SPOILER WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Synopsis: There's this old box, see, and it's a bad box. A little girl buys it at a yard sale and proceeds to get
way too attached to it. Tantrums ensue.
Scariness Type: Well, it's an exorcism movie. The twist is that instead of being Catholic, it's Jewish!
Rating: 3/5 Yarmulkes.
Body Count: One person, and one moth.
Fun Fact: This movie contains real live footage of Gmail instead of some made-up magical email system. I always appreciate that.
Best Moment: I'm not sure. When the dad took the box away, the ensuing freakout and weirdness and chase and all the issues involved worked nicely, though I don't know that I'd say it was the "best moment". Nothing stands out too much thinking about it now.
Worst Moment: There's a part where a guy is mind-blasted by the possessed girl in some way, resulting in his gums bleeding and his teeth coming loose. This is awful and I don't allow it. I have nightmares like that.
A Suspension Bridge Too Far: The first thing the girl does when she gets the box open is to remove a ring from it and put it on. For the rest of the movie, she's wearing this evil ring, and it's turning her hand grey. It's plainly visible, and it just makes no sense that neither of her parents, or anybody else for that matter, grabs that hand and freaks out about whatever disease this ring is obviously giving her. On a second disbelief moment, the end of this movie takes place in a fully-functioning hospital, and while the characters are screaming and wind is whipping through and the lights are flickering for twenty minutes, not one person comes to see what's going on. It's totally strange.
Horror Tropes: One that always gets to me is when somebody sees something horrible, and stares at it. Then somebody else sees them looking and asks "What is it? What's wrong?" Instead of replying to them like
any human being would, the person in a horror movie always just slowly raises one arm and points at it. The other person
should then throw their arms up and yell, "I
know where you were looking, I want to know what you are looking
at!! Use your words!" But instead they always come running over and stare at it too. One day there's going to be a movie where this just happens in a continuous chain until the entire population of a town is staring slack-jawed at one spot with one crooked finger raised at it. Oh yeah, and we get another fine blood-dripping-from-above scene in this movie too. Those are the best.
My Take: Turn some lights on!! These people live in a nearly pitch black house, lit by 20-watt bulbs at wide intervals. I know they're trying to set a mood, but that was just silly. I thought this movie was just fine overall. It kept me interested, and it was indeed a different take on the usual exorcism movie. A lot of it was the same, but because they had this lore of the dybbuk box instead of just an arbitrary demon randomly hopping into the girl, there was more interesting stuff going on instead of just a priest chanting and the girl yelling at him until somebody wins. I wouldn't call this a good movie, and I don't rate it highly, but it works for me.
Missed Opportunity: One person died? That's it? Come on, some demon you are.
The Lesson: Don't shop at yard sales.
