Demon [Review by SpecialK]

I’ve been known to opine about how horror films can be most effectively terrifying when they flip the natural order of things on its head. Often, that flip has a universal appeal—possessed, devilish children who are supposed to be sweet and innocent, or clowns who should be entertaining kids instead of consuming them.

But each of us also has profoundly personal triggers that incite a whole other level of terror when that switch is flipped. For me—raised by a mother who emigrated from Poland as a teen, loved by grandparents with thick, heavy accents, and stuffed with meals of pierogi and kielbasa throughout my childhood—any mention of the Polish language or traditions in a horror film reach back and disturb all that I found comforting growing up. When I first heard the slow, raspy Polish whisper from the dibbuk box in The Possession, I felt like the filmmakers were shuffling through my safest memories to wedge an evil little demon among them. It was effective and personal, to say the least.

In Demon, director Marcin Wrona presents me with the same unexpectedly disturbing surprise. As the production companies and cast flash onto the screen at the start of the film, I realize that I’ve unknowingly chosen a Polish horror film, and I settle in for some very personal scares. However, while haunting, eerie, and impactful, Demon is a far cry from a cliché scary movie. Instead, it presents a very real critique of Poland’s failure to truly acknowledge its own past.

In Demon, bridegroom Piotr travels to Poland to wed his friend’s sister, Zaneta, with whom he is very much in love despite a rushed, long-distance courtship. He has learned Polish and checked all the boxes he can to impress Zaneta’s family, including taking on a fixer-upper of a family-owned house and barn. But while tinkering around the property on the eve of the wedding, he uncovers long-buried human remains. In order to avoid spoiling the nuptials, he covers the bones back up, and decides not to tell Zaneta. Unfortunately for Piotr, the disturbed spirit refuses to be ignored. Piotr starts to see the specter of a girl that eventually possesses him, making him do crazy things at his own wedding reception. To avoid shame and embarrassment, Zaneta’s family and friends try to cover up the possession by chalking it up to drunken debauchery, and insist that the party go on.

On a creepy scale of 1 to 10 in the traditional horror sense, Demon never makes it beyond a 3. Its scariest moments are a flash in the pan early in the film, and Piotr’s possession itself does not terrify. However, this is largely because the film is too busy making a much more important and unexpectedly disturbing point: as we learn about the buried spirit from one of the few old Jewish men left in the village, a deeper commentary unfolds about Poland’s struggles to address the scars of its past—memories that refuse to be buried, denied, or drowned in alcohol.

Unfolding in melancholic hues of beige, peach, black, and white, Demon is visually unassuming but stunning in its simplicity, much like the quaint, foggy, Polish countryside against which it is set. Piotr and Zaneta’s shared love and joy is palpably authentic, especially when starkly contrasted with the over-the-top cast that surrounds them like shoddy caricaturistic props in a children’s play—including Zaneta’s over-protective and proud father, her image-conscious mother, her goof of a brother, and the sloshed, sloppy wedding guests.

The starkly genuine potential of Zaneta and Piotr’s future together makes the inevitable tragedy of the film that much more convincing and effective. While it doesn’t end up being the jump-scare-filled horror film you might expect, Demon delivers a much deeper commentary on human nature’s struggle with history that terrifies in its own unique way.

SpecialK Verdict: Truly haunting, but not for the reasons you’d expect. Demon is a deeply contemplative film that should not be missed, especially if you grew up eating pierogi and telling your grandma, “Ja cię kocham.”

Demon opened on Friday, September 9.

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