Demons
︎︎︎Trailer ︎︎︎Streaming︎SYNOPSIS
Aspiring actress Vicki thinks she has gotten the role of her life in Daniel’s new play. But her debut lead role only casts her into endless torture at the esteemed director’s hands. When she turns to supposed allies for support, Vicki finds that they encourage Daniel’s abuse as part of her artistic growth and his genius. Feeling like the only mad person in sunny, sinister Singapore, Vicki takes matters into her own hands. A wicked, satirical horror on power, art, and trauma, Demons exposes the hidden violence we live with to build any community.
Vicki
Yang Yanxuan Vicki
Daniel
Glen Goei
Viknesh
Viknesh Kobinathan
Ashley
Eshley Gao
Assistant Director
Tan Bee Thiam
John
Daniel Hui
Strange Woman
Violet Goh
Written, Edited and
Directed by
Daniel Hui
Produced by
Tan Bee Thiam,
Daniel Hui
Director of Photography
Looi Wan Ping
Executive Producers
Paul Beach,
Violet Goh
Co-producer
Naoko Ishise
Associate Producers
Dan Koh,
Looi Wan Ping,
Glen Goei,
Jeremy Chua,
Joana Gusmão,
Pedro Fernandes Duarte
Sound Recordist
Alex Herboche
Sound Designer & Mixer
Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr
Music Composers
Wuttipong Leetrakul, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr
Original title
Demons
International Title
Demons
Duration
83 min / Colour,
Black and White
Aspect Ratio
1:37 Academy Ratio
Screening Format
2K DCP
Sound
5.1 Surround Sound
Year of Release
2018
Language
English, Mandarin, Singlish
Subtitles
English
Country of production
Singapore
Production Companies
13 Little Pictures,
Ultraviolet Films
In Association with
Jackfruit International, Tiger Tiger Pictures, WBSB Films
PRESS
“[U]nmissable…a work of a dedicated cinephile, visually and narratively outstanding…The film is sure to stay with the audience long after”
– easternKicks
“Demons is a spectacularly unsettling accumulation of diverse and fragmented images, techniques, sounds and themes. It clearly has a point to make about the environment that produced it, as well as the men who continue to overpower this landscape. It need not be understood entirely, and that is also part of its beauty. It is dark, grotesque and simply absurd, with a wonderfully wicked sense of humour.”
– The Upcoming
Even harder and more virtuoso, Daniel Hui from Singapore jumbled up the genres. Demons begins as a painful #MeToo drama in the theatre milieu, slowly transforming into a history of revenge, combining the driest satire with ghost scare and B-movie splatter. A young actress gets a role with a renowned director. Even his cutting comments in the casting show: The collaboration is torture. Sexual oppression and attacks are becoming increasingly obvious. At the same time, the film becomes more and more tangled – and draws from it a power that goes beyond the alleged simplicity of history. Hui interweaves the elements even more complex and enigmatic than Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin Film). He cuts faster and more confusing between the levels and times back and forth – and can very skillfully create a suction, which leads to a bloody, metaphysical finale. The imagery has only a naturalistic appearance at first – the further the film progresses, the more artificial it looks.”
- rbb24
“Stories-within-stories-within-stories also form the weird fabric of Daniel Hui’s Demons, a hallucinatory, near-Lynchian evocation of contemporary Singaporean psychosis that centers on power dynamics in a theater troupe.”
– Artforum
“Demons is a spectacularly unsettling accumulation of diverse and fragmented images, techniques, sounds and themes. It clearly has a point to make about the environment that produced it, as well as the men who continue to overpower this landscape. It need not be understood entirely, and that is also part of its beauty. It is dark, grotesque and simply absurd, with a wonderfully wicked sense of humour.”
– The Upcoming
Even harder and more virtuoso, Daniel Hui from Singapore jumbled up the genres. Demons begins as a painful #MeToo drama in the theatre milieu, slowly transforming into a history of revenge, combining the driest satire with ghost scare and B-movie splatter. A young actress gets a role with a renowned director. Even his cutting comments in the casting show: The collaboration is torture. Sexual oppression and attacks are becoming increasingly obvious. At the same time, the film becomes more and more tangled – and draws from it a power that goes beyond the alleged simplicity of history. Hui interweaves the elements even more complex and enigmatic than Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin Film). He cuts faster and more confusing between the levels and times back and forth – and can very skillfully create a suction, which leads to a bloody, metaphysical finale. The imagery has only a naturalistic appearance at first – the further the film progresses, the more artificial it looks.”
- rbb24
“Stories-within-stories-within-stories also form the weird fabric of Daniel Hui’s Demons, a hallucinatory, near-Lynchian evocation of contemporary Singaporean psychosis that centers on power dynamics in a theater troupe.”
– Artforum
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Trauma creates a rupture; you split into two — the person you were before experiencing the trauma, and the person after. From here on out, you can never go home again. Your home has become a nest of vipers. Your own self turns against you; it taunts you, shames you, humiliates you; and when you least expect it, it attacks you.
Trauma makes you become the absolute other to yourself. You will never feel safe again. All you have for company is silence — the silence of regret, the silence of complicity, the utter failure of words.
And so you make a film. Everyone has demons. This is a story of mine.
Trauma makes you become the absolute other to yourself. You will never feel safe again. All you have for company is silence — the silence of regret, the silence of complicity, the utter failure of words.
And so you make a film. Everyone has demons. This is a story of mine.
FESTIVALS
IN COMPETITION
Busan International Film Festival 2018
IN COMPETITION
Forum section, Berlinale – Berlin International Film Festival 2019IN COMPETITION
!f Istanbul 2019IN COMPETITION
Focus on Asia Fukuoka 201
Sitges International Film Festival 2019
Taipei International Film Festival 2019
Pesaro International Film Festival 2019
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema 2019
Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival 2019
SALES AGENT
Reel Suspects
