Infested : Halloween Horror Returns to Disney Village

Halloween began a day early at Disney Village on Friday, 30 October 2026, with a special evening pairing Infested, originally released in France as Vermines, with Evil Dead Burn. Sébastien Vaniček and co-writer Florent Bernard attended the event, whose programme connected the director’s feature debut with his subsequent entry in the Evil Dead franchise. Infested opened the double bill, with cinema listings advertising a 7:30 p.m. French-language screening. The filmmakers answered questions from the host and audience after each film. The format allowed viewers to revisit the debut alongside its creators.

A Disneyland connection that makes this screening personal

The location carries a particularly fitting connection to Sébastien Vaniček. In the original Vermines press kit, the director explains that he worked at Disneyland Paris to earn a living while pursuing filmmaking. His managers supported him by adjusting his working hours so that he could shoot and complete post-production on Crocs, his 2018 short. He subsequently left the job to concentrate fully on cinema. That background gives the Disney Village screening an added resonance. The press kit describes approximately fifteen years of filmmaking with friends and whatever cameras they could obtain, followed by the creation of Lourd Métrage in 2020.

Another connection stretched back a decade: producer Harry Tordjman had presented the filmmaker with a festival award in 2013. According to the press kit, he later responded to both the spider-invasion premise and its underlying message, and introduced the project to Netflix. A theatrical release was planned before streaming, a fitting detail for this cinema revival.

Vermines turns an apartment building into a survival trap

At the centre of Infested is a young exotic-animal enthusiast whose newly acquired spider escapes, reproduces and turns his apartment building into a lethal enclosure. Théo Christine leads an ensemble featuring Sofia Lesaffre, Jérôme Niel, Lisa Nyarko and Finnegan Oldfield. The screenplay, written by Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard, places damaged friendships, family tensions and the need for cooperation inside its escalating creature-horror framework.

The setting is integral to the project. Sébastien Vaniček identifies Noisy-le-Grand, where he grew up, as the community he wanted to portray: a place where neighbours know, help and respect one another. The Arènes de Picasso provide the film with its distinctive residential environment. His stated ambition was to move beyond familiar portrayals dominated by criminality or caricature and show the everyday bonds that make this community worth defending.

The spiders carry a parallel meaning. The director describes linking the reflex to crush an unfamiliar-looking creature with the prejudice directed at people because of their appearance or address. This intention also explains the French title, Vermines. The threat works as a survival-film premise while supporting an explicitly stated concern with exclusion, intolerance and the ease with which living beings can be dismissed as unwanted.

Real spiders, practical models and seventeen staircase takes

The production anecdotes reveal how carefully that threat was constructed. Sébastien Vaniček used Heteropoda maxima as a reference, seeking a silhouette closer to the spiders people encounter at home than the familiar screen tarantula. Mac Guff studied leg movements, small irregularities and unpredictable behaviour for the digital creatures. Atelier 69 supplied physical spider models that helped establish framing, lighting and convincing environments around the performers.

Live spiders were also used with the expertise of La Ferme Tropicale. In the press kit, the director recalls that the animals were fragile and tired quickly, allowing only brief bursts of running before they needed rest. This made their actual behaviour part of the shooting method. His account emphasises careful handling and even notes that working with them helped some people on the production overcome their arachnophobia.

The human performances demanded considerable stamina too. For the staircase sequence, the director recalls running up four floors with the actors, carrying the camera himself, across seventeen takes. He presents that effort as an example of the collective commitment behind the film. Casting involved working sessions to establish credible camaraderie.

How sound and social experience shape the fear

The musical approach was equally deliberate. Douglas Cavanna and Xavier Caux spent months developing the artistic direction with the filmmaker before composition. Sébastien Vaniček describes excluding percussion because the spiders’ threat was initially discreet and light. Increasing numbers would instead be expressed through dissonance and destabilised strings, alongside low, metallic textures connected to the urban setting.

The press notes explicitly acknowledges the pandemic as a narrative influence on the quarantine scenes. A masked police officer ordering residents to isolate without adequate explanation draws on a recent shared experience. Yet Sébastien Vaniček also says he wanted to avoid a simplistic depiction of the police: the commissioner is allowed uncertainty, mistakes and the pressure of an institution. Fear and failed communication extend beyond the creatures themselves.

From Venice to the César Awards and Shudder

Infested’s international trajectory began with its selection as the closing film of Venice International Critics’ Week in 2023. That year, it shared the Special Jury Award at Sitges with Stopmotion. Tandem released the film in French cinemas on 27 December 2023.

The film subsequently earned two nominations at the 2024 César Awards, for Best First Film and Best Visual Effects. Its Shudder premiere followed on 26 April 2024, introducing it to further audiences under the title Infested. The Disney Village revival returned attention to a debut rooted in friendship, local experience and painstaking creature work.

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Event recap: Infested and Evil Dead Burn Halloween evening

Where : Marne La-Vallée, Chessy, Pathé Disney Village, room 15
When : Friday, 30 October 2026; Infested was scheduled at 7:30 p.m.
What : A Halloween double bill opening with Infested and continuing with Evil Dead Burn, with Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard answering questions after each screening

Synopsis :
Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He's fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.

Infested
Directed by Sébastien Vaniček
Written by Sébastien Vaniček, Florent Bernard
Story by Sébastien Vaniček
Produced by Harry Tordjman
Starring Théo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre, Jérôme Niel, Lisa Nyarko, Finnegan Oldfield
Cinematography : Alexandre Jamin
Edited by Nassim Gordji-Tehrani, Thomas Fernandez
Music by Douglas Cavanna, Xavier Caux
Production companies : My Box Films, Tandem
Distributed by Tandem (France), Shudder (United States)
Release dates : 30 August 2023 (Venice), 27 December 2023 (France), April 26, 2024 (United States)
Running time : 106 minutes

Photos and video 4K : Boris Colletier / Mulderville