THE RED SPIDER

Krakow, winter 1967: the young student and high-diver Karel Kremer discovers the still warm body of a murdered child at a seasonal carnival, the newest victim claimed by the serial killer “Red Spider”, who has been terrorising the city for far too long, as the warnings broadcast on every channel attest. The citizens of Krakow are in the grip of fear and paranoia, the murders are the first thing on everyone’s lips. Instead of going to the police, Karel tries to tail the murderer himself and a bizarre relationship slowly develops between the two men – until one of them makes a mistake... In his fiction feature debut, Marcin Koszałka combines the legend of the “Red Spider” with the real life story of the young murderer Karol Kot. THE RED SPIDER dazzles with its steely precision, Koszałka’s own captivatingly exact work behind the camera, a chilling soundtrack and highly memorable performances from the two leads, all while managing to tell a story in which the perpetrator and victim roles may be clearly delineated but the question of motive is left to the audience to answer. With his focus on the relationship between the characters, their depiction in their respective milieus and the distancing from any sort of moral judgement, Koszałka manages to create an unsettling portrait of a society and of socialism as it was lived in Poland in the months leading up to the unrest of March 1968.