The Possession (I) (2012)

A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl's father teams with his ex-wife to find a way to end the curse upon their child.

Director:

Ole Bornedal

Writers:

Juliet Snowden, Stiles White,

Stars:

Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jeffrey Dean Morgan	...	Clyde
Kyra Sedgwick	...	Stephanie
Natasha Calis	...	Em
Madison Davenport	...	Hannah
Matisyahu	...	Tzadok
Grant Show	...	Brett
Rob LaBelle	...	Russell
Nana Gbewonyo	...	Darius
Anna Hagan	...	Eleanor
Brenda Crichlow	...	Miss Shandy (as Brenda M. Crichlow)
Jay Brazeau	...	Professor McMannis
Iris Quinn	...	Doctor
Graeme Duffy	...	Lab Tech
David Hovan	...	Adan
Chris Shields	...	Assistant Coach

Storyline

The basketball coach Clyde and his wife Stephanie divorced a couple of months ago and their teenage daughter Hannah and the girl Emily 'Em' live with their mother and spend the weekends with their father. One day, Clyde stops his car in a yard sale and Em buys an antique carved box and becomes obsessed with it. Em finds the hidden lock and releases an evil spirit that possesses her. Soon Clyde discovers that Em has a problem, but his annoying ex-wife and her boyfriend Brett do not pay attention to him and get a restraining order against Clyde. Clyde seeks out Professor McMannis and when he sees the box, he explains that it is a Dibbuk Box, where a fiend is trapped inside. He also explains that the box should not be open; otherwise the person will be possessed by the spirit. Now Clyde travels to a Jewish community in New York and the rabbi's son Tzadok returns with him expecting to exorcise Em to save the girl.

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Plot Keywords:

box | yard sale | jewish | rabbi | basketball coach | 

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Taglines:

Fear The Demon That Doesn't Fear God

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving violence and disturbing sequences

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

31 August 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dibbuk Box

Filming Locations:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$14,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$17,732,480 (USA) (31 August 2012)

Gross:

$49,122,319 (USA) (16 November 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Ghost House Pictures, North Box Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Datasat Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Demon in the box speaks Polish.

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Goofs

SPOILER:When the demon takes control of Clyde, the mysterious box moves between shots.

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Quotes

Em: She's still hungry.

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Connections

Referenced in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Episode #20.202 (2012)

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Soundtracks

"Rastaman Chant"
(uncredited)
Written by Bob Marley
Performed by Matisyahu

User Reviews

Oozes Blandness and Filled with Unintentional Hilarity

Oozing blandness and spattered with unintentional hilarity, The Possession is an amorphous blob of been-there-done-that genre tropes, even with its limp attempt at uniqueness by putting a Jewish spin on the exorcism thriller. As it turns out, a religious figure dressed in goofy clothing muttering gibberish over a twitching young girl is an equally flaccid horror approach across all religious denominations.

If heaps of clichés ranging from the clueless parents to a little girl muttering hateful things in demon tongue weren't enough, The Possession forgets to even be scary, failing to even provide cheap jump scares let alone moments of extended tension. If a room filled with moths or flicking lights is your idea of chilling cinema then I supposed you could find something to admire amidst all the clutter, but for everyone else, this is strictly bargain-bin quality. Likewise, all of the potentially creepy imagery has been bastardized by the marketing material (et tu, poster?).

Even the setting chosen by director Ole Borendal lacks any imagination. Instead of some creepy, dilapidated homestead, he's chosen to stage the paranormal events at a brand new, immaculate home. Just because the characters in this film are too idiotic to ever turn on a light (a recurring decision that had me yelling at the screen towards the end) does not a haunted house make.

The quartet of principle actors who make up the main cast of The Possession include Jeffrey Dean Morgan (wasted here) as the rather clueless divorcée father, Kyra "The Closer" Sedgwick as the bitch-of-a- mother who has to be all "oh I'm so sorry I doubted you, our daughter is actually possessed by the demon Abizu" and their two daughters played by newcomers Natasha Calis and Madison Davenport. Thankfully, these two are quite good, at least saving the film from the oft-seen death sentence that are awful child actors. All of these characters essentially serve as demon fodder, existing to a.) be possessed, b.) be beat up by the possessed, c.) be scared by the possessed or d.) save the possessed. You won't care one iota about the lot of them.

As is always the way, our darling little princess becomes possessed after opening an old wooden box she finds at a yard sale (recycling — it never helps anyone). This is no jewellery box, but rather a religious tool known as a Dybbuk box, used to contain a broken spirit. The aforementioned demon Abizu has now latched onto young Em Brenek intent on doing ... something or another. It seems content to eat a lot of pancakes, spit bugs out of its mouth and talk'smack about peoples' loved ones.

As Em starts acting bizarre and stoic, so leads us into the Google searches for possession cures (I'm sure Web M.D. can clear that stuff right up), wild accusations across the board as to what is going on and the eventual exorcism, which apparently in Jewish cultures looks like Weird Al Yankovic rapping and head-bopping while screeching the demon's name like he's tripping balls on ecstasy. As I iterated before, exorcism in film has become an utterly eye-rolling procedure after decades of dilution and overexposure. The sequence in The Possession is particularly laughable.

There have certainly been far worse horror efforts this year both on the indie circuit and for main Hollywood releases, but The Possession is easily the most lifeless – content on existing without identity. If you have never seen an exorcism movie before, there are certainly (sadly) worse places you could start. But considering that the dated special effects and sometimes hammy performances from The Exorcist haven't degraded that classic from still being the greatest of its type, speaks volumes to the complacency of today's horror industry to churn out the mediocre and falsely brand it as cutting-edge.

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