Wednesday, October 1, 2014

10/1-The Possesion (2012)


After finishing the first movie and subsequent post, I thought to myself, "it's late, I should probably go to bed."  And then proceeded to see The Possession listed as the top "Suggestions for Ben" on Netflix and thought, what the hell.

The Possession, as you may have gathered from the title, is a movie about a possession of a young girl.  How is this movie different from about a billion other movies with that same premise?  It's a Jewish ghost!  All joking aside, I didn't even know that Jews believed in demons and possession, but according to the movie, some of the more orthodox sects do.

The movie opens with the creepiness right away with an offscreen voice whispering something in Hebrew.  I mean, this voice is haunting.  It could have said, "banana splits are delicious" and it would have made me fear ice cream.  By the way, what happened to banana splits?  Do people still make them?  Did they get replaced by a superior dessert?  Or is it just a symbol of a bygone era?  Not the point.

The point is, a girl buys a strange wooden box at a yard sale and gets possessed by the Jewish ghost, or dybbuk, that lives inside.

Things the movie did well-
Creepy whispering always gives me chills.
Legitimately frightening moments, several of which are jump scares with a lingering sense of dread.
Almost believable for a "based on a true story" movie.

Things the movie did not do well-
Abrupt editing
Overuse of the from the top establishing shot.

Rating on the Spook-o-meter: 5 out of 10 boos

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