The Possession

by | Sep 11, 2012 | Reviews | 0 comments

The Possession, as its titles suggests, is a film about demonic possession, and in this case, reminiscent of The Exorcist, said possession afflicts a young prepubescent girl named “Em” (played by Natasha Calis).  The daughter of recently separated parents Stephanie and Clyde, played by Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Em buys an antique box at a yard sale that turns out to be quite the Pandora’s box, albeit with a unique spin.  Contained within the box is a “dybbuk” or “dibbuk,” an evil spirit of Jewish origin.  The dybbuk befriends Em, who is understandably lonely and emotional due to her parents’ recent separation, and the spirit utilizes that friendship to overtake her bodily and spirtually.  Clyde, at first the only one who believes what has actually happened to Em, desperately tries to save his daughter, enlisting the help of the Jewish community to try to cast out the dybbuk. What ensues is the standard fare of the possession films: a ceremony to drive out the demon, an angry unleashing of demonic power, the spirit trying to escape into another body, etc. However, the cast is quite gifted and their talent breathes some new life into scenes played onscreen many times before.

The film is purportedly a fictionalized account of reporter Leslie Gornstein’s piece entitled “Jinx in a Box,” about a box containing a Jewish spirit that was on bought  and sold on ebay. Incidentally, Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, also mined similar territory in his novel 2007 Heart-Shaped Box about a man who buys a ghost on ebay.   While the concept of the story itself and the idea of demonic possession is not exactly new, the movie nevertheless manages to sustain a few good scares, and may make many viewers think twice about what they purchase online and at yard sales.