The Curious Case of Jacky Calliou, Lucas Delangle’s highly anticipated werewolf horror-fantasy, will be released in cinemas on April 7 and on VOD and DVD on April 11.

In the film…

“When Jacky’s grandmother, a renowned healer, suddenly passes away and a particularly compelling young woman with a mysterious rash arrives on his doorstep, he has no choice but to stay and try to help. As her condition worsens, it becomes clear that she’s afflicted with no ordinary illness. She’s transforming into something dangerous before his eyes, but he’s already in too deep to abandon her.”

The film stars Thomas Parigi, Edwige Blondiau, Lou Lampros, and Jean-Louise Coulloc’h and “spooks its audience without the employment of numerous special effects.”

“Since it’s an invisible force, we have to discover ways to materialize it in the image all the time,” Delangle explained. “This is accomplished by close-ups on the hands, the faces (the magnetized and the magnetizer), an intensity, and finally, through the air that exists between the hands and the body.” There’s a tracking shot with Jacky’s hands approaching Elsa’s back, for example, where you can feel the distance: when you get close to her, her back stiffens. The concept was to constantly proceed via the body, rather than supporting the action with music or special effects. It is these magical visual patterns.”

Delangle was influenced by Alain Guiraudie’s work, “who masters the merging of genres and fiction grounded in a location.” He has a great sense of humour and manages to make performers and non-professionals cohabit in a nice way. I was also thinking about Happy as Lazzaro and its magical realism. Lazzaro’s distant relative could be Jacky. He is innocent and a bit of a romantic. I recall thinking about it as I was drafting the script. Jacky is a young man who is bored and hopes that something remarkable would happen unexpectedly. Because he is vain, he believes that the unusual will occur through him. It’s possible that’s not the case.”