Pemuja Syaitan, Liyana Jasmay's first film as director, opens on 15 October

Pemuja Syaitan opens on Thursday 15 October at 69 Malaysian cinemas, and its director has admitted she lost sleep over it. Liyana Jasmay told Kosmo that worry about how audiences would receive the film kept her awake and added four kilograms to her weight. It is her first feature as a director, the paper says.

A teen slasher, on purpose

Kosmo reports that the film follows a group of school students who reunite on an island; Utusan describes friends meeting at a beach after their SPM exams. Liyana told Kosmo she deliberately set it in 1996 and 1997, and that the teen slasher idea was a conscious choice. The cast is Zul Ariffin, Aila Azizul, Nadhir Nasar and Elizabeth Tan. Mermaid Studios and Suraya Filem Production & Distribution produced it, with Skop Productions as distribution partner, according to Kosmo.

What she wants, she told the paper, is simple: if people can feel it, she has succeeded. To Utusan she said she worried audiences might not feel what the film is trying to say.

A cast that speaks plainly

Elizabeth Tan, who plays a 17-year-old named Julie, told Utusan frankly that she did not like her own performance in the film, while describing Liyana as having become like a mother to the cast. Earlier, in September, Liyana told Kosmo of a dark figure she saw while filming at an abandoned site, which she believes followed her back to her hotel, and said someone on the shoot was genuinely possessed.

Mostly GSC and TGV, strongest in the north

This site's listings have 1,783 sessions in the week to Tuesday 20 October: 864 at GSC, 605 at TGV, and the rest at Paragon, Mega, AE Cinemas, 10 Star and Dadi. Selangor leads with 346, but the film leans further north than most of this week's openings: Perak has 195 sessions and Kedah 185, both ahead of Johor's 168. Thursday alone has 336.

GSC Aman Central in Alor Setar has the most sessions of any cinema, 14 on Thursday and 44 across the week, and GSC Amanjaya Mall in Sungai Petani is among the busiest too. In the Klang Valley GSC Sunway Carnival and GSC MyTOWN have 36 each. Sarawak has 168 sessions and Sabah 103, and on Saturday it is still at 64 cinemas.

Before you book

The chains classify it 18, so it is for adults only, and list it at 97 minutes. Eight cinemas have sessions just after midnight tonight. The Pemuja Syaitan page has every cinema, and the showtimes page shows each cinema's Pemuja Syaitan times together, with links to book at the chain.