Threads cut off like heads. About ÒPI

‘Klaps’ Newspaper Published on 26.09.2026

„ÒPI”, reż. Marta Giec

Julia Henel

It’s hard to describe one’s feelings after watching ÒPI by Marta Giec. To put it briefly: a wasted potential. And that’s a pity. Because ÒPI has everything to at least try to scare us with something more than just with a cut-off head, hectolitres of blood and scream. There’s a kashubian legend, religious fanaticism, a mother, who instead of giving her daughter security, transforms their home into a prison. There’s also a girl, who has been living with nightmares so real that they start to haunt her in reality.

ÒPI is a story about Krysia (Wiktoria Kruszczyńska), who a day before her eighteenth birthday decides to run away from her home. It’s not an ordinary teenage rebellion. The girl wants to escape her mother (Gabriela Muskała), who is a religious fanatic, with whom she has been living in a world of prayers, bans and punishment. Her plan goes astray when her aunt (Magdalena Boczarska) and grandmother (Iwona Bielska), whom Krysia has never met before, show up at their front door. Her mother ran away from her family home just a day after Krysia’s birth and for many years has cut her and herself off from her past.

And exactly her past is the most interesting thread in ÒPI. Giec waits with showing us all horror attractions. Firstly, she builds a stuffy atmosphere of the house. We see a manic mother obsessed with religiousness and a daughter living a constant nightmare. Two extremes. God and the Devil. Faith and fear. Krysia suffers from sleep paralysis and experiences nightmares, in which she is tortured. Later, she puts what she had seen on paper, drawing other creatures and ghosts.

In the house everything has to follow the rules. The mother sits and prays most of her time, putting the majority of responsibilities on her daughter. Any mistake can end with a punishment. And here’s something I consider one of the most interesting ideas in the film. Religion isn’t just a background of the story - it’s a tool to build terror. And there’s something very Polish in it. Our cinema has used religiousness as a part of our tradition many times but rarely does it try to make us really fear it. ÒPI proofs that the potential is huge. Especially, when religiousness stops being a character's private matter and starts organising her life.

/
Later, other characters appear. A grandmother - paralysed, as white as a sheet, panting like a monster, with a lacy headwear . The aunt differs in looks and personality from the rest of her family - she’s smiling, whole-hearted and full of understanding for Krysia. Alongside them, kashubian legends come to action.

Here the expectations increase. Because while a religious horror is already a trope, the use of a local folklore, beliefs and ghosts could give ÒPI its own identity. Instead of another horror which operates on known figures, we could get something rooted in a certain place and culture.

Once the legends are introduced, ÒPI starts to run. And certainly too fast. The threads, previously so meticulously added one by one, begin to appear all at once. Prophets, ÒPI itself, family secrets, religion, demons, blood, death and violence.

We can feel like at some point, the film got scared by its tardiness and decided to make up for it as fast as it was possible. The problem is, as a viewer who doesn’t know kashubian legends, one starts to feel lost in them. The thing that could easily be the best part of the film, is treated like a mere decoration. Kashubian folklore appears, sets off next events and disappears under the layers of horror macabre, which at one point dominates.

The atmosphere, religion, folktales, legacy of the family and questions about what passes from one generation to another, sink in the waves of fake blood. All we get is a festival of horror truisms.

ÒPI has one more problem - a few endings. After long scenes full of tension, there’s a pause. Later, something begins anew, tension rises and again we have a feeling as if it was the end. And again we are wrong.
/
On the one hand, many threads are neither rhyme nor reason, corner-cutting and some information remains unexplained. On the other, death scenes can last an eternity. Someone is dying and dying, and then dies once more.

A yet, acting-wise ÒPI can be delightful. The younger generation, represented by Wiktoria Kruszczyńska, works beautifully with the older, more experienced one, represented by Iwona Bielska. However, it’s Gabriela Muskała who steals the show. The mother she plays is definitely the most pronounced character in this film. Muskała creates her in such a way that after a few minutes, her presence alone can cause shudders. It takes only a look, a word, a gesture. And that’s why the finale of this thread is such a disappointment.

Magdalena Boczarska as the aunt is another example of wasted potential. And it’s not about her acting. The problem is that it’s really difficult to understand her character. We don’t have enough information to connect to her emotionally or even understand her motivation. The characters are inanimate, like a cardboard made from paper that was previously the script.

And again - technically, it’s not a badly made film. It’s obvious that Marta Giec had an idea for the atmosphere, aesthetics and how to build tension. There are scenes, which really can crawl under your skin. But there’s a story between them that cannot decide on what to be. Psychological horror? Horror folktale? A history about a generational trauma? A story about religious fanaticism? Maybe the answer is - a bit of everything. But then you have to connect all the elements.

ÒPI had everything to do that. Its own visual language, wonderful cast, a very good starting point, and most importantly, a theme that could bring out Polish horror beyond an already known pattern. All that was left was a puff for a Polish genre cinema. Pretty, really scary sometimes, at some point very promising. But only a puff.