Agata Trzebuchowska’s “Sick” turns a Polish summer into something rotten

Agata Trzebuchowska, who played the title role in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning “Ida,” is stepping behind the camera for her first feature, and she did not choose an easy story for the occasion.

Her horror drama “Sick” is heading to Fantastic Fest for its world premiere after a first teaser surfaced this week.

Trzebuchowska wrote and directed the 90-minute Polish feature.

Sixteen-year-old Maks and his 19-year-old sister Emma are sent to the countryside during summer vacation to care for their sick grandmother. Inside the isolated Masurian house, the relationship between the siblings crosses disturbing boundaries while their grandmother begins undergoing an increasingly frightening transformation.

That is already a hell of a family holiday.

Konrad Kąkol, Katarzyna Łubik, Monika Niemczyk and Julian Świeżewski star. “Sick” will also screen later this month in the Perspectives Competition at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.

The setup has more in common with slow European body horror and diseased-family stories than a clean supernatural scare machine. Summer heat, an elderly body changing, two teenagers trapped together with something they should not want.

Nothing about it sounds comfortable.

Trzebuchowska made her name in front of the camera with a film built around repression, faith and secrets. Her first feature as director appears interested in repression too, only this time she is dragging it somewhere much uglier.