Review of the new ARD crime thriller with Hayal Kaya

In ‘Seeland – A Crime Thriller from Lake Constance: Demons’, a corpse in Lake Constance and a man with amnesia pose major challenges for the investigators. A race against time begins, while the private identity of the first transident female commissioner is hardly discussed on German television.

It is a highly puzzling initial situation that the investigator quartet, consisting of Elena Barin (Hayal Kaya), Britta Heinemann (Aliki Hirsch), Hanno Kienle (Florian Kleine) and Achim Schatz (Julian Bayer) deal with in “Demons” (dir : Holger Haase, script: Stefanie Veith and Michael Comtesse), the second film in the crime series “Seeland – A Crime from Lake Constance”, which started in 2022 sees: A boat with holes in it and a corpse tied to it is discovered at the bottom of Lake Constance. At the same time, a man wakes up in a hotel room with a bleeding head injury and no memory…

A man is buried alive

“He checked in the day before yesterday under the name Moritz Muhl,” says hotel employee Nadeschka (Ruby Ann Rawson): “He wasn’t in his room the first night or at breakfast.” Where he was instead remains a mystery for now. The dead man in the boat is Henry Budde. His adult son Stefan Eisel (Lasse Myhr), with whom he lived, has disappeared without a trace. Did he kill his father?

A short time later the police received an anonymous email. The information contained therein reveals that the missing Eisel was buried alive in a box. It gets fresh air via a battery, which only lasts less than 20 hours. A race against time begins.

Mystical and difficult to cope with

“Seeland – A crime thriller from Lake Constance: Demons” tells a mystical and difficult story with surprising twists and turns. Despite the many loose ends with which the case begins, the authors manage to keep the audience engaged, which is not least due to the good acting.

Similar to the opening film, also directed by Holger Haase, which attracted 6.6 million people in December 2022 (total market share: a great 24.8 percent), the tensions between the new department head Elena Barin and Achim Schatz can be felt again: Honey, us Remember, he applied for the job himself and is having difficulty adapting to his superiors’ investigative style.

Another film with Hayal Kaya in the media library

The private worries of the investigators, on the other hand, take up surprisingly little space in the film (compared to other crime series). Although Elena Barin is the first transident inspector on German television, this fact is hardly discussed at all in the film. Only when Barin speaks on the phone to a former colleague in Wilhelmshafen does one get an idea of ​​how difficult things must have been for her in the past. For her new colleagues, however, Barin’s identity is not an issue – a situation that one would also like to have in real life for all those affected.

“I am happy and proud that there is such a character on German television for the first time and that I am playing this role,” enthuses leading actress Hayal Kaya: “I consider myself lucky, although I wish there had been many role models for me and that we would have internalized these issues long ago.” Kaya was born in Turkey in 1988 and attended drama school in Ankara before moving to Germany in 2013. She has been living in Berlin since 2020. Hayal Kaya can currently be seen in the feature film “Unschminkt” in the ARD media library: alongside leading actress Adele Neuhauser, she plays Antonia, who supports her transident best friend (Neuhauser) after she returns home.

Seeland – A crime thriller from Lake Constance: Demons – Thurs. November 14th – ARD: 8:15 p.m