THE DEMONS

"Fevered imagination and nightmarish reality brush shoulders to disconcerting effect … [in this] daring, exquisite study of agitated child psychology." – Variety

Philippe Lesage brings his highly focused eye, honed from his documentary filmmaking, to this fictional narrative centred on a quiet area of Montreal in the 1980s disturbed by the kidnappings of young boys. Ten-year-old Felix is our conduit to this world, wracked with anxieties that make him fear everything: the possible divorce of his parents, the AIDS epidemic, urban mythology around the abductors, and the routine encroachments of the adult world. Slowly but surely, his internal demons manifest in the real world.

Incrementally building tension, Lesage exhibits precise control over every aspect of The Demons, littering it with cleverly constructed shots that seem benign then turn menacing, as what has only been hinted comes to the fore.

"Lesage creates this sense of uneasy disturbance much as [filmmaker] Michael Haneke does, simply by watching implacably and waiting for carefully chosen details to flicker out and betray the truth." – Hollywood Reporter