If you’ve ever looked at a peaceful mountain cabin and thought, That place definitely has demons, Luzifer is here to validate your instincts in the loudest, most unsettling way possible.
Peter Brunner’s film is a strange, feral little miracle: part arthouse drama, part supernatural horror, part “what if Jesus moved into a Red Bull commercial and everything went to hell?” It’s intense, unapologetically weird, and powered by two performances so raw they feel less like acting and more like emotional taxidermy.
And somehow, in all this chaos, there’s room for a little dark humor—because if you can’t laugh when capitalism, Catholicism, and possible demonic forces collide on a mountainside, when can you?
Holy mountain, unholy zoning plan
We start with Maria (Susanne Jensen) and her adult son Johannes (Franz Rogowski), living in a remote alpine hut that looks like the world’s most haunted Airbnb. Their life is simple:
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Pray
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Work
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Feed the eagle
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Pray again
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Occasionally scream into the void, as one does
Their routines are steeped in religious ritual. Crosses on the wall, muttered prayers, little everyday acts of devotion that feel sincere and deeply lived-in, not just set dressing. Maria’s faith is her spine—rigid, protective, and maybe just a bit calcified.
Johannes, meanwhile, is like a walking hymn: childlike, devout, and utterly bound to his mother and the mountain. He runs barefoot through the landscape, howling, praying, playing with his pet eagle Arthur like some feral saint-in-training. Rogowski plays him with no condescension—he’s vulnerable, intense, and disturbingly open to whatever spiritual force decides to show up. Which, unfortunately, something does.
Their small universe is invaded not by demons at first, but by something far worse: development plans.
A corporation wants to turn their alpine Eden into a ski resort. To them, the land is a business opportunity. To Maria, it’s holy ground. To Johannes, it’s the entire universe. To the eagle, presumably, it’s just “home,” but no one ever asks the bird.
As surveyors and developers start poking around, the peaceful quiet of the mountain begins to fracture. Whether the devil is literally waking up or it’s just humanity making a mess again depends on how you read it—but either way, things start getting very strange, very fast.
When faith meets ferality
One of the film’s low-key jokes—if you can call it that—is that everyone in Luzifer is convinced they’re on God’s side, and absolutely no one seems emotionally stable enough to be making that claim.
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Maria believes her faith and rituals will protect her and Johannes from evil and from corrupting outside forces.
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The developers believe in paperwork, money, and the holy power of “progress.”
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The possible exorcism angle suggests the Church has its own take on what’s wrong here.
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And the mountain itself seems to have…opinions. Strong ones.
As strange occurrences escalate—unnerving sounds, eerie imagery, a growing sense of spiritual pressure—you’re never allowed a clean, comfortable explanation. Is Johannes possessed? Is he chosen? Is he breaking under pressure? Or is something older and more patient than all of them finally stirring?
The film wisely never hands you a clear answer. Instead, it piles on atmosphere like layers of fog:
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The wind feels like it’s listening.
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The forest feels like it’s judging.
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The eagle, Arthur, feels like he knows exactly what’s going on but refuses to explain because he’s a bird and this is not his problem.
Franz Rogowski, barefoot and terrifying
Let’s talk about Franz Rogowski, because good grief.
His Johannes is not some cliché “possessed guy” performance. He moves like his body and spirit are slightly out of sync, like there’s too much energy and nowhere safe to put it. One moment he’s playful and sweet, the next he’s chanting, shaking, or standing in some awkward, contorted posture that makes you deeply worried for his spine and his soul.
There’s a physicality to him that makes everything feel dangerous:
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His joy is too intense.
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His grief is too big.
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His prayer is too desperate.
He’s like a human lightning rod for everything the film wants to channel—guilt, faith, violence, innocence, and whatever the hell is lurking in the rocks under that mountain.
Susanne Jensen, as Maria, matches him with a very different kind of power. She doesn’t chew the scenery; she stares it down like she’s been arguing with God for decades and is not impressed with His latest notes. She’s stubborn, loving, and terrifying in that particular way only a parent who believes they’re protecting your soul can be.
Their scenes together are the heart of the film:
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Tender, suffocating, tragic
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Full of a love that’s real but warped by fear and dogma
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Deeply human, even as the story gets more supernatural
If Johannes is the spark, Maria is the furnace trying desperately to contain it—and melting in the process.
Devil, meet capitalism
One of the most darkly funny undercurrents in Luzifer is the way the ski resort development and the possible demonic presence exist side by side, almost as competing explanations for the same crisis.
Is the devil really waking up?
Or is this just what happens when you try to bulldoze over a fragile, complicated ecosystem—emotional, spiritual, and environmental—and expect no consequences?
Buildings go up. Rituals intensify. Tension explodes.
In some ways, the real exorcism isn’t about driving a demon out of Johannes; it’s about trying to cast out:
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The grief of a broken family
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The arrogance of human “progress”
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The crushing weight of religious fear
And, in classic horror fashion, no one succeeds. Not fully. Everyone is too compromised, too stubborn, or too lost.
Whether or not there’s a literal devil stomping around, the film never lets the human ugliness off the hook. Sometimes the most convincing sign of possession is a bunch of men in jackets saying, “We’ve done the cost-benefit analysis.”
A slow burn with teeth (and talons)
Stylistically, Luzifer is not a jump-scare machine. It’s more like being slowly lowered into a freezing mountain lake while someone whispers unsettling Bible verses in your ear.
You get:
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Long, lingering shots of landscape that go from beautiful to oppressive
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Surreal, religiously charged imagery that sneaks under your skin
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A soundscape that hums with menace—wind, chanting, animal calls, and the occasional scream that sounds too human to be natural and too unnatural to be safely human
The horror here isn’t just “boo, demon!” It’s:
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What if your whole life is built on a faith that might be right…but in all the wrong ways?
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What if the person who loves you most is also the one keeping you trapped?
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What if the world outside your little sanctuary is actually worse?
That’s the secret nastiness of Luzifer: it quietly suggests there may be no safe option at all. Just a choice between different kinds of hell.
Final verdict: pray, scream, repeat
Luzifer (2021) is not crowd-pleasing popcorn horror. It’s messy, intense, and sometimes deeply uncomfortable—but it’s also haunting, oddly poetic, and anchored by two astonishing performances.
It gives you:
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A mountain that feels like it’s watching
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Faith that feels like both shield and prison
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A son too pure and too dangerous for the world
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A mother who would fight the devil and God alike for him
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And an eagle who frankly deserves his own spin-off
It’s the rare horror film that makes you laugh bleakly at the absurdity of it all—religion, capitalism, human frailty—while also making you feel like something very old and very patient has just turned its head in your direction.
If you like your horror wild, spiritual, and just a little bit blasphemous, Luzifer is worth the pilgrimage. Just…maybe don’t book any ski vacations right after.
