Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Bartosz M. Kowalski
fiche film], directed by Bartosz M Kowalski, was one of those films whose original theatrical release was thwarted by COVID-19. Just a few days before its official premiere in March 2020, Polish cinemas were shut down for the first time. Like so many other flicks, Kowalski’s slasher migrated to an SVoD platform – Netflix, in this case – and resonated strongly with a local, and then an international, audience, crawling up to fourth place in the charts in the USA on Halloween 2020, and reaching the top spot in other countries.

Ironically, the action depicted in Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight was set in a camp for kids addicted to all kinds of screens and electronic devices, which were banned and stored in a safe place. The story focused on Zosia (Julia Wieniawa) and a clutch of other teens, who crossed paths with creepy monsters. In the sequel, Zosia returns and turns over a new leaf – as stated by the producers in a press release – which will take the audience by surprise.

As one may expect, after killing off most of the characters in the original film, the follow-up is obliged to introduce a new set of protagonists. The main character is Adaś, a young, lonely and generally unhappy small-town policeman, who is in love with Wanessa. But she ignores him, just like pretty much everyone else.

While the first film flirted with 1990s nostalgia and was dripping with a dark sense of humour, the second one is said to turn genre rules upside down. Apart from the returning Wieniawa, the main cast includes Mateusz Więcławek as Adaś, Zofia Wichłacz (1983, World on Fire), Andrzej Grabowski, Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Izabela Dąbrowska, Sebastian Stankiewicz and Robert Wabich. The script was written by Kowalski and Mirella Zaradkiewicz, who also holds a creative-producer credit. Both Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight and its sequel are produced by Jan Kwieciński through Warsaw-based Akson Studio. Kwieciński has previously worked with Netflix on the original series Sexify, which turned out to be a smash hit and landed top spots in many countries’ charts.

The slasher film, currently in post-production, is expected to be released in autumn 2021 on Netflix, adding to many other local originals: the feature film Operation Hyacinth by Piotr Domalewski, the series Mire’97 by Jan Holoubek, and Open Your Eyes by Anna Jadowska and Adrian Panek.