Because the Jewish people haven’t suffered enough unspeakable horrors over the past few millennia, someone has decided to unleash a new Judaism-rooted supernatural horror to inhabit the public’s consciousness with the upcoming horror-thriller film The Possesssion and the claim that it’s “based on a true story.” In the vernacular of the horror world, however, those words are free to mean anything they want, such as “sort of based on an LA times article” which itself can mean “sort of based on rumors, hearsay and an Ebay listing where a guy was just trying to sell an old creepy looking box.”
So anyway, this story –that definitely happened somewhere, trust us– follows a divorced husband and wife, who start to notice their youngest daughter is somewhat obsessed with a strange antique wooden box she purchased at a yard sale. As she grows more and more unstable–attacking her father, hanging out with swarms of insects and eating pancakes too fast–her fearful parents search for the cause and soon discover that the box contains a dibbuk: “a dislocated spirit that inhabits and ultimately devours its human host.”
Still, while it looks like the first 2/3′s of this film follows the usual, tedious, “uncovering the terrifying mystery we already know” plot, the film does look to have more polish and production value than expected, especially with the explosive teases towards the end of the well-crafted trailer.
The Possession was directed by Ole Bornedal, produced by Sam Raimi and stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick. It is set for an August 31 release, shortly after a probable publicity-generating denouncement from a Jewish council around August 15th. A sequel will probably be greenlit around September 4th because, well, people like money.
