wrona's Demon is a bit hard to slot. Is it a horror movie? Or is it a comedy? But classifying it thus is a gross injustice of what the film purports to be - a cleverly constructed supernatural dramedy that's surprisingly devoid of jump scares and screams. Before you read too much into it, let me assure you that there is a demon and she is a teenage woman in pursuit of her man. But her spectral presence isn't what stirs up dread, it's rather her past and her Jewish roots, which acts as a metaphor for the plight of the Polish Jews during the Holocaust at the start of the Second World War.

Demon

The film opens with the arrival of Piotr (spectacularly performed by Israeli actor Itay Tiran) on Polish soil to marry Zaneta, the girl he loves. (The film closes with her departure.) Zaneta's parents, however, aren't very much enthused at the prospect of giving their daughter away to an outsider (aka foreigner), but as the wedding preparations continue in full swing, Piotr, working his way through a plot of land bequeathed to Zaneta by her grandfather on which they plan to settle down, stumbles upon a skeleton in a muddy quagmire.

The ghastly discovery is only the start of Piotr's troubles (and everyone concerned), who not only begins to act weird on his big day, but also eventually gets possessed by a dybbuk (a Yiddish vampire that clings to a living soul to fulfill its desires) as the nuptial celebrations pave the way for a raucous bacchanal. At one point when things get astronomically direful (and ironically funny), Zaneta's father Zygmunt hilariously tries to hypnotise his guests into thinking that the whole wedding never happened! Consistently creepy and packed with wry humour, Demon stacks up right against The Witch as one of the year's best supernatural films.