The Possession [2012]

Possession movies are among one of the more popular genres nowadays, so we are able to see a lot of them. With varying quality that ranges from horrible to pretty good, The Possession is in the middle. It isn’t the best possession movie out there (can anyone really top the original Exorcist?) but it certainly isn’t the worst, that title is left to all those Paranormal-like horrors with stale ideas and horrible acting. If you see the trailer you will be treated to the most of the good scenes, so if you have any intention of actually watching the movie, I suggest that you skip it. If you are following popular trends, then you follow them all, said the movie studio and slapped a true story sticker on the movie. Of course, the story isn’t true but loosely based on some article about a Dybbuk box.

The only thing that has some truth in it is the fact that one of the key elements of the movie is a Dybbuk box. Not to get too technical, Dybbuk is a Jewish ghost (haunting people who owed money to the deceased) and a Dybbok box is a box where he lives (such a complicated concept). Of course, owners of such a box reported strange things happening in its vicinity, nightmares and other fun stuff. The validity of those claims has never been proven, so try to suspend belief for an hour and a half. The monopoly that the Catholic church had over exorcisms and possessions is now over, so in this movie we can see an exorcism, Jewish style (can’t wait for the scientologist and mormons to start playing the field).

Third and maybe key ingredient in the popular trends trifecta is a creepy little girl to scare the shit out of you. Natasha Calis did a pretty good job, with a little help from SFX guys. And so did Jeffrey Dean Morgan, as her father, who seems to be hired only to play in movies with paranormal themes or should I say supernatural. By now you probably know the story, but just in case let me run you through it: Clyde and Stephanie are a recently divorced couple with two daughters still adapting themselves to the situation. One day Clyde and his younger daughter Em stop a yard sale and buy an antique box that immediately caught Ems attention. Little did they know that the box has a very strange story that comes with it, not to mention the contents…

Director: Ole Bornedal

Writers: Juliet Snowden,Stiles White

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis, Madison Davenport, Matisyahu

Fun Facts: While promoting the film on Craig Ferguson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan reported that strange incidents took place during production that couldn’t be explained. Lights exploded during the filming of key scenes; and just two days after wrapping principal photography, all of the props for the film, stored in case of re-shoots, were destroyed in a fire that mysteriously erupted from within the storage-house.

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IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431021/