Kandisha (2020 film)

Kandisha is a 2020 French horror film written and directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury. The cast includes Mériem Sarolie, Walid Afkir, Suzy Bemba, Bakary Diombera, Mathilde Lamusse, Félix Glaux-Delporto, and Sandor Funtek. The story follows a teenage girl who, with her two friends, must protect her younger brother from the vengeful spirit of a Moroccan folklore figure she accidentally conjures.

The plot centers on three childhood friends who summon the spirit Aïsha Kandisha, a creature from Moroccan legend. After one of them, Amélie, is mistreated by her ex-boyfriend, she asks Kandisha to punish him. The game turns deadly when Kandisha, unsatisfied with a single victim, begins attacking any male she encounters, including the friends’ own family members. The trio must stop the entity, which seeks to be reborn by possessing one of them as a human host. Amélie and her friends turn to an Islamic father-and-son team of spiritualists for help, as Kandisha targets Amélie’s younger brother Antoine.

The cast includes Mathilde Lamusse as Amélie, Suzy Bemba as Bintou, Samarcande Saadi as Morjana, Mériem Sarolie as Aisha Kandisha, Maria José Cazares Godoy as the early-stage Aisha Kandisha, Brahim Takioullah as the demon Aisha Kandisha, Sandor Funtek as Erwan, Walid Afkir as Rector, Félix Glaux-Delporto as Antoine, Nassim Lyes as Abdel, Dylan Krief as Ben, Bakary Diombera as Ako, Mariam Doumbia as Amimata, Brahim Hadrami as Farid, and Lotfi Yahya Jedidi as imam Ahmed Ibn Fahlan.

Filming took place in France (Île-de-France and Occitanie) during June and July 2019. The film premiered in the Oficial Fantàstic Competición section at the Sitges Film Festival on October 10, 2020.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 79% of 33 critic reviews are positive, with the site’s consensus calling it “viscerally effective as a memorably brutal slasher” despite uneven engagement with its thought-provoking aspects. Metacritic assigned a score of 59 out of 100 based on 4 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews.