Demon (2015)

Amongst a recent resurgence of atmospheric, thematically rich horror films, Poland’s Demon ranks near the top. Itay Tiran stars as Piotr, a young English groom marrying into a Polish family and moving with his bride Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska) into their rundown estate. The day before the wedding, while starting renovations on the old home, Piotr suffers a troubling and mysterious ordeal. The rest of Demon takes place almost entirely on the couple’s wedding day, as Piotr begins to mentally and physically unravel.

An intriguing and well-executed first act doesn’t quite prepare you for the extent of Demon’s haunting power, the way it will linger in your mind long after its cryptic ending. Director and co-writer Marcin Wrona (Pawel Maslona shares the other writing credit) displays an unsettling knack for understated imagery that is both beautiful and eerily suggestive. Together with Maslona, Wrona adapted the film from a play, and his direction is reminiscent of the stage without sacrificing a cinematic aesthetic. The story is almost entirely confined to Zaneta’s family’s estate, and he pairs unbroken tracking shots with gorgeously composed stationary shots. As the weather unleashes torrential wind and rain and the guests drink themselves into oblivion, Wrona depicts familiar (if embarrassing) human conduct in a fashion that makes it almost more unsettling than Piotr’s otherworldly behavior.

Tiran is fantastic as Piotr, making the most of a role that requires significant physicality to convey the character’s inner tumult. As the wedding denigrates into utter madness, Demon manages to strike a pitch perfect note of black humor within its inimitable horror. The entire cast is superb, giving rich portrayals to characters that are fundamentally crazy. The supposed voices of reason – parents, priests, doctors – are all hilariously selfish, idiotic, perverted.

With its simple structure and classical references to dybbuks, Aristotle, and the Bible, Demon is thematically evocative, yet difficult to pin down. Wrona and Maslona allude to the real world horrors faced by Polish Jews under Nazi rule, the loss of individuality one undergoes in marriage, and the sneaking suspicion that a sinister rottenness lurks under all veneers of family and domesticity. In all of these strands, Demon argues that the past can’t be ignored, that the sins of the father will come back to haunt the son. Or, in other words, the wedding festivities can’t carry on undeterred while the screaming groom goes insane in the basement.

Director/co-writer Marcin Wrona hung himself in a hotel room during a film festival while promoting Demon. It would obviously be wrong to speculate on the level to which Demon’s mournful, melancholy qualities may have represented his mental state or worldview. At the same time, it certainly casts a tragic shroud over an already perturbing film. Demon is a rare accomplishment, a perfectly formed thing, an unforgettable lament (which, it must be noted, is wonderfully weird and very funny). It deserves to be recognized as one of the finest films of the decade.